03e Research

Case Study: Laila

Laila is an interesting project to me because it is inspired by opera but uses the format of a fulldome with spatial sound.

This video breaks down the production process and has a lot of useful information based on how the team approached it and reflections. Some of my key takeaways from the talk featured in the video;

• 15 minute duration for 6 people at a time
  
  • This in part was due to covid restrictions, but also probably to allow the audience to have enough room to move freely within the 7.5m dome.
• ‘story’ based on 3 act structure found in opera
• composer used a ‘base layer’ of sounds and a ‘lead layer’ allowing them to compose a bed of sound and other elements and sections on top of that. This aided in the partly generative design of the piece.
• 7.5m custom built dome
• Immersive visuals & interaction:
  
  • 8 projectors with lenses to cover
  • 4 LiDar sensors for movement detection
• Spatial sound:
  
  • 40 Genelec speakers, a subwoofer,
  • Each visitor has their own personal “wearable” speaker
  • 4 floor vibrators;
  • Visitors record their own voice upon entrance in the dome
• Runs on a game engine, audio & visuals controlled separately
• Incorporates AI but this doesn’t seem complex… seems to be just particle systems following audience

To sum up, I feel that this piece only touches slightly on AI and that this could have been explored more deeply. The dome facilitates a small intimate audience and doesn’t require wearable head mounted displays which can be awkward for people to wear. I find the visual results striking and impressive, but without trying the piece cannot experience the success of the spatial sound, which as described sounds very effective and interesting. By making a piece with a limited time the audience has (in this case 15 minutes) a limited time to experience this in its entirety and so the shows can be scheduled back to back with new allowing access to greater numbers of people.