Things have been a blur, but it’s all starting to sort out a little bit this week.

Ran into an old colleague this week, so it was great to see him again and catch up. I also forced him to sit down whilst I ran through my ideas, and some of the inspirations I’ve been looking at. If I was a fly on the wall, it probably would have looked like I didn’t come up for air the whole time… which I didn’t. At the end, I turned and asked him something like, “Ok, so am I delusional for thinking about all this stuff? Or am I on to something?” Al turned to me, with that shit-eating grin of his, and said, “No, I think you’re onto something big.” Booyah. Validation.

I respect the shit out of Al. Great artist, great person. Total no bullshit. I’ve sorta been in a bubble inside my own head, so it was really special for me to hear an unbiased response to what’s been going on. Thanks Al.

So, now what, Mr. Fancypants? Time to get busy, time to stay focused, time to get shit done. Respect for this idea and opportunity is driving me hard core, and it’s slowly coming in place.

One of my issues is in prototyping a testbed setup. I’ve got a light tent to represent a 3D environment, and a nice little projector (Aaxatech P4X) to work with. My issue at present is the working distance between the plane of focus for the projector and the interior of the light tent. Plain and simple, it’s a bit farther than I’d like, so I’ve been trying to suss out what way to go to correct this.

1. do I use corrective diopter lenses to change the focal distance?

2. do I use a wide angle lens to change the FOV to something wider?

I was able to pester Eric, who is a god of production work, and I was able to spend an hour with him today trying out some (vintage) Kodak Portra lenses. These were screw-on diopter lenses for some of the early 1940s-1950s Kodak cameras. Their lenses were optimized for wide angle shots, but sucked at portraits. By using a positive diopter lens, you could frame a nice head and shoulders or at least a full body shot where you could see the person, not just clothing against a background.

What we found was that if we (theoretically) stacked lenses, we could start to reduce the working distance. That said, I’m still not sure about the FOV issue. At minimum, I want to spread light between the floor and the back vertical wall of the tent and it would be nice to spread over the side walls too. Hmm. Not sure yet.

He didn’t have a wide angle lens, but I could see how it could potentially work but at the expense of brightness and focus. We’re both confused.

I did keep him busy though, showing him some of the vids I showed Al earlier in the week. It was good; he seemed as intrigued by the possibilities as Al was. It is so hard to describe how exciting and liberating all this is; creatively, I’ve been on standby for what… 5, 6 years? A touch of freelance, a stint as the Creative Director for a failed Digital Advertising group, teaching. Ya, I need this for myself, and to give back to others. But ya, more me at this point.

Before I took off, Eric came back and gave me a great suggestion: go to an optician and have them GRIND A FUCKING CUSTOM LENS. Duh. Have I told you I love this guy? I do. Sharp cookie. Thank you.

So I’m gonna take the whole test kit to an optician on Monday morning. Let’s see what they say.