CAUGHT IN THE ACT - the technology

Ingredients/Components:

• A wall (already there)
• A toy gun (with small magnets attached to it)
• Multiple magnetic sensors
• A computer (running the necessary MAX patch)
• A camera (webcam/security cam/vidcam)
• A theatre spotlight with RGB filters (to make the infra-red spotlight)
• A projector (to beam the live footage)
• An Arduino I/O board (to control the different hardware)

An Arduino I/O board.

Toy gun...

... with magnet on the barrel...

... on the grip...

... and inside the chamber.

Principle:

The camera will be pointed towards a blank monochrome wall (preferably black or white) in a way that anybody walking into its field of vision (which will be under the infra-red spotlight) will trigger the live streaming video footage to be routed through a MAX patch (running in the computer) that will turn it into a high-contrast B/W footage like the film noir cinematography which has been discussed before. It will simultaneously be beamed by a projector on the wall (or in the screen of the computer itself) so that the person can see himself “in action”, with a surprise element.

The MAX patch running the show.

And if he picks up the toy gun lying in front of him, it will trigger one (or more) magnetic sensor that will run a new MAX patch. This will result in capturing of that same footage and the subsequent saving of the frames in the computer's hard disk, to give it a darkly comic-book look. Once the person puts the gun back, the sensor will stop the footage-capturing session and save the captured frames as a movie file. The captured footage will be immediately played back, and will continue to play till another person picks up the gun, triggering a new session.