Constructing the Screens
The first thing that needed building was the screens. I had done a very basic mock up of these but due to the delicate nature of their construction I had nowhere to safely store them if made prior to the evening before so they had be made at the last minute. They were constructed from two cut 160cm lengths of 1.5 X 2.5 wood with thick white paper used for photographic backdrops. This was to use materials I had available to me as well as to keep costs down. The size of the screens was to be 160cm by 90cm and not only keeping to the 16:9 screen ration of the video footage but also as this was the optimum size to fit inside the studio. I would have liked a little better so the boys were even bigger and more impressive to the audience BUT space in the TV studio would not accommodate this. The paper is curly by nature as it is stored on rolls and was a pain to work with and I dragged in some extra help and hands to do this. With some careful measuring, scoring, cutting, wrapping, stapling and trimming and a lot of blood sweat and tears three screens were constructed. There was still a little curl to the paper itself which was a bit of a pain but some double sided sticky tape helped to solve this it was also hoped that once hanging in the gallery space (Blacked out TV studio) overnight then the curl would fall out.
As mentioned earlier the gallery space was the TV studio at Suffolk New College. This was due to the space it offered, the availability to me to use it and the fact that you can black it out which was necessary to the success of the installation. I wanted the boys suspended in mid air and as the background of the TV studio and the background of the footage was back the boys talking heads would loom and float mid-air. The space needed a huge tidy and then the black drapes pulled around to black out the room. I did play with a couple of lights from the lighting grid on once the installation was in but there was JUST enough light from the projections to slightly light the room and it looked much better without them.
The three screens were designed to be hand from the lighting grid in the TV studio and to be anchored on the floor. This was to prevent and swaying and movement on them once installed. The plan was to suspend them invisibly at above eye level so that the screens would loom a little over the audience making the audience feel in awe of and intimidated by the installation and the boys heads. This look was achieved by using very dark green coated garden wire for strength and stability and this was threaded through pre-drilled holes at the tops of the screens then through pre-drilled holes at the bottom then anchored to the floor. A crimp was used to hold the top edge of the screen up and in place. Installing these was a nightmare as making sure they were all the right height, level and the side screens at the right angles was hugely time consuming. They also had to be tested for the projections and lots or tiny alterations was needed.
Projectors and Installation
The projectors were the trickiest element of all as I wanted the images to completely fill the 160cm by 90cm screens with no overspill. For this they needed to be exactly 90 degrees to the screens. I had planned to put all of the screens on plinths that were about 80cm tall but this created two issues. Firstly being this tall they were a little too high and just entered the gaze of the viewers and were a tiny bit distracting from the three screens. Secondly it created real issues of getting the projectors at 90 degrees from the screens for proper projection.
My maths and planning was not quite spot on and in order to get the projectors in the right place they would have had to have been stacked one on top of another. In order to get around this I tried them lower down on a table and this eliminated the height problem but not the angle problem. The solution was to leave one projector on the table but to put the other two on stands which allowed the 90 degree angle to their respective screens. They were higher BUT not too high.
With use of the keystone feature on the projectors which allows the video frames perspective to be altered to make them square when projected from a lower angle to get rid of the distortion this called. Another issue was having to use three different projectors and all of them were not calibrated to be exactly the same. I adjusted the colour and white balance to try and get them as close as I could but still there were minor differences.
Computers to run the Clips
Three Macbook Pro computers were used to play the clips as these had the necessary processing power and I had use of three for the installation, one for each screen. As mentioned before I did play around with and consider DVD's and media players but these proved to be the most cost effective and stable ways of playing the clips. From the Macs i used 3 Mac monitor out to VGA convertors and then VGA leads from these into the projectors.
The clips were encoded using the H.264 codec which is an MPEG4 mov file which is very happy being played in Quicktime. These could be played out by getting the projectors to mirror the computer screens and then setting them to full screen mode getting rid of everything but the videos to be projected. These did all need to be triggered at the same time but could then be set to loop and provide a continuous screening. As all of the computers did not run at exactly the same time they were not the perfect solution and did need to be synched again from time to time but were adequate and compensations were made for this in the edited clips.
Sound and Speakers
The sound from each video on the screens I wanted to come from behind the screen itself. The aim was to attract the attention of the audience to the screens by having the voice project from them or the boys. This was achieved by creating plinths behind each of the screens to lift the speaker out of view and behind the screens. These were white and too short, but with a paint can on top and some black cloth wrapped around them they were hidden invisibly in the set. The speakers were dynamic and needed sound to power them so cables were run and hidden to do this. 5 metre cables which were 3.5mm mini jack from the computers to phono connections on the speakers were then connected. The speakers had adjustable volume and these all needed balancing with the computers to get them all to the same level.
The finished result worked pretty well and was exceptionally close to how I had envisaged it with only a few minor issues but it did fulfil most of my aims and objectives as outlined below.
- The blacked out studio/gallery environment I created was the right atmosphere. It drew full attention to the projections with no distractions.
- Screens could be bigger but were on a scale that dominated the audience slightly.
- Positioning good as at a higher angle to the audience therefore again slightly dominating them.
- The projectors were all positioned OK but this would need more thought this time. Keystoning the images helped this though. Back-projection would have been better if the space would allow for this.
- The screens were OK for home-made but the paper did not straighten 100%. A better solution such as purchasing screens or making canvas screens would be looked at next time.
- Projector noise was a little bit of an issue but not major and did not really detract from the
- The colour on the projectors was not all exactly yhr same
- Synching of the three videos pretty good. Room for improvement there for absolutely spot on synching. Will need to investigate other technologies.
- The sound from the speakers coming from directly behind the screens as the boys spoke worked really well.
Here is a 5:30 clip of the installation working in its gallery environment I created.
SIBLINGS IN-SITU VIMEO from Jon Saward on Vimeo.
No comments:
Post a Comment