CINEMA 4D Re-Creates the World of Theater Sets

Contemporary theater set, costume and video designer William Dudley has adapted a technologically-based means of scene creation that could potentially change the face of theatrical set development and production performance.

Dudley's technological brainchild dominated a Broadway stage for the first time ever during the November 2005 premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Woman in White", in Manhattan's Marquis Theater. The production had previously debuted in London's Palace Theater in September 2004. (The same digital technique had been theatrically implemented first in Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia," at the Royal National Theater in London, in 2002, as well as subsequently in Terry Johnson's "Hitchcock Blonde," at the Royal Court Theater, also in London, in 2003.)

A freelancer who is based in London but who often works in Europe and the United States, Dudley had been attempting to drive Adobe Photoshop beyond its capabilities in an effort to generate reasonably convincing, photorealistic "3D-style" imagery. Computer-generated stills and video had been used somewhat in the theater in the past, but no one had traversed the gap between 2D visuals and 3D imagery - and used it in this breakthrough fashion. The process is a little complex, and certainly entirely foreign to most associates of theater. The process involves four phases and the result is projected onto a multi-part stage set:

1. Modeling and texturing simulated environments using 3D software

Rendering the finished 3D scenes to stills and video3. Mapping the rendered imagery onto a mini-stage in 3D space4. Displaying the resulting visuals onto physical stage props using specialized, highly adapted projection techniquesThe actual physical stage consists of a three-piece "parent" cut-cylinder prop whose components are spaced apart and comprise approximately two-thirds of the set, plus a movable "child" traveling screen.
The back portion of the parent wall always remains stationary, while its other two sections, along with the child, are rotated, very precisely, on a large turntable in unison with the play's script. The entire physical part-cylinder set measures 95 feet in circumference and 17 feet high.

Says Dudley of CINEMA 4D, "The sheer number of options to remember was daunting at first, but I soon came to realize how well thought out and logical C4D was - how it seemed tailored to the needs of artists rather than geeks, and was so well-integrated with Photoshop and, later, with After Effects".

"The Woman in White" is a romantic-thriller, if you will, about two half-sisters residing in a country house in Northern England. Both women - the "co-heroines"&emdash;fall in love with the same man, who is in love with one of them and, despite the power that men wielded over women at that time in history, the two emerge "triumphant in the end," as Dudley describes it.

"What a revelation it was to find what C4D could do," says Dudley, now another CINEMA 4D disciple. "For instance, I had previously made extremely detailed physical working models of shows which were very costly and subject to endless revision and change by the director. With C4D I could model, texture, light and animate complex, timed scene changes and distribute copies of these in the form of plans, stills and QuickTime movies to some 20 to 30 technicians and contractors. They would then request finer details or specific views of the set, even cross-sections of irregular shapes - something almost impossible to do in a card and balsa wood model, but a breeze to do in C4D. The orthogonal views in C4D, in conjunction with the Cel render mode, were especially helpful in generating technical drawings that could show multiple renders of a stage prop for maximum clarity of intent."

"C4D's Smoke ÔN Haze - much-improved in Release 9.5 - was the most pleasurable discovery," says Dudley, "as stage smoke and haze is much-used to dramatize the scene - to make it feel heavier and ominous and, frankly, to cheat the lack of actual stage depth with the thicker atmosphere, thus making the scene more epic."

"I found that I could easily match the characteristics of real-world stage lighting, including animated vari-lights (highly flexible motorized lamps), neons, gobos (light-specific cutouts for shadow effects), etc., within C4D's lighting system by using the Advanced Render Module", says Dudley.

"After so many years of working in the strict discipline of theater scenery - which has to be physically robust and also ... be carried, hoisted, rolled, folded or stored repeatedly in trucks, elevators or storage depots, yet look good on many different stages - I found that all digital set pieces could be created for no extra cost, could be placed in 3D space and just float there serenely until I next moved them," says Dudley. "I needed only to align these newly made objects just for one point of view - the virtual camera's view - and then rapidly duplicate them by the hundred, also without any extra cost. They required no special handling or maintenance, but could be repainted or resized [instantly]. This is very important when you are subject to the whims of a director."

"The strangest thing was that I lost interest in the craft of model making and traditional painting," reveals Dudley, astonishingly, "because, as I explored the world of polygons and pixels, I found myself lost in the beauty of it, just as I had with pencils and paints 40 years earlier."

Supporting Dudley in this monumental effort was Matthew O'Neill, Richard Kenyon, Kai Pedersen, Dick Straker, Sven Ortel, Ian Gallway, Quintion Willison, Paul Scullion, Chris Kurtz, Malcom Mellows and Gerry Cory.

Next on Dudley's schedule is bringing "Hitchcock Blonde" to the South Coast Repertory theater in Costa Mesa, (Orange County), California. Then it's back to London for a new project, which still under wraps but again prominently features CINEMA 4D. This latest project is likely to start before the February 10th opening night performance of Hitchcock Blonde.

back...