Ghost The Musical FX

[ImagineerTom]

At least have the courtesy of reading and comprehending my previous posts David, you're accusing me of saying things I've never said. General discussion is fine, I've never said anything else but specific requests for specific information / methods / measurements (so that creative works can be duplicated) that the creator has SPECIFICALLY asked remains secret should be a no no.

 

 

[Roderick]

First of all, may I suggest a bit more respect for each others' positions? What is a serious and important discussion is slowly sliding into a mud slinging fest.

 

Simply put, if I came and saw your show and then went away and copied your set, costume, lighting design or even the choreography or direction, everybody would be up in arms about how wrong that would be. Why is a special effect different?

Sure, we all steal, beg and borrow from things we have seen, it is called learning, and use it in some shape or form in our work but not without substantial changes to make it ours.

The effect in Ghost will be based on a number of tried and tested techniques going back to the early days of theatre, it is the specific mix of ingredients and their application that make it unique and as far as I can see copyrighted to the creator.

 

Edited for a typo and upsetting the word nanny...

[jonic222]

I'm very much torn with this. We all learn by studying the work of other people and taking inspiration from them - we might see colour used in a way we haven't used it ourselves and put these new ideas into practice, but that's not the same as copying an entire lighting design. However there are effects credited to individuals - Pepper's Ghost being one of them, or the Samoiloff Effect, where an effect created by someone, or adapted by someone for practical use in theatres, is used. However if I did a production with any of these effects in them and I was discussing how my design worked, I'd credit Mr Pepper or Mr Samoiloff for their work, just as in academia you'd reference other researchers/authors. John Henry Pepper is probably the best example of this - he demonstrated the effect, and following that people have tied that effect to his name (even though he, being a scientist, felt that the credit should be shared with Henry Dircks), giving him credit for his work.

A part of me wants to say that it's OK to use these kinds of effects, so long as sufficient credit is given to it's original creator, however you've also got to ask whether the creator wants it to be used by other people. It would appear that the creators of the two effects I've mentioned (and apologies if I'm wrong, I'm not a historian) were happy for their creations to be used, while in the case of the effect in question Paul Kieve may not want it to be used by others - he hasn't told us all how it's done or released any plans for us to look at. As far as he's concerned his work is his work, and that, in my opinion, is how it should remain, even if credit is given where it's due.

However, if someone who has a fairly good understanding of Pepper's Ghost goes to see the production, likes the effect, and thinks how useful it would be in a completely different production, he may go away, inspired by what he's seen, and create his own effect based on what he knows. He hasn't been onto the stage and looked at how it's done. He hasn't got any "insider" knowledge. And he hasn't seen any plans. He just has a good understanding of these kind of effects, and may end up creating, through his own initiative, something which looks very similar to the audience. Personally, I don't see any problem with that. He's simply seen someone walk through a door in a performance, thought to himself "maybe that's Pepper's Ghost - that would be a way I could create an effect for a production I'm doing soon", and gone and done it. And as far as I can work out, that's all that's being done here, but as a group rather than an individual. I certainly wouldn't advocate stealing an idea, but people have seen an effect, deduced for themselves that it's Pepper's Ghost, and are trying to work out how it might be recreated. It isn't reverse engineering of the effect because we haven't got close enough to it to see how it actually is engineered.

[J Pearce]

I suppose the understandable fear is that someone who has been on the set lets the details slip (and with the recent tour that is a reasonably large pool of our industry), breaking the confidence of the artist concerned; rather than someone who saw the the effect from the audience and thought of a similar way to achieve the same outcome.

Many of us who are experienced in lighting design can reverse engineer a lighting design, but could the average punter? I guess this is similar, if you have to ask then the answer is no, if you've figured it out then you probably have the respect for that artist to leave it as theirs, or to reengineer it so as to be significantly different or improved, and thus yours.

[S300]

First off let me say that I did open this up to either a discussion or PM.

 

I have worked on quite a number of large scale productions in my time, all with their own "secrets".

I'm not about to go and stage the next production of GHOST in my garden. If someone knew and sent me a PM explaining it roughly I'd be more than happy to let it lie and would just feel content in the knowledge.

 

I originally asked the question because in all honesty it is bugging me. Any free time I get at the PC I'll go scour the internet for videos or images of the effect and I'll try to conceive the idea in my mind.

 

I've come to the conclusion that it's more than likely a 'Pepper's Ghost' effect but at the same time it is in principle only.

I've also worked out that the door is the piece being 'projected' or 'reflected' into the scene.

 

I am just at a loss as to how or what the picture frame is doing.

 

As far as I can recall from seeing the live show twice it wasn't set at enough of an angle to provide a Pepper's Ghost effect from the wings and the meer fact you can see the effect happening without having to look through the very slim (in comparison) pain of glass in the picture frame just leaves my mind to boggle on.

 

I'll figure it out... one day! It's like one of those impossible puzzle's you get in a Christmas Cracker!

[dbuckley]

I'm sure google will tell you all about Teller's recent legal victory over his shadows effect - hopefully setting a bit of a precident.

Maybe, or maybe not, depending on what you think the precident that has been set is.

 

Teller had the foresight to copyright his trick (or, perhaps, "his" "trick") decades ago. It is copyrighted as a performance, and as the judge made abundantly clear, the how the trick is achieved is unimportant, its what the punter sees that counts. Thus the visual look that Teller copyrighted (ie the piece of magic known as The Shadow) will be unable to be legally duplicated by anyone without the permission of Teller, or Teller's assignees, or Teller's estate anytime this century, assuming teller doesn't drop dead in the very near future.

 

Although a performance being copyrighted is hardly news or precident-setting, the independence (perhaps better stated as "the unimportance") of the "how it is done" may indeed be novel.

 

So how does this apply to the Pepper's Ghost-like trick achieved in Ghost? In my (non-qualified) opinion, it comes down where the element of design is that determines who has the rights to what is done. If the scene is as described in the script, then when one gets the rights to perform the script, then you get the right to visually depict what is in the script, irrespective of how mechanically and engineeringly one achieves that look, unless the contract says anything to the contrary. On the other hand, if the script is silent on the point, and what is under discussion is a visual depiction originated by others, then the rights will lie with them. For example, scripts these days rarely have lighting plots and cue lists like they did of old, so the intellectual rights of any elements of the lighting of a production belongs to the lighting designer.

 

Intellectual property rights are hellishly murky, and keep courts and lawyers in business.

[the kid]

I think tellers case is a bit different, the guy in question was selling "exactly" what shadows was, the technique and the style, and then tried to run from the case.

 

Peppers ghost is an old old trick, and I would imagine way out of any licence, but with cunning you could ban other people from using it. Hell Disney "own" a version of it for the hunted mansion (that or tower hotel) rides I guess I could do something similar to what they have done but I would incur the rath of the mouse. I imagine that the ghost illusion is the same, strikingly similar to peppers ghost, but with lots of new twists on it. It is of course how "holograms" are made on tour at the moment.

[Brian]

John Henry Pepper himself had views on the protection of his ideas. Writing about one of his later optical illusions he wrote...

 

We now took out a patent for the new optical wonder, and having thus secured the invention from that piracy and robbery which too often dog the otherwise successful steps of inventors, causing nearly every patent to be called by the legal fraternity a damnosa hereditas*, we looked about for a good place - hall or theatre - where the illusion could be started.

 

source - The True History of the Ghost, Professor Pepper, 1890.

 

 

*damnosa hereditas - a harmful or burdensome inheritance