Miranda, A Steampunk VR Experience (2020)
LUMA Projection Arts Festival • EnhanceVR • Quarantine Interactive • Tri-Cities Opera • Opera Omaha
The world's first-ever real-time live streaming virtual reality opera?
Yup, we did that.
In collaboration with amazing artists, performers, programmers, and technicians from across the country, we created a whole new way to do live theater from scratch while nearly every theater in the country was shut down.
This special adaptation of Kamala Sankaram’s “Miranda” opera culminated in multiple live performances over three days which could be viewed with full immersion and interactivity in VR or as an observer on YouTube.
“Too much pandemic-era theater has tried to recreate the live experience without success. ‘Miranda’ deserves credit as the first production I’ve seen to sprint wildly down another path: creating a brief and blatantly artificial experience that embraces the technology of theater performed at a distance.”
— Maya Phillips, Arts and Culture Critic, The New York Times
My Role
As part of the LUMA technical team, I…
Set up the hardware within each of the “isolation cubes” (large wooden structures built to partition off performers for social distancing). This included VR headsets, base stations, body tracking suits, face tracking apps, etc.
Worked alongside the VR software developer on QA debugging and testing new software builds and hardware calibration tweaks with the actors and actresses.
Built our YouTube livestreaming pipeline and put together show assets by repurposing concept art from Quarantine Interactive.
Monitored and maintained the character station for D.A.V.E. during rehearsals and live performances.
Behind the Scenes
Miranda VR Opera Livestream Setup and Assets
I was asked to assist with the YouTube livestream version of our live VR show where I created assets for the livestream, YouTube thumbnails, and sponsorship content. Additionally, I trained team members how to monitor the stream while I was otherwise occupied with my primary VR technician role in the live shows.
Livestream Content
I set up the livestream using Streamlabs OBS to connect to the LUMA YouTube account and created multiple different scenes for the livestream, including a pre-roll with audio, shown in the video here. (The first minute shows the time-offset character and scene art cycling through the various graphics followed by sponsorship panels after 1:05.)
All graphics were put together using concept character and environment art from Quarantine Interactive (Diego Martinez, Santiago Villa, and Virginia Palomeque) as a means to both reuse the incredible assets we commissioned and give audience members a peak into what they would see during the live shows.
I used these same assets to create the YouTube thumbnails for the pre-scheduled streams to allow audience members to receive a notification when the stream started.
