Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Shaping a Show One Pixel at a Time
George Heymont: The use of creative lighting techniques as an integral part of stagecraft has progressed by leaps and bounds since the day when the introduction of a single-lens slide projector was considered a revolutionary step forward in multimedia. I was completely captivated by the San Francisco Opera's use of projection mapping in two recent productions designed by Jun Kaneko (2012's staging of The Magic Flute and 2014's presentation of Madama Butterfly). The following video explores some of the challenges faced by an artist working in a new medium to create enough video for a performance lasting nearly three hours.
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4 comments:
Media design continues to grow and gain attention within society especially in the entertainment industry. At school, last year was the first time that an undergraduate student declared media design as their major. Media, when used correctly, can be extremely effective and support a design concept, but because its newer to theatre people have a harder time adjusting. Jun Kaneko's designs for The Magic Flute resolve around projections, the first time in history projections have been done at this scale in an opera setting. I guarantee many opera patrons are not going to agree with his design choice, but boundaries need to be pushed. The most difficult aspect of media I believe is that it relies heavily on other departments to have their stuff completely before they can do the majority of their work. Projection masking is beautiful when done correctly, but mapping takes significant time that designers usually don't have during tech, especially at school. The examples the article provides are mind blowing, but these projects take weeks/months to develop, time most theatrical performances don't have. I believe that media has a long way to go and the technology now is just starting. In the future, media is going to be everywhere.
As if imagining an entire production wasn't hard enough, Kaneko going above and beyond and imagining an entire set, costumes, and two hours of projections is absurd. The fact that Kaneko spent two years enveloping himself in solely this show and nothing but it speaks novels about how dedicated he is and how skilled and well trained he is as an artist. I can't imagine how honoring it would be if a complany wanted to produce a show that only you designed and came up with. Kaneko sounds like a new Robert Wilson.
As Keith said, media is a growing source for theater artists worldwide. Kaneko's use of media, coupled with the bright colors and bold patterns used in his design lend this production a very storybook feel, which works well with the fairy-tale storyline. The use of media to produce these illustrative designs on such a grand scale in the opera almost makes it feel as if the characters are coming from a children's book, while still managing to keep it attractive and interesting for the adult audience. I think that the strongest thing about his design is the interconnectedness between the media and other aspects of the performance.
I was expecting this article to be a survey of the history of media design in performance but then it took a turn into Motown land.
I completely agree with the article's statement that new media took off in theatre because of the affordability of this new technology and the way the up-and-coming generation can use it. It also hints that another reason is that media surrounds us and we are consumed by moving images so of course this is something artists are going to want to experiment with and explore. I am inspired by the artwork that is being created contemporarily with media and seeing the love of it many students at CMU have, I can barely imagine how all this synergy and experimentation could take theatre by storm.
I believe media design has facets in a way that no other theatrical design discipline does. While similar to the split between realism and abstraction in scenery or modern, period, or abstract in costumes, media's ingredients are different. Media can include text in a way that other disciplines rarely rarely do. It can include found footage. It can include exact simulations of other things in a way that scenery can only mimic. It can be a light source and it can be a texture and it can be scenery. Media overlaps and intertwines itself with so many different theatrical storytelling modes that it can be overpowering and quickly grow out of control. In a way, media design has the potential for tackling way many more signs than even the text, something the designer has to be finely attuned to. A successful media design must establish a clear and coherent aesthetic, establish its overlap and boundaries with other departments, and pick what format it wants to take and understand the ramifications. The technology is way easier to learn than this analysis is.
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