Digital Puppetry
First of all, to update those of you who expressed interest in the Troika Ranch company, they are actually performing in Hollywod, FLORIDA this month, not Hollywood, CA. Whoops. I will still keep my eye on them, though.
Another performer to keep your eye on is Laurie Anderson. We discussed her briefly in 511 in reference to the surreal theme park Scott Fisher worked on in Barcelona. She is currently working on her next tour, so don't even try and follow the links to see the schedule, because they take you in a maddening circle.
What does this have to do with Digital Puppetry? Well, I was contemplating on my little niche here at USC-IM, thinking about my background in live performance, and the DIEM technology - a system of balls attached to the body that send information that can then be programmed to output to control whatever you want - typically lights or music for live dance shows.
Somehow, this led me to think of what I am currently naming "Digital Puppetry" - attaching sensors to the body (excuse my lack of techno lingo as I am still learning all of this) and then outputting that information into designed characters that are then projected. The current concept would be like taking the model for shadow puppetry or a marionette show but creating digital puppet designs. I would be interested in seeing how we could incorporate seeing some of the puppet-masters on stage, just like you would at one of the previously mentioned shows.
Continuing forward in my brainstorm, I thought this would be REALLY cool if the points of control on these characters could be altered, so that instead of a knee=knee, elbow=elbow program, one could create a right pointer finger=knee, left thumb=elbow sort of set up, allowing those who are handicapped and/or hospitalized (I'm thinking of children primarily, but it would be great for anyone) to create elaborate plays, and perform them for eachother or for audiences.
Anyone have any relevant information on this that could be useful?
Comments
I'd look into VR gloves as a possible input device. They could be linked pretty straightforwardly to joint rotations of the virtual puppets.
Posted by: Brad | October 31, 2003 1:06 AM
Hmmm, ICT (those engineering people on campus) have somthing along the lines of "VR" gloves. The track movement. Essentially the demo I saw was trying to re-create some of the scenes in the movie "Minority Report". You guys need to see what they are up too, here is their site...
http://www.ict.usc.edu/
A cheaper, possible alternative might be the following that is commercially available...you would have to hack it, but it might work...it's primarily for gamers though. It's called the P5 glove...
http://www.essentialreality.com/
Posted by: Mike | November 3, 2003 3:40 PM
ooops, I think I confused IMSC with ICT...I can't keep them straight...ARGH!!! One of those groups, whoever is located on campus, did what I am talking about!
Posted by: Mike | November 3, 2003 3:42 PM
Take a look at Emre Yilmaz' work at http://www.mindspring.com/~eyilmaz/main.htm
He's done a lot of digital puppeterring - currently working with Sesame Street in NYC.
Posted by: sfisher | November 4, 2003 11:44 PM
Hi -- Mark Coniglio of Troika Ranch here. I found your blog whilst searching for a review of our piece in Hollywood -- sorry it was Florida not California.
We attended CalArts in Santa Clarita, and so we're always eager to find our way back to LA. If anyone has any ideas for a way to visit USC, I'd be excited to hear them. That way we could come to you. ;-)
mark at troikaranch.org
Posted by: Mark Coniglio | November 16, 2003 8:35 PM
Just remembered that a new Robert WIlson opera piece will be here in February:
http://www.losangelesopera.com/production/index.asp?productionid=166
We should go.
Posted by: sfisher | November 19, 2003 11:13 PM
Right you are Kellee! Most astute! Keep up the good work! Jolly jolly! Boing boing! Spappy!
All the best,
Edwin
Posted by: Edwin | December 1, 2003 9:09 PM
Actually, this stuff is very exciting but has been around for many, many years. The folks at the Henson Creature Shop are probably the best at it. They have been playing around with these ideas for years, adapting their patented Performance Control System (designed for animatronic characters & puppets) for use with "digital puppets". They are unique among the bigger FX firms in that although when needed they are making the transition towards CG (away from puppetry) they continue to believe that one person - one puppeteer - should be responsible for the performance of a character.
The Creature Shop has a website with a bit of info online at http://www.creatureshop.com and an excellent coffee table book called "No Strings Attached" was produced about the company and it's history a few years ago.
The Henson folks had a digital character (the first of it's kind) called Waldo C. Graphic in the short-lived NBC series "The Jim Henson Hour" back in `89 that was controlled by a VR glove. Currently, they use similar technology extensively on the "Elmo's World" segments of "Sesame Street". You can see photos of puppeteer Rick Lyon at work on this page ~ http://www.lyonpuppets.com/elmosworld.html
With the help of an engineer buddy I built a crude VR digital puppetry system years ago using the old Power Glove that was manufactured as a Nintendo controller. Fun stuff!
Posted by: Andrew | February 14, 2004 11:14 AM
Jim Henson's Creature Shop went much further than Waldos.
From 1993-2000 I was their Head of Performance Capture and we were the first to use optical MoCap on CG characters (you can still see Collin - the world first MoCap creature in my show-reel at http://www.kinetic-impulse.com/showreel/index.html)
Since then things have moved so quickly, now with real-time multi-interfaced characters, facial capture, data-blending, but in essence Andrew is correct - it was always about the "Characterisation / Performance" that mattered not the technology or the number of performers. In general, one performer usually controlled one character, but on many occasions, especially for the larger creatures, many puppeteers would all be hand on lead by a chief.
At the end of the day - it's all about Storytelling.
Posted by: Rich | March 12, 2004 9:48 AM