Visuals – Page 2 – Guilherme Martins

Paint Me breakdown

Like everything, there is always an idea at the very beginning and this time was no exception.

Rui Horta gave me a drawing with a set design to be created in 3D. Creating environments in 3D is always good for a first impression of the set, to detect possible flaws and to comunicate ideas with set designers, performers, musichians, technicians and with everyone involved.

This was the first iteration of the set:

After many discussions and iterations, the design became aesthetically more solid:

After solving all the issues with the set, was time to design the most efficient projection system. At first I made a couple of tests in the 3D environment:

Testing one projector for the fantasy zone, and another for the train cabinet:

Testing one projector for each single wall/floor, this turned out to be the most efficient way to do it:

The next step was to test the fantasy area (the right side of the stage) in a smaller scale, but this time in a real environment. I used PVC sheets and wood for this.

Each projector is pointing directly to each wall and floor. And because my digital camera is broken I only have photos taken from my crappy mobile. The photo below shows a bit of the Jitter software, at this point final adjustments on the code were being made:

This is a closeup of the program, it consists on a video player with the possibility of crossfading between each video with custom xfade time, slipt one entire video into 3 different videoplanes, where each videoplane can be adjusted accordingly the projection needs, perspective, width, height. Click on the photo if you want to see more screens.

We went to the stage with a full planning of the projection system, 6 projectors to be rigged on a single bar. One Big Thanks to the Culturgest amazing crew, this complex task was accomplished smoothly!!

Some stills of my visual work:

More photos here:
http://lab.guilhermemartins.net/2010/12/18/paint-me-insights/

Paint Me – insights

My camera is damaged and now I have to steal photos from others..

This flash movie was stolen from VISAO, great photos!!

The photos below were taken by Luis Tinoco:

Paint Me @ Culturgest

My idea in writing Paint Me was to bring together six characters, all of whom have a prolific imaginative interior life, and to explore what they would make of each other in the confines of a railway compartment.
The model for my libretto is Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The travellers in Paint Me are also on their way to Canterbury, but they are strangers thrown together by the randomness of modern travel. Their tales are not told publicly, but in their own imaginations. Most journeys in the modern age are anonymous and conducted in silence. We have only a visual or perhaps manneristic impression of the people sitting opposite us. This introspection in public opens up a private fantasy space, in which our fellow travellers can become the characters in instant psychological dramatisations.
I wanted to formalize each character’s fantasy into a full narrative. The result is a kind of anthology of operatic short stories, surrounded by the framework of an ordinary journey.
Stephen Plaice

Música Luís Tinoco Libreto Stephen Plaice Direcção musical Joana Carneiro Encenação, cenografia, desenho de luz e conceito multimédia Rui Horta
Figurinos Ricardo Preto Vídeo Guilherme Martins
Assistência informática musical Carlos Caires
Intérpretes Job Tomé (Padre), Hugo Oliveira (Howard), João Rodrigues (Lee), Raquel Camarinha (Tula), Eduarda Melo (Ruth), Patrícia Quinta (Stephanie)
Elementos da Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa Maestro assistente Kodo Yamagishi Encomenda Culturgest Co-produção Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Culturgest

SEX 17, SÁB 18 de Dezembro · Grande Auditório · 21h30 · Duração aprox. 1h00

http://www.culturgest.pt/actual/26-paintme.html

Einstein’s Dreams

The premiere went smoothly at the Goteborgs Opera! It was one of the most great experiences I had ever had in the last times. I’ve returned to Portugal with great memories of all the opera crew, dancers and of course my great team Rui Horta and Tiago Cerqueira.

Flowering Tree (from sketch to the real world)

This all started with Rui Horta’s idea of having a physical tree on stage that would support my visual projections. Rui Horta came up with a drawing and I quickly put it to 3D and sent to the great artist and set designer João Paulo Araújo who made this great master piece!

After the tree was finally built, I’ve made the first projection test, for this I created a program in Jitter, where I have a video running on the background, and on the foreground a .png transparent mask with the tree silhouette.

Everything fitted perfectly! We were astonished!!

For the subtitles I’ve created another program in Jitter that could run videos on the background and on the foreground the subtitles could be displayed and crossfaded one next to each another. Another cool feature of this program is the ability to run videos at different speedrates, this was very useful because most of the videos were created in sync with the music, was a bit tricky to sync the video with the orchester and chorus but not impossible. Another great help came from the composer João Godinho who was by my side telling me when to swap to the next subtitle.

Finally after one month of crazy hard-working days, and with a final week of non-stop working, troubleshooting, finetunning and problem solving everything worked so smoothed on the premiere, we were all thrilled and excited!!

Big thanks to André Almeira, André Sier and Sérgio Ferreira who are great tech advisors and always gave positive inputs.

I must also mention that the Gulbenkian crew was absolutely fantastic, without their help this epic task wouldn’t been achievable!

Click here if you want to see more photos.

Flowering Tree (photos)

Flowering Tree

Click here if you want to know more about the software that played the projections.

Rehearsals:

After the performance, there was a fantastic dinner with plenty of indian flavours and music and the tree was moved to the outside garden:

Flowering Tree by John Adams

A Flowering Tree by John Adams, inspired by Mozart’s Magic Flute. This performance, previously presented in March at Cité de la Musique in Paris, in the context of a festival dedicated to John Adams, and conducted by Joana Carneiro, in Lisbon will involve the scenic intervention of Rui Horta.

Einstein Dreams and The Guest House

LOCAL GEOGRAPHIC

RUI HORTA – LOCAL GEOGRAPHIC

Local Geographic, Rui Horta’s third and last creation while Associate Artist of the Season, is a reflection on identity, a study of a “personal geography “, using the body as a tool to discover the world.

11, 12 and 14 May 2010 – 9:00 PM
15 and 16 May 2010 – 7:00 PM

12 years and up

A work about the importance of loosing oneself; on turning loss in a method, especially when life experience tends to become a burden that prevent us to take risks. Loss, though as a method.

Every week, I was used to pick up my bike to discover a new trail and a new landscape. Usually, I set out early morning and returned before my day really began. It was like a prologue to an announced routine. Sometimes I lost myself…

There are people who go to Namibia or to Tibet to lose them (and spend a great deal of money …). And there are those who lose just around the corner, almost next to the doorway. For any creator doubt, loss and risk are the very substance of work, coexisting everyday: research and experimentation.

Somehow, from the three works I created to the CCB as associate artist of the current season, this one is the most narrative and also the most personal. A discourse on the quest for identity, in the opposite of plausible, at the border of irony. It could only be done by me and for myself or for a performer with whom I have been sharing a multitude of creative adventures over eighteen years, Anton Skrzypiciel. Many-sided actor/dancer/performer, a man so curious about live that he never tied anchor in any harbour, a major actor in one of the most important works I created.

This is a work accompanied by one of my usual accomplices, composer Tiago Cerqueira, actor/stage director Tiago Rodrigues and multimedia designer Guilherme Martins.

Direction | Choreography | Lighting RUI HORTA
Original Soundtrack TIAGO CERQUEIRA
Texts RUI HORTA | TIAGO RODRIGUES
Interpretation ANTON SKRZYPICIEL
Vídeo GUILHERME MARTINS
Dramaturgy Support TIAGO RODRIGUES
Technical Direction NUNO BORDA DE ÁGUA
Production ANA CARINA PAULINO

CO-PRODUCTION
CCB | O Espaço do Tempo | Centro Cultural Vila Flor | Teatro Nacional S. João

CCB ASSOCIATED ARTIST SEASON 2009-2010

4’33” Insights

I can’t exactly describe the felling of having creating visuals to this piece.. it was huge, massive and exaustive creative process. After arriving home, I was sleeping for two days, and even today I feel that I need to sleep more 200 hours to completely recover.. :)