DPI:

Why use media on stage?

Hal Eagar:

It just seems like an obvious extension to stage spectacle to me, it always has. Now maybe I should be doing something less obvious but I seem to be good at theatre and media which makes it hard to switch gears; besides after 13 years it's finally caught on; so no stopping now. But really it's satisfing because I'm good at improvising and doing things for which there are no maps or standard techniques. If a technique becomes established then someone with more patience will probably learn to do it better and with more finesse than I do it fairly quickly. But I hope I have moved on to figuring out some new problem by then. Also art, particularly where art and technology meet is one of the sweet spots to do that kind of playful work. I would not want to be take risks or allowed to take the kind of chances and experimental approaches if I was writing code for medical devices, or even contact databases. I do engage in that type of more staid as a day job and it can have some enjoyable challenges, but it's not as playful and the results are not so visceral.

So I said nothing about why the audience should be interested yet. Well, the direct visceral results may be enough for some audience, but that's not my thought when working.

Sometimes do I think about wanting to compete with film and TV and video games but to get to caught up with your competitors may get in the way of fresh ideas so I'll leave that to the media experts, and try to approach media in theatre as a novice not an adept. And so the resasond I do is just to discover what can be done.

DPI:

Do you have a defined aesthetic prior to seeing a script? What is your aesthetic?

Hal Eagar:

Spectacle is defiantly my aesthetic, I said that maybe the work I do is not exactly the work I like to go see, but even so it's still about creating a bit more spectacle. That's the magic that makes it worth it to go to the theatre. Which brings me to the next thing I was going to say, which is that my aesthetic is not cinematic. On the one hand I hardly ever go to the movies, so I probably have one of the least developed senses of cinematic vocabulary of anyone in this country, let alone people working in video. But all the same it's not foreign to me it is the new language of images, an we use it everywhere. I think a lot of the urge to bring media on stage is to create a cinematic effect, because we think in that visual language, and maybe because the theatre is trying to compete with film. And though I probably do, do that a lot, it's really not my intent, there is no way for even a huge budget theatre to compete with a multi-million dollar film. So what theatre needs to give you is something else. Seeing someone you know on stage is one thing, which I love, but it's not something "media" can bring you.
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DPI:

What media effects have made you cringe as an audience member?

like fog on stage. Can be good but is dangerously cheesy.

Hal Eagar:

Projecting a picture of the "set", I admit It still sometimes happens in my designs, and actually the "All Wear Bowlers" example I list as a favorite was exactly that, so it's not that it's 100% bad, but it's defiantly a dangerous choice.

Another thing to watch out for is "one big screen", it's not necessarily bad, but it's got a lot of danger to it. There is a high chance of it either being dull, or drawing too much audience focus; or worse both. I like multiple screens, or heck no screens at all, just free floating media.

DPI:

What is your favorite tool(s)?

Hal Eagar:

Well the easy answer is the Computer, or maybe the Nvidia or ATI 3D card. Because maybe my favorite effect is trilinear filtering, (which is an anti-aliasing filter on resized textures. I could blab about that more but it's a bit obscure and uninteresting.

Anyway it's the software that you interact with, so how about I change the question to my favorite software on that "computer"?

Flash, it works the way I think animation ought to, with free running nested time lines.

I really like the nested structures of everything from computer programs, to little drawers, to good play scripts. Anyway programming flash has gotten more complex as they add more and more features, but it's still manages to stay in that sweet spot for me of being easy to just bang out something quick, while letting you get deep and solid and complex when you need to.

Tack a shell like SwfStudio or Zink onto flash and it's a great fast prototype development platform. And that's what theatre is, fast development.

(and hey I think the new flash beta may finally use some of that 3D trilinear scaling)

I still love PERL for the same reasons, easy to hack or get deep and powerful. Though it's way out of style now days, I should be hacking Python instead, but I still prefer PERL.
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DPI:

What was your favorite show/moment/effect? Why?

Hal Eagar:

I love spectacle really, and stuff that either just barely makes sense, or is just so spectacular that you don't give a dam if it makes sense. I don't think that's the kind of theater that I tend to make myself, but that's what I like to go see. Sxip Shirey is all that in a totally non-video way, spectacular and surprising, and maybe for me the no video thing is a bonus too. His show "Blood is the Only Good Adhesive in Heaven" may be my favorite theatrical experience.

The first Richard Foreman piece I saw probably triggered some similar moments of wow spectacle being in audience, but that's burned off after a few of his shows.

The start of "All Wear Bowlers" were possibly my favorite 'video' moments, when the two silent film clowns walk in and out of the film. It really brings the video actors into one cohesive place. And even though you might say it's an old trick, it's still great spectacle, and clowning is all old tricks, it's just about doing them well.
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DPI:

What were you doing before that and how did you get lead into using media or live performances?

Hal Eagar:

I seem to have always fallen into the theatre tech even in elementary and middle school, it's a bit freaky because it's not like there was any opportunity to do it, I just somehow did. But anyway by the time I was in High school there was opportunity, and I did a lot of design and crew work. So when I went to school at Purchase being a stage hand was what I was doing to pay my way through school. (though not in their theatre design-tech program). Video and Computers were always pretty easy for me, I worked for a AV rental house doing conventions in Hawaii where I went to High School, doing low and high end video for corporate meetings. And I also worked for the Community College on Maui for a while, in their pretty decent video studio doing satellite video teleconferencing classes.
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DPI:

There are a lot of titles for using media on stage, and a lot of titles for those who design or produce it.

What terms do you use/like/hate?

Hal Eagar:

I really like the European term 'Beamer' instead of 'Projector', it sounds better, and is more evocative and descriptive to me of the way a 'projector' is used.

"New Media on Stage" is one term I tried to use, but it does not really seem to strike a chord with anyone, and it's a little long an awkward to slip into conversation.

I also struggle for a good term for Live / Real-time / dynamic. Because all those words have to many other meanings. And what is real and now vs. canned / recorded or planed is a spectrum not a dividing line. For instance the actors are 'really' live, but what they say, and even where they go on stage is all pre planed.

So what is more live about a 'live' camera feed then a movie clip? Or VR 3D vs. animations as QuickTime files vs. DVD's. But there is a difference, and I am always struggling to get to the more 'live' send of the spectrum.

But the term is a problem. The media is not living in traditional terms. Though to get it to live in artistic terms is the objective. And TV news has totally eroded the meaning of live anyway; they do all these 'live' feeds where nothing is happening live. And the whole thing is pre scripted.
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