Appearances
Venice Biennale ’19
Press
Voices of VR
Made With
Double Eye Studios
Kiira Benzing
Maria Soccor
Alyssa Landry
Cherryl S. Espinoza
Cast
Jenn Harris
Jonathan David Martin
Sam Kebede
Crew
Mac Rogers / Screenplay
Adrian Vasquez de Velasco / Cinematography
Heather Carey / Costume Design
Chapter Four / Sound
Nice Shoes / VFX
Alex Coulombe / Design Lead
Lucas Lechowski & Karim Douaidy / Composers
Co-Technical Directors
David Gochfeld
Mark Sternberg
Chris Toppino
Role
Technical Director
Contributions
VR Motion Capture
Video Mixing Management
Online Audience Moderation
Mac Rogers / Screenplay
Adrian Vasquez de Velasco / Cinematography Heather Carey / Costume Design Chapter Four / Sound Nice Shoes / VFX Alex Coulombe / Design Lead Lucas Lechowski & Karim Douaidy / Composers
David Gochfeld
Mark Sternberg
Chris Toppino
Role
Technical Director
Contributions
VR Motion Capture
Video Mixing Management
Online Audience Moderation
Live Theatre Metaverse XR Performance
Loveseat is a live VR theater performance that plays to both an in-person audience and a digital online community. Three live actors are equipped with motion tracking technology that maps their real-time movement to animated characters in a digital environment. For fans present in the audience, this digital environment is projected via three screens, displaying live camera feeds of the digital environment.
Online, fans can experience the digital environment immersively through the High Fidelity social VR platform, joining the show from anywhere in the world. The actors have control of their costume changes, and full expressive ability due to lipsync technology and emotion recognition in addition to the motion tracking, making movie magic happen in real-time for both audiences.
Directed by Kiira Benzing, the piece serves as an example of what the future of theater could look like, and how new audiences for the medium may be enthralled in its magic.
Behind the scenes, 15 computers are networked together to run the production. Three are dedicated to the actors, three for live camera feeds, one as a video server, one for the stage manager (who makes lighting cues in both the real and virtual worlds), two for sound mixing and monitoring, one for livestreaming, and four with VR headsets for in-person audience members to get a glimpse of the immersive action.
The performance premiered at the La Biennale di Venezia Cinema (Venice International Film Festival), performed daily from August 25 to September 7.