Midsummer Night's Dream in Video

The mid-August performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was captured in video form by Geo Meek and me. They are posted on Blip.tv. The complete set, along with supplimentary info is here:

http://www.thinkerer.org/VirVilCultural/VirtVillCulMSND.htm

Or you can reach it from my (Thinkerer Melville) profile, Web Tab. You need to load the page in your own browser.

That page will give information on how to download each video in .wmv format. Note that this is creative commons license, atribution only. The video will look quite good in full screen.
Thinkerer Melville

Good looking record of the event. I wonder what Shakespear would have made of flying around a VR World. let alone actually have one of his productions filmed in a VR World.

And my reaction to SL was:
Neat -- I can show people things I have been watching in my head since the 1930's.

I am sure that Shakespeare watched those plays in his head as he wrote them. So He might be glad to learn that technology was getting a little handle on that magnificent technology in his head.
TM

I revisited the movie series. Its clear to see the full production work that went into the play and movie event, is evident and no mean feat. Excellent work.

Did you both grab footage during the play at the sametime? Or seperately in each scene? Having two cameras would be such a joy to any Director, so that each can move into a different position to maintain flow and overlay transitions, but without the jerky camera movement controllers we have to deal with in SL. Obviosuly, choreographing the camera would require voice conferencing.

The problem with script particles firing can be overcome by unchecking particle rendering in the Advanced menu (World, Rendering menu), they are a pain, as they persist with the client in silent mode.

Geo and I both took video at the dress rehearsal and on the 3 show nites. We started late -- I did not know that Act up wanted a video until about a week before the show, so we did not have much time to coordinate. And we did not get an annotated script untill after the show -- the people were all busy. So I took it as an event, not as a video production.

Most of the video shots were done on Friday, opening day. I think it shows the kind of theater that can be done in SL. And shows that we can produce a respectable video. I am working with Act Up and several other actor groups - so we will produce more videos with better advance planning. We are wrting our own scripts so we will not have copyright problems.

Yes -- I turned off particles early on -- after I was sure there were no particle effects important to the story.

Wow that's amazing! And this is completely open to any audience? This just kind of blew me away when I watched it. A virtual play with people acting in real time! I've been in SL a while and I'm impressed! What does the audience do? Do they have seating in front of the stage?

The play was free, open to anyone. But we had a full house for all 3 shows several days before the opening. I hope there will be additional performances. I am suggesting that they take the show on tour, perhaps to malls and other places that want to draw crowds. Such places might be willing to pay for the show and keep it free to the audiece.

Not a virtual play, though. The real script in full 2 hours and 20 mins. Done by real people. The stage, in this case, was a virtual reality. But what is a "real" theater stage? I would not call that "real' reality.

I did a video documentary about the set. That is on the same web page as I put the show:
http://www.thinkerer.org/VirVilCultural/VirtVillCulMSND.htm

The audience sat, most obviously, along the creeks just across from the tree. Audience avs were given appropriate clothing and were visible (intentionally) in a few shots -- especially pullbacks and the second part of act 4, scene 1, where Theseus and group arrrive on horses and ride in on the S shape tributary creek. Rekka Berchot , the set designer and builder has the set in a holodeck, so it can easily be reused.

Very cool, thanks for sharing and inspiring.