LONDON — Kasper Holten, the Royal Opera House’s director of opera, used projection on a rotating stage to bring a recent production of Mozart’s classic Don Giovanni to life. The creative team included Es Devlin (stage design) and Luke Halls (video design). The visual narrative got an assist from d3 Technologies.
More details from d3 (www.d3technologies.com):
Devlin and Halls worked out a fluid, malleable way to tell the story of Don Giovanni’s seducing ways by turning to video projections as a key visual.
worked out a fluid, malleable way to tell the story of Don Giovanni’s seducing ways by turning to video projections as a key visual.
With a two-story high, constantly revolving house featuring doors, windows and staircases as a key stage element, Kasper and his team decided early on to use this as a blank canvas, with projections forming the main visuals throughout the production. A technically challenging project, d3 was chosen for the entire process, from simulation & show design to sequencing and delivery.
By using d3 from start to finish, the entire team was able to use d3’s 3D stage simulator to explore, develop and test looks for the stage as if it were a moving storyboard. d3 works on the outset of video content being created on the basis of a 3D model, giving extremely high accuracy in projection, even with moving objects.
With Es Devlin’s design, the 3D object of the set element was carefully created, after which the UV textures were ‘unwrapped’ to form a 2D content template. Luke Halls, famous for his video work on the 2012 Olympics and U2, then used these pixel-perfect templates as guidelines to create his designs. d3 works in real-time. As the content is made for the 3D object rather than on basis of rendered out content made from the point of view of the projector, the creative and technical team at the Royal Opera House were even able to use the developing projections during rehearsals in a smaller space with a short-throw lens.
Starting with d3 Designer, d3’s software-only solution suitable for laptops, Luke, Es and Kasper could work on different looks for the stage. Once rehearsals started, d3 4U v2.5’s were used to output the video. The show operation saw d3 being controlled through a High End Systems Hog 4 lighting console. This helped save time as the production moved from the rehearsal space to the main stage.
Will Harding, Production Manager at the Royal Opera House said “I was very impressed by d3’s product, it allowed us to undertake something we would never have attempted with a different system, and proved to be very reliable and quick to set up onstage.”
After an initial run, which ended earlier this spring, Don Giovanni will return to the Royal Opera House from June 12 to July 3, 2015. For more information, please visit www.roh.org.uk.
Don Giovanni Design Team:
Set Design: Es Devlin
Video Design: Luke Halls
Royal Opera House Team:
Director of Opera: Kasper Holten
Production Manager: Will Harding
Video Programmer: Gareth Shelton
Gear:
1 d3 4U v2.5
1 Hog 4 lighting console
1 Panasonic PT-DS20K
