Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Way Better than the Shakespeare You Read in High School
Projection Mapping Central: No strangers to creative and awesome uses of projection mapping, Davy and Kristin McGuire have practically created a book of magic. Upon opening the cover of this seemingly-ordinary tome, a 3D scene appears, just like the pop-up children’s books you might remember as a kid. Then, the scene is flooded with projected light, creating an audio-visual experience unlike any book you’ve ever seen.
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5 comments:
Holy mother of pearl this is so awesome! What an incredible way to make Shakespeare more approachable. So many people, particularly in high school settings, seem to identify Shakespeare as something 'other.' Something dusty and old that must be done in a very stylized way and cannot be played with. Which is the exact opposite! Shakespeare provides so many opportunities to play and it would be so wonderful if more people were able to initially learn about it in a way that isn't book report format. Some of the tales that are a little less gruesome than Macbeth could also be directed towards younger children so they could grow up loving it. This is such an exciting progression and I am so impressed by the designers who created this.
This is just about as close to magic as I have ever seen. I just love how this breaks down the barriers between the page and the stage (forgive the rhyme). Like Alex said, there is sometimes a block that people have against classic literature because it feels so "stuffy." This is a wonderful and whimsical way to make the literature feel more absorbable and approachable. I am also impressed at the level of detail. The projection mapping that I have seen has been on a very large scale. The intricacy and intensity of the projections adds and unimaginable amount of depth. It feels as though every page is it's own world. The combination of the projections and the wonderful paper cutting in the pop up book make a digital and tangible collaboration. I wonder if there could be a theatrical application for this kind of detailed projection surface.
I love working on Shakespeare productions because there are countless opportunities to take a very classical text and turn it into something very fun and exciting. In high school I always pretended to be interested in the Shakespeare plays we would read because, well to be honest, I had to be seen as that theatre kid. However, I found reading the texts in class extremely boring. I think what makes working on productions much more interesting than reading them in class because you can simple see the story be played out before your eyes by actors. Actually, now that I am thinking about I will read books an then see them on stage and feel the exact same way. What this proves is that there are some people, like myself, that are purely visual learners. There is nothing wrong or bad about this. It is just something that one needs to be aware of.
What a way to change up how we read Shakespeare. Especially one like Macbeth. I didn’t think it would be possible to make something like that in pop up form, normally whenever I have seen projection mapping, it’s been on large screens. So seeing something on a much smaller scale for once definitely is a good change. For everything the book has from the projection, to the pages of pop up; it seems to hold its own in terms of size, and durability. They must have done quite a bit of work to fit that much technology into a book. They were able to get help from the Shakespeare Theatre with the acting. With that in mind, if you were to make different plays with this process, how much would the book need to be for production. I do think that with the shorter attention spans, and the difficulty of the language used by Shakespeare for high school kids to interpret. This book would be a pretty good addendum to help in the class.
This is incredible. How eerie and beautiful! It really suits Macbeth, and they can make the witches’ magic come to life. I especially loved how they have tiny actors in the same scale as the book. It’s a fascinating way to experience a book- I used to love imagining the little people in books climbing over the words as I read through their world, and this brought it to life for me. Even better, it’s a pico projector! How fun! I wonder if they could have made the pop-up books even more elaborate, more multi-layered, rather than just the flat house where all of the action takes place in the windows. I feel that it made the show/book a little more limited in terms of storytelling surfaces. I wish the article had answered some of my other questions, too: How did they project onto the forward surfaces, like the tree shown or the crowd of people? How do they keep the book pages mapped, if they aren’t always turned to the same spot? I look forward to seeing what they do next!
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