Past met future at the ADC Theatre last week when 21st century digital imaging techniques were used to create a production of the 2,500 year-old Aristophanes comedy The Clouds. The digital set was created by Cambridge students on the MPhil in Architecture and the Moving Image.
Past met future at the ADC Theatre last week when 21st century digital imaging techniques were used to create a production of the 2,500 year-old Aristophanes comedy The Clouds. The digital set was created by Cambridge students on the MPhil in Architecture and the Moving Image.
Past met future at the ADC Theatre last week when 21st century digital imaging techniques were used to create a production of the 2,500 year-old Aristophanes comedy The Clouds. The digital set was created by Cambridge students on the MPhil in Architecture and the Moving Image.
Digital trickery is now an established part of cinema, used not just in action films with big special effects budgets, but art-house movies like last year's Magnolia. But in the theatrical world the potential of this kind of virtual set is only just beginning to be explored.
The play's physical set was relatively cramped; by using infinite lines of perspective amidst an ethereal scene of wispy clouds the virtual backdrop created a more expansive environment. The digital imagery also offered a solution to one of the traditional problems associated with staging the play - how to depict the burning down of The Thinkery. But the computer graphics provided more than a static background: the production featured virtual images of the actors which had been previously filmed against a blue screen and then composited into the virtual environment, these virtual performers interacted with their real counterparts during the performance.
The MPhil student leading the work on the set was Tom Bridges. This is not Tom's first dramatic venture - as an undergraduate he directed a number of theatrical productions including a Beckett show which was taken to Paris. Tom has also directed a 45-minute film.
Tom's first degree is in neuroscience, which may seem a strange qualification for his current work but Tom sees the two as closely linked: "Film-making is about manipulating perception and the study of perception is a very important strand in neuroscience," he explains. Tom's work on the play was a chance to put into practice ideas he had been developing on his Mphil, he is particularly interested in what he describes as "the grey area between the real and virtual worlds."
Francois Penz, director of the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio, ran the workshops to create the virtual set. He believes that Tom's work is an excellent example of the course's innovative potential: "This was a unique collaboration between the theatrical, the architectural and the virtual worlds, integrated as part of an MPhil teaching programme."
All photos courtesy of Tom Bridge
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