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Projections Design & Stagecraft Video Content
  • PQ Studio 2023: Individual and Environment
    PQ Studio 2023: Individual and Environment
    This workshop explored the use of projected media. Artists from 6 continents used simple motion tracking, infrared cameras & audio sensors to generate visuals for performance and storytelling. TRANSCRIPT: The Prague Quadrennial is a massive two-week event that takes place in Prague in the Czech Republic every four years. It has done this since 1967. It is an international festival that ...
  • SilverStar Voyages
    SilverStar Voyages
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUePrmUi0wY Trailer for the Series View all series episodes Planet Silver is dying. The crew of the SilverStar is their last hope. Running against the clock, the crew must search through the unknown in order to recover the Orb of Life that will save their home world. Solving Problems: Season Planning + Production Design Throughout the spring and summer of 2020, the ...
  • Scenic Projections and their Ideal Environment
    Scenic Projections and their Ideal Environment
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovn1EVlo5lg&feature=youtu.be This video is intended to help individuals who are venturing into the use of scenic projections with modest experience in theatre technology. Transcript: Hi. I’m Matt Kizer. In this brief tutorial, I’m going to provide tips on how to make the most out of projections on stage. Projections can add a lot of magic to any stage ...
  • Projections Onstage: Don’t Wait. You Will Never Have the Newest Technology
    Projections Onstage: Don't Wait. You Will Never Have the Newest Technology
    https://youtu.be/8blclBLKc0g Transcript This is a design from 2011 for the musical Pippin. Director Morgan Murphy wanted to keep the medieval setting of the show, but wanted a technological overlay like a rock concert. I showed him pictures of a complex of buildings in Pittsburgh called PPG place. It was designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee. ...
  • Low Tech Solutions for Responsive Media on Stage
    Low Tech Solutions for Responsive Media on Stage
    https://youtu.be/VsDTxj4nfIs Transcript: Today I want to talk about some low-tech methods for achieving interactive projection media. This is BlackTrax, an amazing system of sensors that tracks very small transmitters in 3D space with lights and projections. You can track performers or scenery so that moving lights and projections respond to movement, even pure improvisation. A few years back, we wanted to explore ...
  • Changing Scenery with Story Book Panels
    Changing Scenery with Story Book Panels
    This article has a follow-up article here. The follow-up includes better instructions on how to include multiple pages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no1haJPCWt0&feature=youtu.be Transcript This is a set design from 2006 for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It was for Kearsarge Arts Theatre (KAT) Company, a summer children’s theatre program in New Hampshire. They produced in a space with no flies and limited wing ...
  • Deer Netting and Projections
    Deer Netting and Projections
    I’m looking back right now to a summer season I did in 2015. It was two shows: Pippin and Man Of La Mancha. They were running in rep together at Jean’s Playhouse in Lincoln, New Hampshire. The set had some minor adjustments between the two shows. My specific portfolio listings for ...
  • Plymouth State University: Performance at the Prague Quadrennial 2019
    Plymouth State University: Performance at the Prague Quadrennial 2019
    This moment is from a sequence we called “Waterplay.’ Photo 2019 by Richard Finkelstein. Brilliant Being, an original multimedia performance production,created collaboratively by Plymouth State University faculty members Paul Mroczka (writer/director), Amanda Whitworth (choreographer), Jonathan Santore (composer), and Matt Kizer (visual designer). Performed by Sydney Moquin (The Brilliant Being), Emily Jaworski (The Voice Being), and ...
  • BRILLIANT BEING
    BRILLIANT BEING
    at the Prague Quadrennial Attention, attendees at the Prague Quadrennial! WHERE: Divadlo X10 Charvátova 39/10, 110 00 Nové Město WHEN: Thursday, June 13, 8:30 pm In the PQ program book, you will find it on Page 186. Brilliant Being, at 20:30, at the X10 Theatre. https://youtu.be/gUCQPOFlKFM This is a short, breathtaking piece, about 40 minutes long. Originally produced in the United States, it is ...
  • Making Projection Media for Disney’s The Little Mermaid
    Making Projection Media for Disney's The Little Mermaid
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMY0Hg3wJwM&fbclid=IwAR0GmIUX47TMOccxyVbqQxREpc5QeXcqhMrshCRqskDtasKZQsm1ma087Yw In this video, I discuss media that I created for a production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid by the Educational Theatre Collaborative ETC in Plymouth New Hampshire at Plymouth State University. The process of creating media for projection on stage is discussed by examining the step-by-step process of creating this media. © 2019 Matt Kizer LLC All Rights ...
  • Dataton Watchout Basics
    Dataton Watchout Basics
    I have recently had someone reach out to me for some basic information on Dataton Watchout. I love this system. It has some fundamental differences from other video projection operating systems. This can make it a little difficult for some people to understand at first. This is especially true for non-English speakers. ...
  • Making that media look like you’re drawing it in real time…
    Making that media look like you're drawing it in real time...
    In 2012, I designed a production of Sylvia at Auburn University. The design included scenery, lighting, and projections. The visuals were all inspired by cover art from The New Yorker. You can read about that here. The projected media had an illustrative quality to it that mimicked the cover art. We took this a ...
  • 51 Shades of Grey: How We See Light and Dark
    51 Shades of Grey: How We See Light and Dark
    https://youtu.be/NuHW3OAHfEk Video transcript: Let’s start out with a projection screen. Could we dim the lights, please? Thank you. Let’s look at a projection. This is The Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1889. Maybe you have heard of it. Excuse me, it’s still a little bright in here. Could we close the blinds? Thank you. Let’s take ...
  • The Creative Team: Leaving the Comfort Zone
    The Creative Team:  Leaving the Comfort Zone
    In April of 2018, members of several groups collaborated at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire in the United States.   They engaged in a workshop production of A Dream Play, by Swedish playwright August Strindberg.   Jump to video Some of the creative team had been brought together originally through The International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects ...
  • Projections Onstage Part IV: Choices about Media
    Projections Onstage Part IV:  Choices about Media
    This article follows Part III in this series, Projections on Stage Part III: Choices about Screens Man of La Mancha, Jean’s Playhouse, 2015 Projections on stage can be more than just a big square image behind the actors. They can be broken up, spread around, and appear in unexpected places on stage. I have an old friend who is a director in my region. ...
  • Projections on Stage Part III: Choices about Screens
    Projections on Stage Part III: Choices about Screens
    This article should forward immediately to this address. Anything that reflects light – even just a little bit – can be a screen. The bigger question is what makes a good screen. And before we can answer that, we should ask a more specific question: for a specific use, what would be the most appropriate screen? Some basic variations on screen types include: Front projection ...
  • Projections on Stage Part II: Making Good Use of Ordinary Projectors
    Projections on Stage Part II: Making Good Use of Ordinary Projectors
    This article should immediately forward to this address. Design the set around the screens It is easy to think of projections as being just the background behind the set. An important thing to consider is that this is just one of many ways that you can use projections on stage. Let’s start there, though, because that is the most prominent way that ...
  • Projections on Stage Part I: How do I make them brighter?
    Projections on Stage Part I: How do I make them brighter?
    I’m not saying I do, but I am not saying that I do not. In my home, on my breakfast table, I may, or I may not have a gun that shoots butter. If I did have such a thing, it would have a large plastic bellows that you could slam your fist down onto. ...
  • WMUR: Brilliant Being
    WMUR: Brilliant Being
    A performance at Plymouth State University that combines dance, video games, and an adventure. We head behind the scenes of “Brilliant Being” to see how it is redefining theater and storytelling. https://www.wmur.com/article/friday-october-14th-brilliant-being/5081443
  • Cyprus Mail: Controlling projection
    Cyprus Mail: Controlling projection
    By Maria Gregoriou From Friday, American theatre designer, lighting designer and video artist Matt Kizer will be giving a four-day seminar on interactive video projections in the areas of theatre, dance and performing arts. The seminar, which will be in English, will cover both theory and practice, including the history of projections on stage, the basics of projectors, designing scenery with screens ...
  • Shaping Space: Dance and Technology
    Shaping Space: Dance and Technology
    This was a lecture-workshop presented in Studio  Theatre at Plymouth State University.  I worked with Amanda Whitworth, Director of Dance.   Together, we presented a series of dance pieces that incorporated interactive projections that moved with her as the dancer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj11A7pKFnk