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THEATRIX
Your acting companion
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
THEATRIX is an acting companion that enables the beginner theatre artists to improve their performance skills. It involves a smart mirror which explores Multimodal Interactions. It has tried to tackle the problems faced by the artists when they practice alone, like assessment of performance, dialogue practice and reading lines with co-actors. It aims at bringing comfort to the lives of these artists.
Acting
Smart Mirror
Tangible Product
Multimodal Interactions
UX Research
Academic Project
Individual
CONTEXT
Acting alone is a very powerful way for an actor to strengthen their imagination and build confidence in a risk-free environment. Monologues, Imagination Exercises, Vocal Exercises, and the simple act of Reading Scripts are the best way to practice. The actors can also perform solo exercises to improve their craft.
WHAT?
Improving performance skills like dialogue delivery, facial expression & body movement.
WHY?
Artists have to self-evaluate themselves while practicing alone.
HOW?
Using multimodal interactions.
WHAT IS MULTIMODAL INTERACTIONS?
Multimodal Interaction design utilizes multiple modalities to improve the user experience in products. This includes system-to-human and human-to-system interactions such as voice, text, touch, and Haptic feedback.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Theatre is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. I tried to list down the performance skills needed in theatre :
2%
of actors make a living from the profession
0.1%
2,000
aspiring actors coming in to Mumbai everyday
success rate in film industry
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/shortcuts/2019/jun/05/only-2-per-cent-of-actors-make-a-living-how-do-you-become-one-of-them
https://www.newindianexpress.com/entertainment/hindi/2019/jul/29/success-rate-in-the-film-industry-is-01-per-cent.html
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3498540.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
Nepotism In Bollywood
“A star kid can get that first film due to nepotism. But to constantly get films just because you belong to a filmi-family is not possible” - Actor Sonam Kapoor (Superstar Anil Kapoor’s daughter)
Process of struggle in Bollywood
When an aspiring actor comes to Mumbai he goes from one production house to another looking for jobs. He then advised to enroll himself into an acting institute. Even the established theatre groups charge exorbitant fees from their students for the short-term courses, and none hold the promise of getting work for their students. Even after completing the acting training his struggle continues. Thereafter, it all depends on his talent and luck if he bags the project.
Improvisation
Body
Language
Stage
Presence
Vocal
Dynamics
Facial
Expression
Storytelling
Skills
Involved in
a PERFORMANCE
Various Acting methods
There are many acting methods that an artist use to improve their performance skills. These are some of them :
Practicing one line through a range of emotions
Mirror Game
Recording monologues
Improvisational theatre
Cold Readings
Substitution Technique
Acting method selected : Mirror Game
Why Mirror Game?
Mirror Game include concentration, relaxation, listening, reacting, as well as building chemistry amongst the participants.
See your body movement
Correct distracting movement
Memorise those position
What is a Mirror Game?
Mirror Game is a paired activity that allows theater artists to work on leading/following through collaboration and focus. Partners work silently to create mirrored kinesthetic movements. The activity involves shared trust and responsibility as partners work to keep each other safe.
How to use Mirror Game?
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Try your best to move as one unit.
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Try experimenting with different levels.
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Take turns shifting between leaders.
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Find a natural way to switch who is leading and who is following.
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Remember to maintain soft focus throughout the activity.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
I then moved on to Primary research. The methodology that I used was preparing a questionnaire and conducting a semi structured interview with beginner theatre artists. I gathered first hand information in order to decide a possible solution.
Semi structure Interview
No. of Participants - 4
2 Male
2 Female
Questionnaire
Practice Based
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​How long have you been acting?
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Do you have any degree in acting?
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Have you taken any classes and lessons for it?
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Can you briefly explain the process of practicing you follow?
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What are the problems faced by you while practicing
Acting Based
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Can you briefly explain the process of acting you follow?
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What are the problems faced by you while acting?
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Do you seek any form of help when you feel stuck?
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How do you work on your body movement and speech?
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What kind of help do you think will make these processes easier for you?
INSIGHTS
Practice Routine followed by the artists
Body Warm up
Surya Namaskar
Voice Modulation
Practice Scene
Problems faced while practicing alone
Tracking all
body
movement
Restricted movement
within your space
Sync dialogue with
other co-actors
Action and
Reaction time
Improvisation
Need of other
person to assess
your performance
Categorization of Problems faced by the artists
Character Exercises
Facial & Body Movement
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Unable to identify emotions and their weightage.
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Unable to practice monologues interactively.
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Minimum Knowledge about body warm-up exercises.
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Lack of confidence & fear of stage.
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Acting coach is not available all the time.
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Self-recording forgets at times.
Speech Exercises
Voice Modulation
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Speech Practice - Scope for improvisation is unknown.
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Speech Modulation - the extent needed to reflect correct
emotions is not apt. -
Level of efficiency during cold reading is low.
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Script rehearsal in case the other person is not available.
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Unable to see and track the improvement in own performances.
PERSONA
After understanding the insights gathered from both secondary as well as primary research, I moved on to making persona for my user group. It help me empathize and relate to my user on a personal level.
MARKET RESEARCH
For Mirror Game the most apt product was Smart mirrors so I researched about interactive mirrors in the current marketplace to understand the technology used in them. Industry like Retail, Automotive and fitness are the major players in the market.
Smart Mirrors in the market
Retail : Shopping Experience
360 view tracking
Makeup : Trial of beauty products
Different filters helps in decision making
Fitness - Workout Mirror
Track body movements
SCENARIO
I then moved on to see the user experience of the smart mirror when implemented with the solution to understand how the product will flow. For better visualization I made scenarios for the same.
Scenario : Rahul practicing Script Rehearsal with Theatrix.
Mirror detects Rahul presence and gets activate.
Rahul selects Script Rehearsal option.
Rahul selects Scripts from the collection
Rahul selects Character(King) which he wants to practice from the script.
Voice Exercise to practice voice modulation required for the scene.
Rahul speaks KING’s dialogues where green indicates correct and red incorrect words.
Mirror speaks “ Solider “ dialogues after Rahul’s dialogues.
Mirror recommends correct body posture with dialogue.
Detailed report about improvements and feedbacks after session ends.
USER FLOW
After making the scenario, I understood the basic structure of the product, I moved on to making the User flow. It lays out the user's movement through the product, mapping out each and every step the user takes—from entry point right through to the final interaction.
PROTOTYPE
Let's look at how a user interacts with the product!
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Key Learnings
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Understanding the use of different modalities in input & output.
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Affordances and their applicability for multimodal interactions.
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Exploring new use cases of existing technology.
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Storyboarding a new concept in detail helps to visualize the missing steps.
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Understand modalities in Graphical, Voice & Conversational Interfaces.
Future Scope
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It can help in conducting remote auditions.
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A library of digital props can be added just like AR filters.
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Practice sessions can be more collaborative by adding other actors in real-time.
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Stand-up comedians can have a new fun and interactive platform for conducting their shows in pandemic instead of using online meeting tools like zoom or meet.
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