Summary of the week: This week, we did some more testing at the Purnell Lobby and did further work on the clouds, pedestals, and speakers!
John’s Installation Advice
We received the following recommendations from John with respect to a plan for installing our umbrellas/directional speakers without the need for a Genie lift. We really appreciate John’s advice and we will keep this in mind as we plan our install!
Testing at Purnell Lobby
We went to the main campus to find the right lighting values for our installation. Unfortunately, the system was broken so we will go back later to set everything up!
While we were there, we did several other tests. We tested the size of the new chicken wire style clouds from Jiaxin and John. They worked very well in the space and felt a lot bigger than just the small clouds that we had before.
We also tested the UV light in the Purnell Lobby with the contact paper to investigate if it would work well as a material for our pedestals. It had a great glow effect even with the UV lights shining from the second floor balcony!
We also were able to work with Shirley to get the glass display cases removed from the lobby for our installation.
Pedestals
Ultimately, we decided to use the pedestals at the ETC and wrap them in contact paper as opposed to building them ourselves. This would mean a sturdier and more professional looking pedestal for our installation. With the help of Lauren and John, Aldora wrapped 5 pedestals in white contact paper.
Charlie worked on the narrative elements of what should be written on the pedestals in the invisible ink. He decided on the following:
The writing on the pedestals are labels that pertain to the characters, adjectives that they and other people use to describe them. Ones in quotes are put on them by other people. Ones not in quotes are labels they put on themselves.
- Example: Edmund: Liar, Cheat, Ambitious, Backstabber, “Sadist,” Toxic, “Psychopath,” Duplicitous, “Bastard,” “Illegitimate,” “Whoreson”
Directional Speakers
Lauren trimmed, stripped, tinned, and tested 50’ and 100’ speaker wires, attached the wires to the speaker housings, and covered the speaker housings in black tape for a more sleek and less distracting appearance if guests were to look up at the speakers in the umbrellas at the installation.
Sound
Angie and Charlie met the actors and recorded their voices for the experience. They recorded in one of the Purnell Center vocal rooms using a Zoom mic from John, yet there was still a bit of audio leakage from outside. The actors were very nice and delivered their lines well and easily! Eliot was also there to help Charlie with the voice direction, and each actor brought their own interpretation of the character as well. We recorded both normal speaking and whispered deliveries, to see which one works on our direction speakers best. Over the week, Charlie worked on finding the best EQ values, echo cancellation, and noise reduction for the audio using the actors’ voices. He tested using the umbrellas in the lobby and adjusting the levels on Adobe Audition. Angie started splicing the actors’ recorded lines, so every line would have their own audio clip.
Invitation to Faculty
Angie sent invitations to ETC faculty with all of the details of our upcoming installation and the shows of “Lear.” We hope to see many faculty members there to support us and experience our work!
TMU Thrill Design Competition
Angie and Lauren were away for the end of the week as they traveled to Orlando, Florida to represent Carnegie Mellon University at the 2023 Thrill Design Competition presented by Universal Creative and Toronto Metropolitan University! They worked on a team with 4 other CMU students to design 3 original attractions based on the following prompts: Interactive Attraction, Attraction with Environmental Constraints, and Attraction with a Complex Narrative. The team earned many commendations for their great work! Congratulations to Angie and Lauren!
