Throughout my time in the VR Storytelling class, I have constantly been inspired by the many opportunities that 360° video provides for one of my biggest interests, musical theatre. Whether it was watching Disney on Broadway's Circle of Life in 360° YouTube video or hearing Erin Miller's presentation about a company that was utilizing virtual reality to "break the fourth wall", I was inspired by the headset's ability to enhance and expand an audience member's interaction with performance. Following my passions, I decided to form my final project around First Year Player's April production of Heathers The Musical.

THE PLAN

In my initial elevator pitch, I envisioned selected performances from the musical filmed in the same format as Disney on Broadway's YouTube video. Through two of the most outrageous and interactive numbers, "Shine A Light" and "My Dead Gay Son", I would record multiple perspectives from the audience, cast, crew, and pit. These perspectives would range from inside the orchestral pit section to on stage with the actual cast members. Due to the fact that it would be impossible to record the performances during the show weekend or at a separate scheduled time, I decided to utilize the organization's dress rehearsals to record. As a member of the directing team for the musical, it was the best choice for both my position and project. Before moving forward with my plan, I was joined by Brooke Glatz. We teamed up and decided that we would divide the perspectives for recording. On the Tuesday of that week, I would film numbers from my perspective as a staff member (i.e. backstage, on stage, and in the pit) and she would film from the audience's perspective (i.e. in the house, balcony, and behind the sound booth) on Wednesday. With our plan set in motion, we were excited to get started.

IT'S SHOW TIME

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we soon learned that it would be difficult to achieve our original plan. To start, as the first and only available times for the organization to rehearse their performances on stage before the weekend, our dress rehearsals involved more of the directing, music, and choreography team working with the cast members on random numbers. In addition to having to start and stop for notes and technical issues, performances were often missing two or three cast members to evening classes. Due to this, it was difficult to film the numbers as the professional, performance ready versions that I had originally envisioned for the video. If both myself and the organization had the time and resources to schedule our own separate performances to be filmed multiple times, then it would be possible, but that wasn't the case. Thankfully, the experience of the organization's "tech week" was more interesting than just watching a performance. During the opening number, viewers can pivot between the stage and the director giving notes at the same time. It's an exciting world that only few outside the organization are invited into. For viewers who had the opportunity to see it when it opened in Goldstein Auditorium that weekend, it's a treat to see how far the production has come in just a few short days.

Second, in those two days, both Brooke and I learned the universal lesson of working with six GoPro cameras: technology isn't always trustworthy. While many of our issues with using these cameras were discovered in post production, filming these performances were still initially difficult on site. Making sure to charge both the cameras and the remote, we soon realized on both nights that a faulty camera doesn't need to have a low battery to stop working. Since we couldn't stop the rehearsal process too many times, we were restricted to filming at certain times and only had one chance on several occasions. Despite our efforts to check the connected cameras and their batteries, there were times when the cameras would not film important performances, or would die out in the middle or right before others. Through this frustrating time, we were often forced to film the same act of the show on both days. On the bright side, this gave us the opportunity to film the "Shine a Light (Reprise)" scene and song from multiple perspectives. Brooke was able to record the audience perspective in front and back of the house (where the audience is seated), while I got footage from backstage. In addition, I was reward multiple attempts at filming the final bows on stage, while not disrupting the rehearsal.

In terms of placement for the camera, we were only forced to move one perspective. Instead of putting the camera in the orchestra pit, which was too low and crowded to create a well stitched video, we moved the camera to the front row of the house. With this perspective, the camera was sandwiched between the stage and the creative heads of the staff, above the pic conductor. While one perspective didn't translate from pitch to recording, it, ultimately, paid off. On both days, we were able to record our respective scenes and get promising footage of the show.

TIME TO STITCH

In similar fashion to our filming experience, stitching many of our recordings became a time to pivot and work around issues. For many of our well lit performances, either onstage or in the front row, stitching was a breeze and came out very well. For other recordings, the dark auditorium or backstage, forced us to do very detailed manual stitching. For example, the short scene behind the sound booth took Brooke a while, and required my assistance. Not only was the entire space very dark, but the space had identical lights and doors that were hard to distinguish from one another. In salvaging that footage, we had to turn the brightness very high to see certain visible seats. In the end, our footage was stitched cohesively. Compared to some scenes that were filmed from the balcony or in the lighting booth, this one was lit enough for our final video. Unfortunately, many of our scenes, including a great recording backstage and in the audience were lost to a faulty recording. While we many of scenes were believed to be recorded, red lights blinking and connected during both numbers, memory cards from each GoPro revealed that only about 30 seconds had been filmed of each. Although other footage may have been cut short by faulty cameras, their footage was still salvageable. Compared to those scenes, these two important ones weren't available to us. It was a frustrating discover for the both of us, but, luckily, not a big hindrance to our final project. Those scenes would have been valuable additions, but were not necessary to the arc of the video. Due to the fact that many of my scenes on Tuesday were hard to salvage, I took the responsibility of creating the nadir patch on photoshop, editing the stitched scenes in premiere, and uploading the files to YouTube and Littlestar.

Explained in my independent learning post, I was able to use two separate Lynda courses to create both a customized nadir patch and a successful exported MP4 file. Learning how to accurately use Adobe Photoshop, I utilized First Year Player's original logo for The Heathers Musical to create a nadir patch for all of our files. After attempting to export the file multiple times, creating multiple files with issues or wrong types, I utilized a second Lynda course to create an MP4 file without black bars on top and bottom. Although the entire process was drawn out longer than usual, it became a very important learning experience.

FINAL PROJECT

Overall, the result of our frustrations, constant pivoting, and learning moments is a successful final project that we are both proud of. Taking our time in planning, recording, and especially editing truly paid off in the end and provided us with a great addition to our resumes. Both the First Year Players organization and myself have another tangible source of memories and for that, I am truly thankful.

Please enjoy First Year Players Presents: Heathers The Musical | The Virtual Reality Experience !!

Also available on Littlestar at THIS LINK.