Post 27: Almost there!

  Well, I knew when I started it was going to be a big undertaking, and it definitely has been. 

  To be able to move the camera everywhere in the space means that I had to create an entire backstage area, and a back side for the sets, the curtains,etc...

 I am particularly fascinated with the beautiful elaborate wooden machinery of the theater, which is located above the rafters in the "attic":

   It is sort of an 18th century "Steampunk", and I would love to recreate this hidden part of the theatre and show it off. Most people "down below" never knew it existed.

   So I did build "antique" wooden beams and laid down a floor with the boards spaced far enough apart to allow for the passage of the ropes that moved sets up and down from the large pit underneath the stage:

 That is one of the things that makes this particular theatre special. I assume the reason for it is that the Queen didn't want the building to stand out, the exterior is actually quite ordinary. But the machinery was state of the art , and designed by Boulet from the "Opera de Paris".

  I just don't know if I will have time to recreate all those winches and make them turn.

  Getting the curve right on the balconies and cutting their flooring was quite difficult, and I will not be able to rebuild the domed ceiling in After effect. We will have to make do with a flat "illusion" 

    I am almost there...

  

  
  

Post 26: Le Theatre de la Reine

    I have been doing a great deal of research on the little theatre Marie Antoinette had built near the Trianon, and have become so enamored with it that I plan to try and see it next time I am in Paris. It is not open to the general public, but I will have to find a way to see it.
  I have a rough blueprint:

and also colored front and side views:

   So I know the relative dimensions of the structure, and they are quite unusual. For one thing, the stage area is actually larger than the audience area. The theatre was obviously designed specifically for Marie Antoinette's needs, which were to perform herself with her friends in front of a restricted group of friends(about 100 seats).   
   The orchestra "pit" is quite substantial, and slightly raised from the main floor. The seating was on plain benches, with a "parterre", a raised area along the curved walls separated with a balustrade , and a balcony wrapping around the oval shaped theatre:

   Another very interesting and unusual thing is that unlike most theaters where the sets go up in the rafters to be stored and come down when needed, in this little jewel the sets are stored below the stage, and come up through slits in the stage flooring. This can be clearly seen in the side view, and in that wonderful picture shot from backstage that even shows how the sets are built of linen canvas on wooden frames, and canvas panels hung above:

  This shows the same set from another angle, and the double rows of slots in the stage are clearly seen:

  There were to sets readily available, reflecting the young queen's taste for a country life, one of a large rustic stone walled kitchen with a fireplace:

and the other of a long alley through a forest with a canopy of trees in early fall:

  I also found an image of a set of a contemporary palace suite of rooms:

  Having collected all the information and images I could find, I cut them up and straightening them up to build a collection of parts. I actually had to make up the main curtain and the stage floor with slots and trap doors:

   Then yesterday, I actually started building a "near replica" in 3D in After Effects:

   There is still an awful lot to do, but I can definitely see the possibilities, using a lot of period paper dolls both as actors and musicians on stage and as the audience: looking at the stage for the back of the audience, looking at the audience from the stage, roaming camera moving around, changing sets, etc... The possibilities are endless. In a first stage, the paper dolls would be whole, but if there is time, some could be cut in parts and animated...   I am really excited about this sequence.

Post 25: A New Idea

    I may not have been working on the project directly in After Effects in the last month, but I stayed "in character" so to speak, with the theme of the project while reading several excellent books about the French Revolution, the French Court, Versailles, and a detailed Biography of Marie Antoinette. 
   I learned that Marie Antoinette built near the Trianon a small theatre called "Le Théatre de la Reine" where she would put on plays, operas and ballets with her family and friends. I never had the opportunity to see it, and it was rather difficult to find decent photographs, it is an absolute jewel of a place:

   The look of it remind me in some way of the Antique Toy Theaters I had researched before. I have among my collection of "virtual paper dolls" some Puppeteers, Singers, Dancers, and various figures that could be animated on a virtual 3D stage. 
   So I started thinking of a sequence that would take place partly on stage in the center part of the screen, but also in the side boxes on the right and left side of the screen. I will need to build a 3D virtual theatre in After Effects, and animate the various paper doll characters.
    I was lucky to find three rather large images(roughly 4000 x 2400 pixels) to work from, and started cutting them up in Photoshop to extract the components, starting with the stage set:

    I am not sure at this point whether I will keep them in color, or create a stylized black and white set like the Portrait Galleries.

Post 24: Full scale Test coming up in the Concert Hall

   I have not been working on this project very much in the last month or so because of other projects, and also because I have been waiting for Carlos and his team to take a look at all the clips I have so far and give me some feedback. I don't want to waste time pushing too far the development of something they might not like.
   I attended the performance of Beethoven's Ninth that Carlos masterfully conducted a couple of weeks ago with a large chorus.Seing the chorus occupying every seat all the way up the sides made me realize that it would make it difficult to drape the fabric evenly all across to get a continuous screen.
   I had noticed doing a projection test in the studio that the animation of the camera dancing through the Virtual Portrait Gallery does not play very well on angled side panels, and would work better on a flat screen. Also, the triple screen as we first envisioned it would be quite far from the balcony seats, and people on the far left and far right would get only a partial view. Furthermore, if the screen is behind the chorus, the singers will not be able to see the images, and will have the projectors shining in their eyes.

   As a possible solution to all of these problems, I am considering using instead a single length of fabric 10 ft wide and 54 ft long stretched across the stage high above the orchestra:

   I am not exactly sure at the moment what would be the best location and height, so I asked Adam if and when we could do a projection test during the day, that would allow Carlos and his staff to watch my 6 Test Clips full scale in the concert hall, and give me the feedback I need to continue the project.
   We settled on December 1, so we will be setting up in the morning, and doing the final projection test in the afternoon, hopefully with 3 projectors.
   Since there is no panel left long enough, I went ahead and purchased a bolt of the same fabric we draped the building with for Light Dreams. We will hang it roughly above the podium using eyelets and cord, and see just how things look from different perspectives.  

Post 23: A Test Walk Through the Royal Portrait Gallery

    As I said in my last post, it has been quite a task building the 3D Gallery, finding dozens of relevant paintings, finding different more or les ornate gold frames, squaring and cutting out everything, and hanging the show. I so far have a Gallery of the Kings, a Gallery of the Enlightenment Philosophers, a Gallery of the Queens, and a Gallery of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's Family. I still have to finish the Gallery of the Revolutionaries.
   But I couldn't wait to see if my idea was really going to work, so I created a wide angle virtual camera, and moved it meandering through the four finished rooms. It is just a first test, the camera is a bit too low, and camera movements are a bit jerky, but that will get corrected, and the paper figures will move and turn to face the camera. I posted it on YouTube: 
            GALLERY WALK TEST

    I am overall quite pleased. The camera movement is not smooth, and is at times too fast, but that can be adjusted at a later stage.
   Well, back to work now to finish the last Gallery!  

Post 22: Building the 3D Gallery

   Turns out it is a lot more work than I expected to put this thing together, but I think it is worth the effort. I finally have the five "boxes" built over the cross shaped floor. This shows three of them, as well as the paper dolls scattered through the space:

  The idea of the vaulted ceilings didn't work out, so I found some stucco ceiling work drawings and combined them with the hatched pattern to create ornate flat ceilings instead. 
  I still have to "hang" all the paintings and add some furniture and clocks, before I can move smoothly through the space with my "steady cam".Just to get an idea, here is a camera view from the door, with the receding perspective through two more openings all the way to the back window:

Post 21: How About a 3D Virtual Gallery of Royal Portraits

   I have been collecting reproductions of portraits of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the rest of the Royal Family. A few do, but most of the pictures don't include the frame. So I have also been collecting images of Baroque and Rococo Gilded picture frames.
   A few days ago, I started toying with the idea of building a 3D Virtual Gallery in After Effects, and using a roaming virtual camera to take the Public through the Gallery of Royal Portraits.
   In order for the brightly colored portraits to stand out, and to keep a surrealistic fantasy look, I wanted the Gallery itself to look like it was made of paper, looking like old Architectural Engravings with black and white outlines and hatching for shading. I had a really hard time finding material, and ended up having to assemble my own by adding hatching to plain drawings out of an 18th Century "Model Book".
    I also thought it would be nice to have a few pieces of furniture, mantels, clocks and other decorative accessories. I made a couple of mock ups to see how it would look:

  I was pretty pleased, so I forged ahead and designed a very large hatched black and white tile floor comprising 5 rooms in a cross shape:  a long gallery, a foyer, and 3 smaller squarish side rooms:

 The rooms will have vaulted ceilings made of four flat hatched sections with drawn decorative moldings:

  I then built the different sections of walls from my templates and fitted them exactly to the rooms. I also decided to give the walls a thickness of 50 pixels and moved the 5 sections of floor accordingly. The entire image is 16000 x 13000 pixels:

  Now, I have to fill the rooms with paintings, clocks, furniture. It is going to take about forty paintings altogether to hang this show, and I need to stop and give some thought to what portraits to place in what room. 
   The largest space should have portraits of the kings of France, with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at the far end. The domed foyer needs something special, so I am thinking of hanging a swinging Foucault Pendulum from the apex, and hang eight portraits of famous scientists. Room #2 at the far end could be devoted to various portraits of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It will have a French Door opening to a balcony overlooking the gardens.
   Room #3 on the left side could be devoted to ten Portraits of the French Revolution leaders and locations(Bastille, Conciergerie, etc...). Finally, Room #4 would be devoted to Napoleon and the Restauration.
   As far as camera movement through the Galleries, I cannot help but think of that movie that was shot a few years ago through the Hermitage in a single continuous steady-cam take:
              "RUSSIAN ARCH"
   I could use some of the numerous "paper dolls" I found to populate the gallery  with guests and onlookers in 18th Century garb, and even get a glimpse of Marie Antoinette herself!