Earlier this year, and for the second consecutive year, Adrian Smith from DESIGNSTAGE was commissioned by Joel Joan, president of the Academy of Catalan Cinema as artistic director, stage designer, and co-director for the Premios Gaudi (Catalan Film Awards).
Smith had to create a unique show using video mapping, with the main objective of surprising the audience and breaking the conventions of traditional award ceremonies. Smith brought in collaborator Mathieu Felix of multimedia and communication design studio Tigrelab to help bring the stage to life.
The award show opened with a three-minute video (see above clip) that visually distorted and played with the stage space using mapped video footage. According to Smith, the goal was to "build up the set as a temple where the show’s host would finally appear," he says. "A big issue we had to take into account was the stage positions of the actors and TV cameras, so as not to project onto the faces of the winners as they spoke, yet allowing the cameras to get great backgrounds when they took close-up shots.
"The set design was made up of 3x6x6m walls covered in three-dimensional polystyrene panels which created a strong 3D look to the set which enhanced the effect for when we started the mapping," continues Smith. "The set later revealed multiple entrances and a 16:9 back projection screen used especially for the different award categories."
To project onto the stage set, the team used one Christie Digital Roaster S+20K projector supported by two Mac Pro computers. "To create the space distortion, we used the VJ sotfware Modul8 with the mapping module MadMapper plus a lot of our additional code to create and enhance the effects we wanted to achieve," says Smith.
To experiment with the animations and the geometry effects in advance, Smith and his team built a 1/10 model (see "making of" clip below). "This model enabled us to coordinate the whole look of the show, allowing us to see the different looks using the projections Tigrelab had created," says Smith. "The technology we used allowed the audience to be part of a huge living stage set. Using this technological approach, we were able to change the whole ambiance, starting from the technological black-and-white show to the gold and glamorous sets for the awards."
CREDITS
Director: Joel Joan
Co-Direction and Artistic Direction : Adrian Smith (DESIGNSTAGE)
Video Mapping: Tigrelab
Javier Pinto and Mathieu Felix, Directors
Roman Torre, Digital Artist
Pelayo Méndez, Creative Coder
Fritz Gnad, Motion Design
Guillaume Caron, Animator
Carlos Fesser, Sound Design
Production: Martin Carranza
Projection Company: BAF
Set Construction: The Kraken Project
Television Broadcaster: Television de Catalunya
Script: Albert Plans and Hector Hernandez