Real people in computer-generated, virtual sets were used by art professor Lynn Hershman in her film about Ada Byron King, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron and creator of the first computer program.

ART FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN FILM How appropriate that a movie about the woman who developed the first computer language be made using backgrounds that exist only in a PhotoShop software file. Lynn Hershman, professor of art at UC Davis, shot her first feature film, Conceiving Ada, using a technique that she has patented--one that uses real people in virtual settings. The film is about Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Living in Victorian England, she wrote the first computer program--a method of mathematical calculation that could be used to make predictions. She experimented with her program, using it to bet on horse races, and lost the family fortune. She died at the age of 36, the same age as her father at the time of his death. Though the U.S. government acknowledges her role in the computer revolution--the U.S. Department of Defense named a programming language Ada in 1979--her ingenuity remains largely unrecognized. "A lot of things I do are about people who are invisible," said Hershman, "and Ada Byron King is an example of this. She created the first computer program, and no one has even heard of her. I thought it would be perfect to tell her story by using the technology she invented and creating a special design for her story." Hershman first screened the film--which she wrote, directed and produced--on Sept. 12 at the Toronto International Film Festival. "We got an overwhelmingly positive reaction in Toronto," said Hershman. A reviewer from the Toronto Star said Hershman "achieves wonders with digital technology, virtual sets, an absorbing script and a startling performance, as usual, by Tilda Swinton, who plays Ada." The film will also be shown at the Berlin Film Festival next year and will be featured on the festival poster. Actors in the movie, in addition to Tilda Swinton, star of Orlando, include Karen Black and Timothy Leary, in his final film appearance. The film was funded by French and German television companies, with the music provided by the San Francisco group the Residents. The director of photography is Hiro Narita, cinematographer for James and the Giant Peach. Hershman, who has an extensive background in video art, filmed the actors against an entirely blue background, while the sets were created from 385 scanned photographs. The actors could see the backgrounds on a monitor, so they could decide how to position themselves relative to the finished scene. Hershman explains that the actors and the sets are combined while the filming is taking place. In this way, Hershman's technique differs from traditional blue-screen work, in which the backgrounds are added later, providing no opportunity for the actors to work with the set. The actual shooting took place in only six days, but post-production work continued for a year. She said that the many equipment donations she received from companies like Sony helped keep the costs down considerably, allowing her to make the film for less than $1 million. Her virtual set technique will open doors for independent filmmakers on limited budgets. Hershman gratefully acknowledges all the help she got from the students at UC Davis, especially those involved in the IDEA (the Inter-Disciplinary Electronic Arts ) lab that she created. Set up by Hershman in 1995, the IDEA lab is devoted to technological developments in the arts, such as photography and videography, and applications for the World Wide Web. Hershman plans to bring her film to UC Davis. "I hope to screen the film at UC Davis soon, maybe around the same time as the San Francisco film festival, in April."