Good morning everyone, my name is William Barry. Now how many people in here are aspiring film or theatre majors? Well for those of that are, I bring you a revolutionary opportunity. I call it the Virtual Theatre, the Virtual Theatre is unique, in that you can practice your upcoming production in a virtual environment. Imagine this, let’s say you are an actor in the upcoming Romeo and Juliet play, with the Virtual Theatre you can practice as if it was the night of the play in front of a virtual audience.
You’ll be able to wear the costumes needed for certain scenes at a moments notice, have the ability to interact with other actors in both the virtual and the physical environment, and you can check what your lines are by pulling a virtual script from the side of your waist and when you put it back it disappears as if it was never there.
The director will also have the ability to stop the play and remove the virtual audience in order to work with the actors. Once they’ve conveyed what they wanted, the director can bring back the virtual audience.
Lastly, one of the greatest benefits of this experience is the ability to practice at home. As it is with most virtual environments, the Virtual Theatre has a cloud. With this people can practice the production from home by themselves or with others.
In an article from the well known magazine Popular Mechanics, this blend of the virtual and physical world was achieved last year in 2017 by Disney. As David Grossman, the author of the article, describes “The potential uses for such a system are myriad” and its use in “Athletic training is also a possibility: a baseball player could practice pitching while surrounded with stats or practice ignoring distractions”(Grossman “You Can Now Play Real Catch in Virtual Reality”).
There have been no studies or tests conducted in this use of virtual reality before, making this a grand opportunity to test the effectiveness of the product in a cinematic/theatrical environment.