Posted on 03/05/2013 2:19:04 PM PST by nickcarraway
The Robot Shakespeare Company produces animated Shakespeare plays with sci-fi robots playing all the characters. Their first release, "The Tragedy of Macbeth", aims to get kids interested in the Bard by appealing to them on their own terms.
The 90 minute movie uses the original text of the play, as written by Shakespeare, and animates it using robots, spaceships, and all the sci-fi trappings. There is also a subtitle track in modern English so that any newcomer to the material can follow along.
"Shakespeare can be intimidating," says producer Dan Gallagher . "That's especially true for newcomers. Most productions take for granted that the audience knows the material. What we want to do is to tell the story as Shakespeare wrote it, but present it in a way that anyone can follow. That's why we include the modern subtitles." The sci-fi robot theme is aimed particularly at children. "Using CGI robots is a kind of visual shorthand," Gallagher continues. "Kids can look at these robots and instantly know who is a good guy, a bad guy, and so on. Plus, it helps take the bite out of the violence, which is important with something like Macbeth."
The Company raised their funds on Kickstarter in the summer of 2011. Once the fundraising goal was hit, production got under way. All of the software used for the production was open source. The sound was done in Audacity, the texture images done in GIMP, and the animation itself done in Blender.
"The Tragedy of Macbeth" is available on Amazon.com, and can be viewed streaming on the Robot Shakespeare Company website, with educational and production notes for each scene.
What do you think about this Bender?
What do you think about this Bender?
No doubt featuring the three Wired Sisters.
How about doing Tinman of Athens?
“MAC”Beth? How un-PC of them.
I rather like Shakespeare done in modern settings with original text. The “MTV”ish version of Romeo & Juliet was great. The recent Coriolanus was impressive. Looking forward to this robot version...
is it also in the original Klingon?
Out damned oily spot!
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this oil
Clean from my hand?
But maybe it's not such a new thing. I googled "robot Shakespeare" and got this:
Robot Hamlet?
“Not of motherboard”
Arnold playing Hamlet?
No way!
Still must be better than “Logan’s Run”.
When he finds out it has a violent ending and almost everyone ends up dead, he might like the project.
OK, you get a full refund.
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