Live special effects for theatre performance with the Kinect
Shakespeare's Hamlet opens with a scene of two sentries discovering the Ghost of King Hamlet. More often than not, the part of the ghost is played by an actor in white makeup walking on stage to deliver his lines. I approached this project with the idea that through live motion capture and replay, theatre visual effects can serve to strengthen a performance, and breath new life to dead characters, even the ghosts.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet opens with a scene of two sentries discovering the Ghost of King Hamlet. More often than not, the part of the ghost is played by an actor in white makeup walking on stage to deliver his lines. I approached this project with the idea that through live motion capture and replay, theatre visual effects can serve to strengthen a performance, and breath new life to dead characters, even if they are just ghosts.
Fellow students Michael Kriester, Simone Stadler, and Alen Keric, and I blended my live Kinect effects with monologues to showcase the capabilities of computerized visual effects for live theatre.