Projection in front, live action behind

[JayePM]

Greetings to you all. After an exhaustive search through old posts, I am still not sure the best way to go, so I am opening it up to discussion. Bear with me as the description of what I would like to achieve may be long winded.

I am researching the best way to stage a potential show that ends in a climactic scene where 4 characters are ripped apart by a vampire. Flying is out. I want to go high tech with live action behind, and a prerecorded (in silhouette) scene in front. I have been considering building a fog projection screen, but it seems like it might be a bit beyond my means. If I use a scrim or fabric screen, it would need to be able to be pulled down after intermission as it would not be needed until near the end. It would need to be as transparent (nearly nonexistent) as possible for the action behind. When the projection kicks in, simple overhead lighting will illuminate the actor behind, and mapped projections will need to be on screen around this actor.

My question is, what material is best for this application? I have looked at Chameleon, and some Rose Brand products, but I get lost in all the choices. Also, I cannot picture what color to choose as I want it to disappear when lit from behind. Budget is around $300-400 for a 12'x12' screen if possible. As always, a cost effective solution is best.

Thanks in advance for all your help! This community is really great!

 

[MarshallPope]

For the scrim route, you would probably want a plain black sharkstooth scrim. Looking in the Rose Brand catalog, it looks like an 11x12 piece would run you something like $165. I would suggest looking for videos from Ghost on Broadway. They used this quite effectively in several scenes, particularly in the first 5 minutes of the show.

 

[ruinexplorer]

I'm trying to picture exactly what you want. Do you want the projected image to be of the vampire, along with special effects in the video, to make it look like the live actor is being attacked by the projected image? The difficulty with this, as with all augmented reality projections is the perspective of the viewer. With AR in personal items like Google Glass, then the perspective will always be with the viewer. With illusions such as Pepper's Ghost, famously used at the Coachella Festival, there needs to be a gap between the projected person and the live actor. The majority of the audience is either at a vantage point where the projected actor does not appear in the exact location desired to the live actor or you end up with the lighting for the actor affecting the projected image. Sometimes both.

You might get a better image if you have the action behind a black scrim, but with a rear projection, actors in between. Then you would have the live actor be frightened, black out live action, project video of actor being ripped apart, light next actor, black out live action, etc.

 

[JayePM]

The projections will not interact with live actors. Picture a 12x12 screen with an actor behind it in the middle, and a movie playing around and in front of him.