This Is How We Walk On The Moon

This was a devised piece created by a group of students, directed by Julia Devine, to celebrate the 2024 Total Eclipse and the path of totality over Plattsburgh.  This show ran the weekend before the eclipse closing on April 6th, 2024. Two days before the Total Eclipse of 2024.

This show was also my senior project. I was the "production designer" meaning all things technical came down to me. I taught myself the basics of Vectorworks and designed the lighting, sound,  video rig,  as well as the layout of the space. I had collaborators, while I designed the overall system, I had a composer who who wrote a full score for the show, and an assistant lighting designer.

My main focus in this production was projections. Before we started work on this production the director approached me with this idea of a devised piece using a geometric climbing dome from her back yard and projecting on it. I said I was up to the challenge and began work. 

I used 3 projectors found in an old stock storage room on campus and hung them in our studio facing the dome. The hardest part of this project was getting the projectors to align and be able to spread content out across the 3 projectors. The more I worked on this project the more I realized how impossible that task may be. I reached out to companies that make projections software and was told by all of them that this project is impossible.

After hours of trial and error I came up with a method that worked. I invented a method of opening photoshop on the projector to aid in making a mask for Qlab. (After the show closed I found that I did not invent the method. Here is a tutorial from Qlab) Using this method I created custom mask for all 3 projectors to line them up. Then to sync content across the projectors I had to manually align the widescreen images across the 3 outputs.

Looking back at it, I would do a lot different. But this was an incredible experience to work on. Someday I will revisit projection mapping a dome.