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An Ark Puts On A Play In Mixed Reality
Courtesy of The Shed
A new play starring legendary actor Ian McKellen is the first to use mixed-reality tech to blend digital performances with a full-scale physical production.
The Big Picture: Mixed-reality technology has opened up exciting new artistic possibilities in recent years, most of them focused on cinematic content that immerses the viewer. But bringing XR into live theater has the potential to draw audiences deeper into the story and introduce boundary-pushing VFX overlaid onto the physical world.
Behind The Curtain: An Ark wants to reprogram the proscenium.
Having premiered last week at The Shed in NYC, the Simon Stephens-written play requires audiences to put on a special pair of XR glasses.
The play features four actors — Ian McKellen, Golda Rosheuvel, Arinzé Kene, and Rosie Sheehy — who aren’t physically there; they appear as digital projections visible through the glasses.
The performers make each of the 180 audience members part of the play by referring to them as “you” during the dialogue as they take them on “a 47-minute journey through the entirety of your own life,” per Stephens.
Final Scene: An Ark was put together by mixed-reality production company Tin Drum and the technical team at 4DViews, which used 52 cameras to record full 3D volumetric captures of the performances across the entire play. It was a bit like making a movie, with Sheehy telling The NYT that they focused on the cameras “as if those were the audience member’s eyes.”
Talk about intimate.
Next Up: Because actors working on XR plays don’t have to make long commitments to the show, expect some big A-list film and TV stars to sign on for leading roles as a way to dip their toes into stage work while still maintaining their busy schedules.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited, Polled, and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.