Talking Statues was an amazing interactive digital outdoor artwork to celebrate the launch of Night at the Museum 2 on Blu-ray and DVD.

Working with Fox home entertainment and Taylor Herring, I developed interactive concepts and directed the special effects filming session for this amazing spectacle.

Sitting side by side in Bond Street, London, Churchill and Roosevelt statues were brought to life, using live digital video effects, and custom designed projection techniques.

The process

First we filmed two actors, one playing Churchill, the other Roosevelt. They filmed a number of lines, as if having a conversation between the two of them. The script was very funny, with lots of jokes about the problems of life as a statue. The filming took place on a special rig that allowed us to keep the heads of the actors very straight. Because, of course, statues cant move! I had to make sure that the actors put all of their expression and emphasis on their eyes, their mouths, and of course, their voices. At the end of the process we had some great comedy moments between the two actors.

Next, the videos are cut and edited together to make seamless conversations between the two actors. The videos were then colour treated and specially stabilised, to make sure that the features on the actors faces matched perfectly with the contours of the statues. Anything unnecessary like hair, cheeks and chins were digitally removed.

After that, the eyes and mouth of each statue were digitally “layered” so that they could be dynamically projected. Each layer was loaded onto two laptops, one for each statue. The video layers were synced with the audio for seamless playback.

Because the event was for one night only, and was completely outdoors, with no power supplys, we were able to design a custom system that used portable batteries to run all of the technology. This avoided any wires, and there was no need for high voltage to be in a public place. So it really was a 100% self contained projection system.

When the projector systems were moved into place, the software was then able to instantly match up the eyes and mouths of the statue with the eyes and mouths of the actors. The video layers could be triggered at any point, allowing TV presenters to literally interview the statues about their experiences. It was a lot of fun, and a great event that attracted a lot of media attention.

The end result

The end result was spookily effective. It was very eerie to see these two classic politicians come to life late at night in London’s Bond Street. It really brought some of the wonder of Night at the Museum to life. During the project we went through a lot of R&D, and we were very pleased with our research into long-life batteries for use in outdoor projections like this. To run this system for over 3 hours without having to plug anything in was a big achievement. The project was put together in just a few weeks, and that gave us just enough time to develop and test prototypes to create a fun and unusual final project.

Credits: Fox Home Entertainment, Taylor Herring, HMC Interactive

I created a new software program called Visual Voice Pro that turns any kind of sound from a microphone into beautiful colours and light. Famous musician and broadcaster Jools Holland got in touch about developing this software for his live shows, and of course I said “yes”!

Software that can improvise?

Because of the nature of a live music show, anything can happen, especially with Jools Holland’s big band, that love to improvise and have fun with the audience. Its never the same show twice, so using pre-prepared visuals just wouldn’t be enough.

I was able to design and modify my software so that it would be responsive enough to project huge vibrant visual effects across the stage, and have the different instruments mapped via an audio mixer to different visual effects.

Going on the road

I worked with Jools Holland’s live events team and they were really great fun to work with. They were so positive and helpful, they really liked Visual Voice Pro. I collaborated with them to make sure that the software could withstand the heavy demands of an “on-the-road” schedule.

I was very pleased to see my dynamic and interactive graphics used on the UK live tours. Jools Holland and his team are now looking at new ways to incorporate dynamic visuals into live music.

I programmed the software from start to finish, and came up with the initial concept and design. The wonderful Izaskun Arandia-Richards helped get the ball rolling with the project management, and Jools Holland’s visual effects and tour team also had a huge impact in getting it all to work smoothly with the live shows. Darren Perry provided hands on technical support once the show started its tour.

I had the wonderful privelidge of being involved with an amazing art show at top London Gallery Tate Briatin, in a collaboartion with the amazing Martin Sextin. In March 2006 Martin Sexton presented New Gothic which combines music, digital art and performance. Featuring  ‘Heraldic Unicorn Lion Grace System’ by Truth Machine, described variously as ‘the high-concept band to end all high-concept bands’ and as a cult religious group by others.

The varying members of this arts collective reportedly all work to a set of instructions cut from the text of books that vary from hermetic works, theological mediations to pulp fiction, erotica and maps. Steve Severin conducts and provides the sonic soundscape.

Ride up with the Magical Lock-down Dark Pegasus: a Harley-Davidson XL53 custom motorcycle resplendent with blue-black Scottish crow wings and ‘pimped’ with a DVD monitor as tail-plate, that echoes TE Lawrence’s quote that “A motorcycle with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocations, to excess.”

Rattus Norvegicus

Meanwhile, I was working with Korash Sanjideh, Andy Early and Mike Cobb to create new visual experiences. We unleashed  chthonic forces with atechnological multimedia film noir Rattus Norvegicus as part of New Gothic at Tate Britain.

Rattus Norvegicus is a dark digital artwork shown for the first time at “Late at Tate Britain” as part of the “Gothic Nightmares” exhibition.

In February 2010 I had the amazing oppertunity to introduce 250 different children into the exciting world of multimedia, and gave them a glipse of what a career in interactivity really menas.

I helped run open day sessions for students from six city schools, and they got to experience the excitement of the media industry for 2 days during a trip to Twofour studios in Plymouth.

The students were from Mary Dean, Woodfield, Oakwood, Beechwood, Whitleigh and St Peter’s RC primary schools.

The open day was a collaboration with the Tamar Education Business Partnership, and it was designed to study the impact of early career-related learning in increasing young people’s aspirations.

Screaming for more

I had worked with the Tamar Eductaion Business Partnership before, on some sound reactive software for some of their students, so I was pleased to show them the latest updates to my software, called Visual Voice Pro.

The students were able to scream at the top of their lungs, to test out the pre-release Beta. They loved getting the chance to play with the latest software before it had been released.

I was also able to give them a “behind the scenes tour” into the makings of some of my most famous and well know projects, like the work at Cadbury World.

Raising the aspirations

Richard Wallis, director of strategy for Twofour Knowledge, said: “We want to help raise the children’s aspirations, and make them aware of future opportunities that they may otherwise never know about, and a lot of the qualities we as an employer are looking for are transferable skills – energy, initiative, creativity, conscientiousness and resourcefulness.

“As a media company that works across television, design and the web, as well as in education, we’re hoping to give them a taste of the range of career possibilities.”

Jo McCaren from the Tamar Education Business partnership said: “We know from consultations with young people and their parents and carers that there’s a strong interest in media-related careers.

“The Year 5 teachers from each of the six schools visited Twofour last year. They were very impressed by the company, and were keen for their pupils to visit this year and participate in a series of short, career-related – but fun – activity sessions, led by Twofour staff.”