Video design | Theatre | Ballet | Content | Show programming | Media servers
Background
Gene Kelly’s pioneering choreography and much-loved style influenced a generation and left huge creative legacy. As one of the first choreographers to bring the ‘American style’ to Europe, the legendary Kelly was invited to create an original work for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1960.
In collaboration with Kelly’s widow, Patricia Ward Kelly, Scottish Ballet’s CEO/Artistic Director Christopher Hampson and designer Lez Brotherston (The Snow Queen, The Secret Theatre) have lovingly revived the original ballet. Escape to the glamour and grace of Paris, 1960.
Step into the studio, watch the dancers warm up and hear the piano start to play – a new show is taking shape...
The challenge
Whenever we are asked to partner with Matt and the team at Scottish Ballet, there are always a few puzzles to overcome, but this is why we love working with them. Lez Brotherston had designed a beautiful set to resemble the inside of a soundstage from the 1960’s, with a gantry thrusting out from the stage left set wall.
The challenge here was how to project full height and width on both stage left and right whilst also being very much aware that we couldn’t just front project due to shadows from the dancers and also the many pieces of flown set, including a TAIT engineered, travelling hot air balloon basket on the downstage edge. This alongside making content in keeping with the 1960’s theme, which also included totally restoring an original picture of Gene Kelly himself on the stairs of the Palais Garnier.
The solution
Many projects make light work. Utilising all the Scottish Ballet 16K projectors and some more, we managed to projection map around various bits of set and props to ensure that we covered the entirety of the upstage walls. With the flexibility of the Karst+ MK2’s which were driving content, mapping became an absolute cinch.
With our in-house 3D teams creating to-scale models for us to be able to place projectors in 3d space really was the key to success in this project and also using NDI to feed inputs into 3D was a flawless workflow.
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Ben Hyman, Senior Project Manager
Conclusion
It was fantastic to continue our long relationship with Matt and his team at Scottish Ballet. This show now creating a new history for Gene Kelly and Scottish Ballet. This is a showpiece to how both our Projects Team and Creative Department can really complement each other’s skill sets to create a fantastic and memorable moment for each audience member whether live in the theatres or with its broadcast on the small screen.
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