Animals On Parade In Disney's Rivers Of Light

A nighttime spectacle and lantern festival, Rivers Of Light celebrates the majesty, diversity, and wonders of the animal kingdom in a magical and immersive experience. It is fitting, since Rivers Of Light combines music, water, projection, and light at Disney’s Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, in a 15-minute show performed up to three times nightly for an audience of 5,000 guests. Michael Jung is the creative director for the show. Read about the show's technical challenges according to principal technical director Chuck Davis and its lighting design by Ryan Gravilla.

Animals On Parade

Michael Curry, production designer for Rivers Of Light, has enjoyed a 23-year relationship with Disney Parks worldwide, and his studio has designed and participated in more than 50 Disney parades, shows, and productions, from initial concept to facilities consideration, target audience consideration, story, music event themes, and finally the production itself.

For Rivers Of Light, Curry imagined what the promise of Disney’s Animal Kingdom should be. “Creative director Michael Jung gave me a wide berth in imagining show ideas and methods of delivery,” he notes. “We knew animals and nature were the key. My affinity for animals quickly became a design theme. We knew a procession of animals would be appropriate. The notion of a nighttime show led us to the beauty and illumination of lanterns, developing a themed cast of characters that would eventually include animal lantern barges, flower-themed effects barges, human-themed light ships, and the Mother Lotus barge. All of this was envisioned as a highly mobile, virtuosic tribute to the power and beauty of nature—nature’s wonders rendered by our theatre techniques.”

 

All of the floating scenic elements are highly programmable in terms of lighting control and mobility on the lagoon itself, which provides the large stage environment needed for such floats. “Great consideration was then given to the physical lagoon and the audience placement and viewpoint,” says Curry. “The magical environment includes great, versatile lighting, projection on a variety of water screens, and laser projection throughout. The music was scored to the theme of nature and the dynamics of the effects throughout.”

From a technical perspective, the LEDs used on the floats are a pixel-mapped system that can be thought of as a giant animal-shaped video screen. “Each RGB LED can be individually controlled, which creates a canvas upon which the animal lanterns can be painted with light,” Curry points out. “Each animal barge contains between 8,000 and 10,000 individual pixels. These pixels are controlled by an onboard video server, which is then wirelessly synchronized with the movements of the barges, projection, other lighting systems, automation, and sound systems to create a seamless performance.” 

The floats are an important focus within the show. As Curry explains, “They are the dancers on a stage that can constantly transform, providing the surprises found in nature itself. It is important in a large environmental stage to strive to unify all the components into a bite-size gesture for the audience. We worked to create the unquestionable grandeur of nature without becoming too technical or slick. Delivering a simple emotion with thousands of complicated parts is what Disney does better than anyone.”                                                                                                                                      

For more, read the June 2017 issue of Live Design.