# 016 — Stage Ghost

## Problem situation

Actors, directors, and stage managers record blocking as text annotations in script margins — abbreviations like "X DSR" and "cross to USC on line 42." In complex scenes with multiple actors, the spatial relationships between people at any given moment are completely invisible. Text is the wrong medium for spatial information. You can't "read" a five-person scene's blocking from margin notes without mentally simulating every position.

## What was built

A spatial-temporal blocking scrubber. A stage diagram shows actor positions as dots. Scrubbing a timeline moves actors through the scene, with ghost trails showing their full movement paths. Each cue shows dialogue, direction notes, and who's onstage. Clicking an actor highlights their individual path.

Demo scene: a four-person dramatic scene with entrances, crosses, confrontation geometry, an exit, and a final triangle tableau.

## Why this form

Blocking is inherently spatial — where bodies are in space relative to each other and the stage. The only native form for reviewing blocking is a spatial one. The scrubber makes the temporal sequence navigable rather than fixed, so you can move forward and backward through a scene the way you'd mentally walk through it.

The form is not a list, not a board, not a viewer. It's a spatial-temporal player — a genuinely different artifact shape.

## What is interesting

The ghost trails are the real discovery. As you scrub forward, the accumulated movement paths create a visual record of how the scene's spatial story unfolds. You can immediately see:
- Who moved the most vs. who held position
- How the stage geometry shifted (pairs to triangle to confrontation to final tableau)
- Where entrances and exits happened
- The overall spatial rhythm of the scene

The presence dots on the timeline show cast changes at a glance — you can see exactly when Kai enters and Sonia exits without reading any text.

## Iterations

- v1.0: Stage diagram, scrubber, ghost trails, actor selection, cue info, keyboard navigation
- v1.1: Added play/auto-scrub, presence dot strip on timeline showing who's onstage at each cue, spacebar support

## Next step

Add drag-to-reposition actors directly on the stage so directors can sketch blocking visually instead of describing it in text. Test whether the spatial representation becomes more useful for creating blocking, not just reviewing it.

## Art direction note

Default Night Lab direction: dark editorial, Geist + mono, monochrome palette. The stage area uses near-black with extremely subtle grid lines and zone labels — the actors and their trails are the only elements that demand attention. Ghost trails use dashed lines at low opacity, strengthening on actor selection.

## Promotion candidate read

Maybe. The form is genuinely native to the problem in a way that feels right — spatial info should be spatial. The ghost trail mechanic is a real discovery. But it needs interactive editing (drag actors, create cues) to become more than a reading instrument. If it earned that, it could be a strong promotion candidate.
