Were they trying to comfort those patients — or hasten their deaths?
I recently got the opportunity to collaborate with theater people. I know what you are thinking: attention starved morons willing to do anything to fit in. But it turns out that some people have really changed since I cemented my insecurity-driven stereotypes of them in ninth grade. And even though I secretly detest working with people smarter and more talented than me, the experience was quite cool.
I helped out with the design work for a one act play about drowning (written by the girl who I also collaborate in bed with), building three 4×4 foot screens and creating images projected on to them during the show. Sounds easy, but like everything turned out to be much more involved than originally planned.
We used overhead projectors (I really wanted to use 35mm slides, but production came down to the wire and they are scarce), casting images from behind the three screens, one operator at each station. In a development that I found cool for selfish reasons, the operators themselves ended up becoming part of the meta-reality of the play. I even got to make a smug-faced cameo halfway in.
Anyway, the effect more or less worked. Amidst the turmoil of performance nights, I didn’t get any stellar photos. These give the general effect. This is the beach, with a mystical clothesline that the photo doesn’t show continuing in the image to the infinity of the horizon.
Got time to kill? Here’s some of the images I produced. Click on the links to pop up the images.
1. The Backgrounds — 2. The Emotions — 3. The Anatomy
And my favorite part. During the play, characters’ memories begin to fall from their heads in the form of slides and photos. Only a few of these got used, but they were fun to make. I was trying to invoke my best imitation of theatrical poignancy.
4. The Memories
