William Mapother

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Wagner, Max, Wagner

Posted on: November 23rd, 2010 by wmapother 5 Comments

Last week I made it to the opera for the first time in far too long.  I tend to prefer comic operas, but even the worst opera I had wasn’t that bad.  This one a dress rehearsal of the LA Opera’s new production of Wagner’s Lohengrin.

Any opera performance is physically demanding, but Wagner is particularly brutal, apparently.  The singer I was with described Wagnerians as ‘beasts,’ and she meant it in only the most complimentary way.  After seeing a screening of ‘The Black Swan’ the night before, it left me wondering if some arts performances shouldn’t include pads and referees..

Of course, for some of us, our favorite Wagner reference will always be here..

Posted in Music, Random

Slated’s Festival Genius Award at Gotham Fest

Posted on: November 17th, 2010 by wmapother 5 Comments

A little while back I posted about Slated, a company I started last year with a few others.  One thing Slated does is run the online film guides for film festivals, helping audience members easily find what’s playing and create a personalized schedule, plus buy tickets for the films and rate them.  This service is called, modestly enough, Festival Genius.  Last year it was used by over 200 film festivals.

Well, nearly everyone and everything else has created an award, so why not poor little FG?  No reason at all.  That’s kind of what we’ve been thinking.

So on November 29 at the Gotham Film Festival in NYC, the first-ever Festival Genius Award will be given in partnership with the IFP, which runs the fest.  The Hollywood Reporter piece on it is here.

The five nominees have been announced, and they include Winter’s Bone, starring Jennifer Lawrence, who hails from my hometown of Louisville.  We screened Winter’s Bone this past June at Louisville’s Flyover Film Festival.

Now, I know how reluctant you readers are to voice your opinions, but please, feel free to speak up for once in your life and vote for your favorite here.  We live in a democracy, most of the time — exercise your right to opine.

Posted in Film, Film Festival, Slated, Tech

Mo Mo Mo-Cap

Posted on: October 26th, 2010 by wmapother 11 Comments

Just when you thought (and I prayed) that I couldn’t look any freakier or wear weirder outfits, here comes this:  motion capture, aka performance capture.

Cribbing from (and probably ruining) the Wikipedia entry, motion capture, aka mo-cap, means recording movement (eg, of humans) and using that information to animate characters in computer animation.

It’s the same process they used in this little movie you may have heard of, Avatar.  In fact, just for your viewing pleasure, you can see a short clip of the process and how it looked in the movie here.

So last week I did mo-cap for an upcoming videogame.  No, I can’t tell you which one.  Game companies get a little tweaked out when actors announce early, so I’m going to shock everyone and keep my mouth shut for a change.  Zipped lip.  But I will say that it’s part of a franchise.  That’s quite popular.  Which is — okay, really, that’s enough.

It was a blast.  Basically, you wear a suit covered with 55 or so reflective dots, and while you act out a scene in a big open room, 70-80 cameras are reading your movements via the dots.  Then the data from the cameras all gets combined to create your movements in a 3D digital world.

Monitors were set up on the edge of the room showing our characters (okay, fine, our avatars), so as we moved, our avatars moved (though their faces stayed the same).  Our mo-cap is animated, whereas Avatar was more lifelike, so we looked nothing like our avatars on the monitors.  It was a bit weird at first, and then it became nothing but fantastic.  Especially, I think, to the actresses, almost all of whose avatars were, in the time-honored tradition of videogames, really hot.

The director, producers, and crew were terrific, as were all the other actors.  Everything was fantastic.  Except for the skin-tight black suits.  That I could have done without.  I’m not sure how exactly, given that they’re a necessary part of the process, but if I were King of Mo-Cap-ville, the first Royal Order would be to improve the suits.  Somehow.  I don’t know how.  I’m the King.  Just make it happen.

Posted in Acting Projects, Photos of Wm, Videogame

(A little too) up close & personal

Posted on: October 20th, 2010 by wmapother No Comments

Check out this insightful NY Times article discussing the risks of “overexposure” with HDTV.

And audiences wonder why actors are self-conscious about their appearance. With hi-def television, it could get a lot worse — for both actors and the audience..

 

[This is another in a continuing series of potentially helpful, hopefully practical posts to actors on practicing their craft or surviving the trying.  I bear no responsibility for how this or any of my posts might ruin your life, lead you to law school, or make your parents sick with worry.  For more of the same, click the ‘Info to Actors’ category at left.]

Posted in Acting Tips & Info, Random, TV

If This Is Tuesday, It Must Be Post-Apocalyptic Vegas

Posted on: October 19th, 2010 by wmapother 7 Comments

Fallout: New Vegas, the newest incarnation of the hit videogame series Fallout, hits stores tomorrow.  I voice one of the characters, as I mentioned in a previous post.  It’s set in the year 2281 in post-apocalyptic Las Vegas.  Need I say more?

USA Today has a preview on five things you didn’t know about the game and mentions me here.  The official site is here, the Wikipedia overview is here, and the fantastic trailer is here.
Also, this week I’m shooting motion capture for another videogame I can’t mention.  In the next couple days I’ll post a report..
Posted in Press, Videogame