Bringing Ray Bradbury Back To Life, with Actor Bill Oberst, Jr.
Creating the visuals for the one man show Ray Bradbury LIVE (forever)
In July of 2018, I was approached by Emmy award-winning actor Bill Oberst, Jr. to co-produce with him and do the visual effects for a rather unique biographical project about my favorite author, Ray Bradbury.
Because I had interviewed him several times about his acting career for my YouTube channel, Bill and I had been acquainted for while and knew we shared a love of the author as well as some associations. Ray had been a resident of my town, speaking at bookstores and libraries. His daughter Sue was a family friend. Later, I was brought onto a project as a production designer/VFX artist, by a producer who was working with him to create a documentary about his legacy and imagination. Although that project failed to grow legs after Bradbury’s death, a lot of material had been created by my friends Rich Goddard, Dave Grave, Jeramy Hanes, and me for the project, that had made it out into the public.
Bill, who had been touring with his one-man show Pillar of Fire which was also written by Bradbury, had seen a particular animated piece of a Ferris wheel Dave had built, Jeremy DPd, and Rich (in the role of VFX lead supervisor) and I had composited. He fell in love with it just as Ray had.
I’m still proud of this shot because it represents the full collaboration between the four of us, where we were cutting our teeth and upping our game. Although too ill to attend any of our sets it was nice to see our work was getting to Ray and hearing his notes delivered back to us. He was excited. We were excited. It was an experience I’ll always be grateful for. I just wish it could have come to pass.
“I’m wondering if I could license the footage you created for a new one-man show I’m doing with the approval of the Bradbury Estate.” Bill enquired over the phone. I admitted that I didn’t have the rights to that footage but as soon as he asked, I felt like the author was calling me back to an unfinished task. I started quizzing him about what he was trying to accomplish, his budget, and what the limitations of taking the show on the road as an “off-Broadway” production would be. After hours of talking excitedly on the phone like two schoolkids about to go on an adventure, it was decided. If he would let me co-produce the project with him and have creative input, I would work within his means to create new visuals that would be projected on a screen behind him, while he performed the role of Ray Bradbury.
Bill’s vision was much like that of the actors who would tour as Mark Twain only with added projected elements to create visual interest. We both agreed that it should be like looking into Ray’s imagination but Bill had originally thought that it would be photos and licensed footage. I convinced him that I could make it much more. With new miniatures in the spirit of Ray Harryhausen, (who Bradbury was a friend and fan of) some green screen, and some VFX animation we would create original content that would come to life as if it was its own character taking part in the performance.
To illustrate the magic of that journey, I put together this behind-the-scenes mini-documentary all about how we did it. I hope you’ll give it a watch.
Ray Bradbury LIVE (forever) truly did seem like Ray’s spirit was working behind the scenes from the great beyond to bring everything together. We felt him with us, clearing the way. It turns out that Dave still had the Ferris wheel he had created, along with all the miniature carnival booths and because he had never signed off on anything, there were no barriers to us shooting new footage that we could use.
Originally, Bill thought that he would use old footage from the silent film version of The Lost World, which is now in the public domain, to illustrate the classic Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder about a group of hunters who travel back in time to kill a tyrannosaurus rex. I saw it as an opportunity to build a forced perspective tabletop miniature out of household materials. I believe the effect worked out very well if I do say so myself. By the way, I have a whole playlist of these videos you can see by clicking HERE.
Other creators were jumping in to help, too. My friend Val Mayerik, who is most famously known as the co-creator of Howard the Duck and for his work on Conan the Barbarian comic books, wanted to create a hand-painted poster for the show. He also created cave paintings based on a dream that Bill had for the opening of the play, where firelight bounced off of rock walls but instead of depictions of prehistoric life, we see Martians and Dark Carnivals.
Artist Chris Young came in and recreated the author’s childhood home of Greentown and its library which was featured in the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Once it was all complete it was timed and edited along with an original score by composer Brian Lee to match Bill’s performance.
Thus, on March 22nd, 2019 we congregated at the historic South Pasadena Library for our premiere.
It was a magical day, watching Bill have a prosthetic applied by makeup artist Robert Bravo to give him more of an approximation to Ray’s likeness, seeing him rehearse the entire thing before anyone showed up. Then, the doors opened and the audience arrived, many of whom were friends of Bradbury’s in life. The weather was perfect, the atmosphere electric, the lights went down, the music qued, and then the man himself road to the stage on an old Schwinn bicycle.
The show was a huge success. The audience laughed, screamed, and cheered all in the right places. Like any live performance, Bill made adjustments as he took it on tour, tweaking things here and there according to audience response, as well as making it more accessible to people who weren’t as familiar with who Ray Bradbury was and why his books matter. After Covid hit the shows stopped but now I’m told that in 2022 it will return in yet another incarnation.
I hope to talk to Bill about that in the near future because I’m sure I have as many new ideas for it as he does.
To learn all about the show go to https://raybradburyliveforever.com/
Listen to my interview with Bradbury 100 for the expanded story, by clicking HERE.
There’s more in store for me, Bill, and Ray. Want to follow the adventure? Be sure to subscribe to me on my other social media...
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Excellent.