"Homer in Cyberspace" a mix of performing arts, music and technology

Suzy Evans writes in The Daily Bruin about the complex electronic and CGI applications devised by executive director Jeff Burke and his crew at REMAP (Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance) for the world premiere Ray Bolger Musical Theater production “Homer in Cyberspace.” Video projections funneled through gaming software are used to bring to life the epic fantasy world of writer-director Mel Shapiro and composer Roger Bourland’s musical re-invention of “The Odyssey” for the digital age, which continues through June 7 in the Macgowan Hall Little Theater:

“The Blogger’s Project” also involved the UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance, a collaborative effort between the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The center used gaming engine software for the show to create digital environments to project onto screens set up on the stage. The same form of technology will be used in “Homer.”

“The intent was to create something otherworldly,” the center’s executive director Jeff Burke said. “We have a lot of complex things to resolve that are not necessarily things you would encounter in a theater production: software development, game development, 3-D graphics.”

Game engine software is the software used to create video game environments so that the visual environment of the show can be rendered in real time instead of the prerecorded nature of film, Burke explained.

With “Homer,” media elements such as live video, recorded video, photos and moving images from the gaming engine will be projected on the stage. Unlike in “The Blogger’s Project,” these elements will not appear simply on basic screens, but on a variety of different surfaces, including ship sails, creating a digitally aesthetic environment.

“That was an important change for us,” Burke said. “When we did Blogger’s’ it was primarily using a large screen. We wanted to get to a place where things were much more integrated.”

The game engine technology also allowed the engineers to enter these constructed worlds from any angle and then project those images onto the stage. In order to create the media for the show, a few of the engineers drew inspiration from “World of Warcraft,” a popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game famous for its digitally interactive environments.

For more, see the coverage in UCLA Today and our calendar listing.

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