In our initial sketches for Fish, we tried to create characteristics that would make Fish's "Smart Costume" different from the other Critters. One idea (rejected) was to make the iconic representation a school of Fish, all moving in concert (however, the pre-recorded "boasts" of Fish were recorded by several people together, to give the impression of a school). Another was to give the Fish the ability see clearly only when immersed in the pool of water in the center of the Cave World - when Fish was outside of the pool the participant's vision would be blurred. Finally, we decided to provide sharper vision under water contrasted with blurry vision out of water, combined with a gradual fading to black when out of water - countered by a "reviving" when returned to water - the "fade-to-black" would force Fish to periodicly return to the Cave World from the Hoodoos World and the Waterfall World.
As with the other Critters, we used the same voice filter on both the pre-recorded dialogue recorded by the Precipice Theatre Company members and in real-time on the voice of a participant embodied as Fish - so Fish always sounded like Fish, whether speaking pre-recorded stored dialogue or with the live voice of a participant, including participants' speech recorded in Voiceholders.
|
We ultimately decided not to do the blurring
because the resolution of the LCD video screens
in the VR helmets was so low that in effect
the participants were legally blind already
- further blurring seemed a poor idea! And
we ran out of time to implement the fade-to-black.
But we did find that participants' would
make swimming motions when embodied as Fish
- especially in the Cave World's
pool of water.
Follow the links below to find more about Fish:
Narrative sources (for Fish and everything else)
Drawings & studies of Fish (and other Critters)
