Pace Egg Plays: Easter Eggsperiments

Pace Egg plays are medieval mystery plays from rural Northern England. The plays involve heroes, villains, mock combat and reincarnation. They were performed by Pace Eggers, who sometimes received gifts of decorated eggs from villagers who watched.

To explore the theme while keeping the sense of mystery, even for us, the creators, we used AI to generate both the story and the visuals for this experimentation.

The play itself we wrote using ChatGPT and later fed into OpenAI on discord to create the visual storyboards that were later layered using Photoshop and Spline to create interactive parallax theatrical scenes.

What does it all mean? It’s a mystery to us.

Having never used Midjourney prior to this experiment, it seemed exciting to join up on the basic plan, giving us 100 prompts to create our 8 needed story images.

This limitation provided room to experiment but meant we needed to learn the basics quickly and ensure we were not self-indulgent on specific images to ensure we had enough prompts to complete the brief.

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SLIDESHOW LEFT//
SELECTION OF IMAGES IN RESPONSE TO OUR PROMPTS

"For each of our 8 needed images, we limited ourselves to 5 prompt attempts which included remixes, variations and up-scaling needed to create the final workable image."

COPY RIGHT//
CHATGPT PROMPT TO WRITE THE MEDIEVAL PLAY

"In around 200 words .

Write a rhyming medieval mystery play .

Set in the Rural north of England at Easter .

Featuring a fight between a hero and villain .

Where the hero is killed and later brought back to life

and receives gifts from the local villagers."

The Easter Resurrection of Sir Edward:
A Medieval Mystery Play

By ChatGPT

Act 1: The Prelude

In rural north, at Easter tide,

A village fair, with cheer and pride.

But lurking danger, a wicked plot,

As Baron Blackwood enters the spot.

Act 2: The Confrontation

Sir Edward, a hero bold and true,

Confronts the Baron, with steel in view.

Blades clash and clang, with deadly intent,

Sir Edward falls, to the ground he's sent.

Act 3: The Mourning

The villagers weep, their hero slain,

Baron Blackwood, his evil reign.

The Easter feast, with somber tone,

The villagers fear, they're all alone.

Act 4: The Miracle

But lo! A woman, with powers rare,

Brings back Sir Edward, with her magic fair.

Revived from death, he rises anew,

Ready to fight, with heart so true.

Act 5: The Redemption

Baron Blackwood, his sword unsheathed,

A final fight, his life bequeathed.

Sir Edward triumphs, but shows mercy,

And forgives the Baron, with grace so worthy.

The villagers cheer, their hero restored,

Sir Edward humbled, his heart adored.

Gifts they bring, with grateful hearts,

Armour, bread, and banners of art.

Thus, the play ends, with joyous cheer,

The hero, the villain, all now clear.

Good triumphs, over evil, ever so bright,

In the rural north, on that Easter night.

The End

ChatGPT

We took 5 attempts to get the story we wanted. Once we asked it to tell us in bard rhyming style, it instantly felt more theatrical and something we could play with. The request for it to sound Shakespearean never really worked, nor did asking for it to be funny.

Midjourney

Having never used Midjourney until this project, it was hard to get our heads around a prompting and daisy-chain approach to creating what you actually want to see.

For this project, we were more interested in seeing what the core response to our requests would be, keeping post editing to a minimum and not collage the responses.

Spline

To make the output more visually interesting, we separated the key elements out in Photoshop and create a parallax interactive by layering the PNG elements in Spline and setting the whole group to follow the mouse's movement.

Pace Egg plays are medieval mystery plays from rural Northern England. The plays involve heroes, villains, mock combat and reincarnation. They were performed by Pace Eggers, who sometimes received gifts of decorated eggs from villagers who watched.

"For each of our 8 needed images, we limited ourselves to 5 prompt attempts which included remixes, variations and up-scaling needed to create the final workable image."

"In around 200 words . Write a rhyming medieval mystery play . Set in the Rural north of England at Easter . Featuring a fight between a hero and villain . Where the hero is killed and later brought back to life and receives gifts from the local villagers."

The Easter Resurrection of Sir Edward: A Medieval Mystery Play By ChatGPT

Act 1: The Prelude In rural north, at Easter tide, A village fair, with cheer and pride. But lurking danger, a wicked plot, As Baron Blackwood enters the spot.

Act 2: The Confrontation Sir Edward, a hero bold and true, Confronts the Baron, with steel in view. Blades clash and clang, with deadly intent, Sir Edward falls, to the ground he's sent.

Act 3: The Mourning The villagers weep, their hero slain, Baron Blackwood, his evil reign. The Easter feast, with somber tone, The villagers fear, they're all alone.

Act 4: The Miracle But lo! A woman, with powers rare, Brings back Sir Edward, with her magic fair. Revived from death, he rises anew, Ready to fight, with heart so true.

Act 5: The Redemption Baron Blackwood, his sword unsheathed, A final fight, his life bequeathed. Sir Edward triumphs, but shows mercy, And forgives the Baron, with grace so worthy.

The villagers cheer, their hero restored, Sir Edward humbled, his heart adored. Gifts they bring, with grateful hearts, Armour, bread, and banners of art.

Thus, the play ends, with joyous cheer, The hero, the villain, all now clear. Good triumphs, over evil, ever so bright, In the rural north, on that Easter night.