Garrett Thompson - Artistic portfolio
The following is a portfolio of work for my application to UT Dallas’ MFA in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication. While this is a small selection of my work, feel free to peruse the rest of my site which serves as a landing page for my freelance work. While this portfolio is more curated for what I am looking to expand in my artistic practice through my time at UTD, the rest of the site might help round out other aspects of my artistic and technical background and skills.
PS: All animations on the home page are done by myself with motion capture, as some of the pieces below show.
Enjoy!
Moving stories - A christmas carol
A snippet of my TEDx talk "Moving Stories" showing a practical example of how motion capture's flexibility can be taken advantage of to tell old stories in new ways.
“on a mountain of love” - TEDx el paso 2023 opening
This piece is my love letter to my hometown of El Paso. I produced every element of animation (motion capture, character design, illustrations of the buildings, etc) in a way that celebrates the beauty and history of where I grew up. Performed by Grammy Award winning cellist Zuill Bailey, the piece is a practical demonstration of how motion capture and animation pairs extremely well with classical music for a unique experience.
on a mountain of love
This is the finished animation for On a Mountain of Love that was performed live as an opener for TEDx El Paso 2023. (The full performance of the piece can be seen in the previous media, but this gives a better, standalone view of the video itself). The temp MIDI cello in the video was a crucial tool for timing during the animation process in order to know the general flow of the piece itself.
mountain of love rehearsal
This is a video of the dress rehearsal of the piece the day before the TEDx conference. It is a good demonstration of the process of the performer honing in on the timing for a piece such as this and shows the difficulty that it adds to the process.
Mountain of Love - Zuill BTS
A short video of Grammy winning cellist Zuill Bailey warming up with Bach's first cello suite in G Major before recording the motion capture for On a Mountain of Love. We were able to see the character in real time as Zuill was playing.
Website side by sides
The following are side by side comparisons of the at-home motion capture setup used to record looping videos, demonstrating how accessible, versatile, and powerful this type of technology is for animation.
Mocap
Music
Puppetry
The rest of the portfolio documents my work in finding different ways to approach puppetry in animation. The first example is a demonstration of puppetry in motion capture while the next is a more mechanical approach.
Contact
Mocap puppet
This is a practical demonstration of how a more standard environment for motion capture (a top of the line optical volume) can be used in a non-traditional way (puppetry). While it is commonplace to use props in motion capture applications, they are typically limited to single, rigid objects. This first proof of concept experiment shows the powerful potential of combining puppetry with motion capture; old and new media mixing for something different and dynamic.
Motion Capture Puppet Controller
This is a work in progress of creating the motion capture puppet prop. It is a very simple construction of just the core elements needed for capture. Optical motion capture systems thrive on simplicity when it comes to props, so paring the forms down to their base shapes is the best way to get the ideal combo of optimization for the cameras and robustness for the performer.
Once the puppet is created, it needs to be calibrated in a way that all the markers can be seen. The best way to do this is to hang it up off the ground.
Here you can see the tracking dots on the puppet when viewed from the back. Each silver ball is a point that the camera picks up. There are enough that each forearm, upper arm, head, body, and jaw are tracked. A skeleton is constructed within the markers that can then be used to attach to a character and combined with other animations. The markers are magnetic, so switching between puppet rigs is incredibly fast and seamless, making for a robust system with dynamic storytelling opportunities!
Mechanical Puppet Demo
This mechanical puppet controller design is the opposite side of the same coin as the motion capture puppet solutions. This is a great alternative for when a motion capture stage is not available. Created as a MIDI instrument, beyond being a good puppetry alternative, it is an excellent step forward in incorporating mechanical interactive elements into installations.
The first prototype of the arm rig for the mechanical puppet controller. It uses a custom printed circuit board and Arduino to read data from potentiometers of the mechanical arm, which is then translated over MIDI to its digital counterpart.
The first prototype of the body of the mechanical puppet controller. It utilizes joysticks in its base and neck for movement tracking, but those eventually got replaced by more reliable individual potentiometers.
The next iteration with a custom printed circuit board setup for more reliable data being sent to the puppet's digital counterpart.
As the puppet grew, so too did the number of wires. This is the rig's current, fully functional form.
Moving Stories - TEDx El Paso
This work exemplifies the vision and drive for my artistic practice. In this TEDx talk I give a live demonstration of using motion capture for theatre while expressing the importance of telling stories. It exemplifies my ethos of embracing the combination of different and new media to engage with the audience in new and interesting ways.
Moving stories - changing characters
A snippet of my TEDx talk "Moving Stories" describing the incredible flexibility motion capture has for live theatre applications.
This is the puppet "stage" for the first characters created for the mechanical puppet controller. It takes advantage of the depth you are able to achieve in the digital realm while still keeping in mind the considerations of a traditional puppet stage (how it's lit, the front lip in front of the characters to hide the puppeteer, etc). A prime example of how taking the old best practices of puppet theatre and translating them to a new era and modality can be extremely effective.