A Wider Net

For as long as I have been involved with events, there have been requests to emulate an effect seen in a movie, TV show, or advertisement in front of a real live audience. In almost all cases, the original effect was carefully crafted using all sorts of technological slight-of-hand. Computer animation, compositing, modeling, airbrushing, retouching, motion tracking, and many other techniques were used to create an otherwise impossible or wildly impractical scenario (note the use of the words “impossible” and “impractical”.) The creators of these visual effects could also rely on limited screen size, two-dimensionality, and a limited viewing angle within which to fool their audiences. It’s a lot easier to make a plane disappear on a 27″ color TV than in front of 15,000 people.

For one large touring show, I recreated visual effects from Star Wars - huge laser gun and light saber battles complete with high power lasers, fire, explosions, death, and destruction. The audience was on three sides and numbered about 65,000 people. This was the impossible made real before their eyes. At another event, we created an illusion that an executive was firing a laser beam from his finger, sparking a small explosion overhead and triggering a massive curtain drop to reveal a new automobile. He did this next to a robot that looked a lot like Number 5 in the movie Short Circuit, and this whole gag was based on the movie. And for a trade show exhibit our Engineering VEEP created an effect from the movie Videodrome where a face on a video screen literally extruded out from the screen in 3D. No glasses required- the screen was really stretching into the shape of a face!

One of the most common requests I have received is the “R2-D2 Princess Leia hologram” effect from Star Wars episode 4 (the first one, circa 1977). Specifically, they want a 3D animated visual, in mid-air, with no need for special glasses. People have tried everything - smoke, mirrors, mist, spinning helical things, lenticular 3D TV’s, and all sorts of variations, with moderate success.

The latest example of “I want that in my show” is the “Minority Report” effect. In the movie, Tom Cruise’s character manipulates images of the not-too-distant future on a transparent screen simply by waving his hands in mid air. Why people want to replicate this is frankly beyond me - I think it’s cool, but how many people even saw the movie? And how many people have performed tasks that require holding their arms up for any length of time? There are probably better ways to manipulate data and illustrate stories. Despite the aerobic silliness of all this arm waving, the allure of manipulating data with your bare hands makes perfects sense - even if the movie reference is a bit flawed. This is the principle behind the iPhone, iTouch, and countless copycats about the flood the mobile device market. It is also the principle behind which Microsoft has developed their Surface product. Bill Gates even used Surface to control part of his final CES keynote two months ago. Recently, CNN has been making headlines for it’s unique use of Perceptive Pixel’s multitouch display screen during their primary election coverage. And these high-profile demonstrations are why the requests for multitouch presentations and speaker support have been picking up briskly.

The good news is there are a bunch of ways to create this effect on stage at a live event. The bad news is it doesn’t come cheap. If you recall the start of this post, I mentioned the words “impossible” and “impractical”. This is a good example of an effect that made sense in the budgetary context of a blockbuster movie and the top news studio in the world, but may not make sense for a sales meeting or user conference or trade show booth. But the necessary technology exists today. On the high-end, you can buy the system CNN is using for $100,000 through Neiman-Marcus. More reasonably, Gesturetek and Reactrix offer rental systems that let you control software using mid-air gestures or multi-touch input like Microsoft Surface. You may be able to score an actual Surface device soon, too. And at the low end, some enterprising geeks have made their own gesture-based systems using Nintendo Wiimotes.

One thing to keep in mind: With the exception of the Perceptive Pixel system, which comes with some software development, all of these solutions require custom software. This is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the software that creates the experience - not the screen or the sensor. To turn a cool piece of multi-touch or gesture-based technology into a stage presentation that effectively tells a story is not as easy as it sounds. Thinking of how much work goes into simplifying the life of a typical presenter, it may not be in their best interest to have to choreograph a story with their hands in real time. It looks super-simple in a TV commercial after careful planning, 50 takes, and a lot of post production compositing (Think: UPS Whiteboard ad), but a live keynote is a whole different animal.

I would say this technology makes sense for a high tech event with a presenter dedicated to the planning and execution of a complex hands-on presentation, or a trade show exhibit stage presentation that can be carefully rehearsed and repeated frequently. For everyone else, you’re probably better off “faking it” with brief flourishes of clever stagecraft. As multi-touch starts to take hold in every day computing, this sort of presentation style may become easier to adopt.

I suppose I have two messages in this post: Stagecraft, like TV and film, can create the illusion of the impossible. If you really want it, we’ll make it happen. But, if something had to be “faked” in order to shoot a film because shooting the real deal would have been impossible or impractical, then reproducing that effect in front of a real live audience will be no less impossible or impractical. At least until a decade or two later when someone actually invents the thing.