THE BRENDAN BRADLEY FUTURE STAGES
AS SEEN IN
HOST YOUR OWN LIVE PERFORMANCE WITHIN MINUTES
Brendan Bradley has designed a virtual performance experience that is optimized and customizable for Mozilla Hubs which allows access via the same URL by almost any device: VR headset, personal computer or mobile device.
This is a FREE 3D environment or “templated space” (released under Creative Commons BY-ND) and gifted to the performance community to present and monetize their own virtual experiences and educational presentations to audiences all over the world. Just credit Brendan and the venue in your event marketing and do not alter the architecture.
Mozilla uses spacial audio so users hear the performance and each other based on their proximity to objects. This allows for side conversations and a less overwhelming aural experience.
This is called a “templated space” because the entire experience is essentially a template that can be quickly and easily customized to add any production’s show art and livestream link.
Use the “buttons” below to take a virtual tour of the space, customize the theater for your own event, and download samples for all graphic needs.
Now go create something!
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What is Mozilla Hubs? Founder Greg Fodor talks about the inspiration behind Mozilla Hubs as an open source, social environment for unlimited interaction.
Click the button above to walk through a sample Room with the environment. Use your arrow keys to navigate, click and drag mouse to look around, and use spacebar to interact with objects. The video on stage is an example of what can be livestreamed to the theater (and you can adjust the volume and playback by clicking on it).
Note if you are using a VR Headset, it may be easier to go to:
https://hub.link and use code: 2 7 7 1 5 8
This is a direct link to the Spoke project on Mozilla’s cloud. Just click the button above and then click “Remix in Spoke” to replace the show art and livestream video link with your own URLs.
When Spoke loads, you will double click on the list items in the top right corner to change “Replace Live 2D Video”, “Replace Billboard”, “Replace Poster.” Once you double click on an item, you will see the field in the bottom right corner where my default URL is pasted. Just replace that link with your own.
Brendan has also created a video tutorial to show you how to customize the template.
You could also add your own 3d and 2d assets the environment. It just takes a little getting used to.
When you’re finished, double-click the list item “3-Lobby-View-Double-Click-Before-Publishing.” This will take you to the back row of the theater to set your “Lobby View” that the audience will see when they first go to your Room URL.
Finally, click Publish and give your project a unique name (uncheck the boxes for sharing with Mozilla). Now you can create a new Room using this customized set up. This lets you “stage” your production and create a different Room for every performance.
The original template was a proscenium theatre with the back wall as a livestream video player. This was meant for anyone to drag and drop their current livestreams into a 3D environment. Immediately, creators began asking me about the ability to customize the layout of the theatre. So I kept the facade/structure of the original and designed an open floor plan to allow for a black box version of the space. This template has successfully hosted both live video feeds of actors and actors performing as 3D avatars.
You can use these dimensions and layout to create your own Billboard Show Art outside the theater. Just host on your website and replace the Billboard URLs in the Spoke project.
You can use these dimensions and layout to create your own Poster Show Art inside the atrium. Just host on your website and replace the Poster URLs in the Spoke project.
You can create and upload any PDF as a show program by hosting it on your website and pasting the URL inside your Hubs Room. Special thanks to Playbill’s team to let me use PlaybillDER as a placeholder to show how it could work in the environment. Create your own at: https://www.playbillder.com/pub/howitworks
Click the button above for a google document of helpful hints for newcomers to Mozilla Hubs to help your audience enjoy the show!
#FUTURESTAGES USE-CASES
7.20
This 3D artist @daedaljs created a library of “stage backdrops” that can be used as quick scenic design. Just copy the URL of the model you like and add it in Spoke when “remixing” the Future Stages scene for your production.
8.20
To test how quickly theaters might set up their own virtual theater, Brendan has begun attending several livestream productions and quickly customizing a private room with show art from the theaters’ websites and livestream links. After two weeks, he has successfully set up Rooms within minutes for IrishRep’s THE WEIR and Pixel Playhouse’s DEFINITELY NOT CLUE.
8.20
At a panel for Theatre Communication Group, Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop talked about using #FutureStages for their upcoming REVOLUTION NOW series! “Streaming a movie doesn’t recreate the experience of being in the theater. Having relational sound…that kind of Amen-corner…that shared laughter…those shared gasps, that doesn’t exist in films…it gives you a little bit of the theater experience and I find that it’s keeping people in the space. Gratefully everything we’re using is free which allows us to focus our income on paying black creatives.” - Heather Harvey
9.20
Ithaca College invited Brendan to give a workshop of #FutureStages and other virtual workflows to engage their students about the possibilities for remote productions during the Fall semester.
9.20
The performance track of Purchase College invited Brendan to give a workshop of #FutureStages and other virtual workflows to engage their students about the possibilities for remote productions during the Fall semester.
10.20
#FutureStages closes out No Proscenium’s HERE FESTIVAL with a workshop production of Brendan’s original one-act, Jettison. Actors perform as both 2D video and avatars, supported through a custom iteration of Mozilla Hubs Cloud, an updated, Blackbox version of the #FutureStages templated space, and the integration of Open Broadcaster Software and injected javascript to control the live show. (More info)
10.20
Join Brendan “at” The Museum of Science in Boston for a very special evening of virtual tools and performance…streamed to #FutureStages and beyond.
10.20
Brendan was invited to perform a cutting of his “IN A BOX” one man show at Baltic House International Theatre Festival “in” St. Petersburg, Russia.
11.20
Brendan was asked to present the Future Stages to over 100 producers in the TRU Network. A lively discussion of how to develop, create, rehearse and monetize browser-based, live virtual reality experiences.
11.20
Brendan was approached by The University of Southern Mississippi’s graduate theatre and design program. Students had stumbled upon his tutorials and taken the next step…the result was some of the most inspiring brainstorming/troubleshooting sessions to push the boundaries of live, virtual theater production and design.
12.20
As one of the founders of The Fifth Wall Forum, Brendan lead a one day workshop to over 200 applicants, called BRING YOUR PRODUCTION VIRTUAL, breaking down virtual storytelling into 6 key considerations with an all-star panel of immersive virtual storytellers to help theater-makers troubleshoot real-world challenges and case studies to get back “on” stage.
12.20
Brendan was part of early conversations with Director Dave Solomon who was hired to reimagine Ordinary Days as a virtual production for Pittsburgh Playhouse. Building on his early experiments to put theater in a 3D gaming engine and greenscreen pods at USM, the visionary designer Jason Ardizzone-West used Cinema4D to composite the actors inside boxes that could transform and move the camera through their performances.
01.21
Brendan helps Actors Theater of Louisville capture and present their Professional Training Company showcase in their own virtual recreation of the famous performing house.
02.21
Brendan experimented with a low-fi solution to integrate 2D scenery into a 3D space, putting himself inside the famous Seurat painting to perform the Sondheim classic.