Thesis
Conclusion
In high school science class we were required to put down "possible sources of error." So I thought I would do the same for this project.
One source of error: I may have overestimated the power of the video image to make things interesting. Maybe Living Movies are no more interesting than live Improv Theater. Or worse, maybe they are less interesting because they are farther removed from the live theater experience.
I also may have underestimated the difficulty of having interaction between the people chatting and the actors. Chatting is useful when communicating to other people online but maybe something is lost when jumping to another medium entirely. And it's very hard for the actors to take themselves out of a scene to check out what's happening in the chat.
I know that there were many technical mistakes. I learned that it's impossible to plan too much. In fact, most of the time I spent on this project was in planning, estimating and scheduling.
I never realized the promise of creating an improvised movie, let alone a Harold. There were a few good scenes, though.
Some improvements to the project: I'd like to have a better interface for the computer operator. I'd also definitely try to make the chat text more legible. Some additional capabilities: it would be nice if the actors could draw things onscreen. I've also thought about having some kind of augmented reality application that would pop up video props when the actor picked up something that the computer could recognize, like a 2D bar code.
But the present reality is that I was barely able to accomplish the minimum of what I set out to do. I've been thinking of the whole thing as one big beta test, so it's not that surprising if it's not yet ready for prime time. At this point I am planning a theater performance for this summer where I'm hoping to have all the bugs worked out and actually be able to have a full performances with a number of scenes if not an improvised play.
At the end of the project, despite many technical glitches and poor computer operation on my part, I felt proud that I had been able to display most of what I set out to do on a screen even if only for a few brief moments.
I have learned many things at ITP, and perhaps the greatest lesson came from a drawing class that I took on a whim. I don't really have much drawing ability. For example, I can't draw perspective, and when I try to draw people my proportions are all wrong. But the instructor seemed to genuinely like my drawings, and there were a couple of students who actually wanted to buy some of my work.
As Cassavetes says, if we want to create art, we must dare to be bad. This is true in Improv, where actors must take hold of a moment and participate in the ritual of other/acceptance. This also holds true in life, where we act without absolute knowledge of truth in moments both big and small. As Lily Tomlin says, "What is reality, anyway? Just a collective hunch." In attempting to complete this project I have dared to be bad. In fact at times I have deliberately done things that I knew were bad in order to get something on paper, on tape or on the web.
I have sought to provide something that might be interesting or useful to both participant and spectator. A digital stage. A moment of connection. A hint of meaning. There is a moment just before a performance is about to begin that holds all the promise of one word about to be spoken by one person to another. In that moment there is the promise of art, the desire to give and to receive. There are no words and there is art.
Comments or questions? Email to info[AT]henryharvey.com.
Copyright Henry Harvey 2006.