The company Proyecciones Digitales took theatrical scenography to another dimension with Christie's mapping projection in the musical Franciscus, with a mapped area of 480 square meters.
By Christie
Franciscus is a musical that tells two stories that intertwine, the work takes place in two parallel timelines. The first, in a current era, in which a mother as a result of extreme circumstances tests her convictions, thus questioning her values and her faith. In the second, we see the birth and journey that St. Francis of Assisi makes in his own inner search.
This Argentine musical ended a successful season in November 2016 at the Broadway Theater in Buenos Aires. The work had an unprecedented technical deployment in South America and included a spectacular scenography mapped by 11 projectors of Christie's Series H and Q, designed by the company Proyecciones Digitales.
For two hours, impressive light resources were deployed, eight simultaneous mapped projections of the highest quality, a live band, acrobatics of height and a striking costume. More than 50 artists on stage, 12 live musicians, 40 technicians, seven costume designers for 600 costume changes and thousands of stimuli that made this work the Latin American musical of the year.
"Franciscus was conceived from its inception as a multidisciplinary show. In this sense, the scenic video is the resource that allows us to work on many scenographic aspects, but also narrative, cinematographic and musical passages. We believe that only with the use of this resource can we print dynamics and modernity to a story located between the Middle Ages and the present time," explained Maxi Vecco, co-general director and scenic video designer of the work.
The project involved mapping the entire scenery, of approximately 480 square meters of projection on eight different levels: two side walls that advance from the stage to the stalls, the mouth, four levels of legs, a Peroni tulle and a break in the middle of the stage. In addition, a 12 x 6.5 meter LED screen located at the bottom of the stage had to be integrated into the mapping.
"The client's request was not only to map the scenery, highlighting its depth, but also to generate the illusion of a single screen in a single plane for the projection of several films, despite the different levels and angles of the surfaces on which it is projected," said Laura Molina, manager of the Special Projects division of Digital Projections.
The Argentine company designed the entire technique, from the generation of the templates for the deformation and adaptation of the videos to the mapping, as well as which projectors to use, where to install them, the types of lenses, what concentration of light was going to be achieved, the pixel sizes, how to calibrate the image to the different surfaces and textures of projection and how to synchronize the different video queues with the sound and light console.
Specifically, nine Christie D12WU-H projectors (WUXGA resolution, 12,000 center lumens) and two Christie DXG1051-Q (XGA resolution, 10,400 center lumens) were used. They were located on a rod at the height of the Super Pullman, and special supports were developed to be able to mount groups of two projectors in tandem. Some projectors were used in portrait mode. In total, they generated a whopping 130,000 lumens on stage and produced a total resolution of 20,000,000 RGB pixels.
"We recommend Christie projectors for their image quality, versatility in assembly and calibration software and reliability in their operation. The challenge was very great and we needed proven and reliable equipment that would deliver high quality reproductions. Also because of the need to use some portrait projections and because of the client's requirement that we offer him equipment of recognized international prestige. These qualities of Christie justified our choice and allow us to masterfully carry out this project," said Laura Molina of Proyecciones Digitales.
For the reproduction of the content, four video servers were used, one of control of the system and the other three as players for sending signals to each projector. Thanks to the video servers it was achieved that despite having an LED screen and eight other different projection planes, the illusion was generated that it was a single screen.
In conclusion, Maxi Vecco said about the mapping: "The image quality is striking, very sharp and colorful. It manages to match perfectly with the lighting and the LED screen. The projections give Franciscus visual poetry and a high level of production."
For his part, Juan Carlos Chávez, Christie's director for Latin America, said: "We are delighted that our 1DLP projectors are a fundamental part of this musical that is having an overwhelming success in Argentina."
