Samuel Ryder may have died in 1936, but that didn’t keep his projected 3D likeness from serving as emcee for the recently held Ryder Cup Gala in Louisville, Ky. Using the Musion Eyeliner hologram from Digital Illusions LLC, Ryder was able to walk, talk, and play golf as he did nearly 100 years ago.
NMR, the company responsible for the creative concept, set design, and audio-visual technology, used Barco HD-18s driven by Grass Valley Turbo iDDRs to create the “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion, engineered by Larry Lenoff.
What is Pepper’s Ghost? It’s an old theatre illusion from around 1860 in which a hidden object is illuminated but the audience can see its reflection in a piece of glass angled just right. It gives the illusion that the object is floating in space and it can magically appear and disappear. For decades, the Haunted Mansion attractions at Disney theme parks have used the effect to project ghosts or to make the faces of ghoulish creatures float right before the viewer’s eyes.
Typically, to create the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, a piece of glass is rigged at a 45 degree angle and is used to reflect the image of objects that are hidden from the viewer. When the object is illuminated, it is reflected off of the glass and becomes visible to the viewer. When light is faded out, however, the reflection disappears and the viewer witnesses the disappearance before their very eyes.
Pepper’s Ghost Today
Some of the benefits of building a show around this effect center around the idea that it allows a performer to interact with objects and characters on a screen as if they are really there, similar to a hologram. The result is the creation of a virtual world based entirely on video.
Disney’s Haunted Mansion uses a pane of glass installed at an angle for scenes measuring up to 90 feet in length and 30 feet in height. So, how could a similar effect be achieved affordably and practically on a tour?
Technical Obstacles
Using glass for a projection surface on tour would be impossible to realize because transporting and rigging glass everyday would be impractical, costly, and not to mention dangerous because a piece of glass of any substantial size would likely shatter under the pressure of its own weight when it is hung at a 45 degree angle.
Since glass cannot be used, reproducing this illusion in a touring application requires the use of a new approach to creating virtual 3D objects, such as the new screen material used by Musion. When objects are lit upstage of the Musion screens, the screens disappear; however, when images are projected onto the screens, lighting performers in front of and behind the screens allow them to become a part of a virtual world.
Technical Installation
Setup for Musion screens typically starts with a recessed pit below stage level. The floor of the pit is covered with highly reflective material so that video can be projected onto it and bounced up to the Musion screens on stage. The high output projectors are flown on a front of house truss downstage of the pit are angled directly at the floor of the pit. The images from the projector are then projected onto the floor of the pit and onto the screens, which are angled at about 45 degrees to the audience, thereby creating the illusion of a floating image.
Depending on the seating position in the audience, the effect can vary. It can be something like people climbing up the side of a building, or, as you move off center, the projected images and live performers on stage can appear in spatial dimension or floating in space. For once, the best seat in the house is not at FOH!
Using this effect, the show can take on unlimited possibilities for scenic environments. Musical numbers with performers onstage can be enhanced with projected background images of buildings and scenery. Also, you can create floating illusions like people swimming in a pool or floating in space simply by having the performers in the pit lying on the floor while images are projected across them.
But Wait, There’s More
Having the screens mounted in this way and covered with the Musion foil also allow other effects. Any performers upstage of the screens can be highlighted when necessary but they can easily be masked simply with the use of light. A savvy lighting designer could take advantage of this potential and use it to create moments where a performer appears and disappears magically as if passing between the virtual world and the real world.
Using lighting and video in ways to create virtual worlds onstage is not new, and since the creation of theatre performers and designers have pushed the envelope looking for new and exciting ways to reveal their stories. Musion screens have now opened up the possibility for live performers to interact with virtual performers in a way that 2D video has not been able to.
Scenic designers for recent touring productions have already begun to utilize advances in video and projection screen technologies to recreate the Pepper’s Ghost effect. One of the first was the interaction between Madonna and 3D Gorillaz animations (See PLSN, April 2008, page 48).
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Vickie Claiborne is a programmer and digital lighting specialist. She currently works for PRG in Las Vegas and she can be reached at vclaiborne@plsn.com.
