Well-known lighting designer, Durham Marenghi, has created the lighting design for a wide variety of theatre, opera, dance, trade, fashion, visitor experience, architectural, concert, live event, and television productions worldwide. Recently Durham sent us his pitch for the Doha Opening Ceremonies in video form with directions on how he did it all using wysiwyg. This project required many steps and layers and Durham’s How-To explanation is very detailed.
Let’s see how his pitch was created, in his own words.
DOHA OPENING CEREMONIES CONCEPT HOW-TO
“The base image photo was taken of the shorefront by Google. I placed this image onto a surface in wysiwyg and The Tornado building with the dots, which had fixtures embedded into it with chases created in Live Mode using Chroma Q Vista. I taught myself how to use this during the pandemic.
I created screen surfaces on some of the city buildings and ran a suitable themed video on them, found on YouTube. The illuminated Burj building was blacked out of the picture, and I added a reflective surface to the water area in the foreground, then created a camera path tracking a camera target point in wysiwyg to make the animation zoom slowly like what a broadcast would show.
I made the base animation with my Fraps screen recorder. Next, I created a model of the illuminated Burj building and applied video to it and recorded the result using the exact same camera track as the base. The lasers we placed atop the building layer and finally, the searchlights, taking care not to make them unrealistically bright to manage client expectations.
So, once I had recorded all the different layers with FRAPS (or a similar screen video grabber) I stitched it together with a video editor to overlay the different effects, again controlling the brightness carefully to keep it real.”
Why the creation of layers? Why not do all the effects in one go?
“The answer here is a frame drop.
If we try and render too much information at once in Shaded View, even with a high-spec gaming PC, the camera move will jitter, and we lose realism. By working in layers, we can incorporate the works of others in different animation software, if our camera angles are in sync.
Finally, when the client wants to change one element in the presentation, we can easily edit that specific layer without having to re-render every element in the film each time we make a change.
Again, adding screens and blacking out the top of the Tornado building so I could overlay some effects, it’s amazing how small details like screens and basic architectural lighting can lure the mind into a reality that does not actually exist. When we add the building lights, the lighting effects layers all move with a common camera track and are created in Shaded View in Design Mode for simple programming or Live Mode and connected to a lighting desk for more complex lighting effects.
For scene three, I took another city shot from Google, added screens, and blacked out the illuminated Burj. I added the Burj with a video. Laser, lights, and some drones were rendered for me by Sky Magic. For the final scene, I went with the widest picture I could find at a decent resolution. I added the screens, and this time added some twinkling stars in the nightscape, subtle differences to fool the mind. Add lights and lasers and for the Grand Finale, a fireworks layer was created by Titanium.”
All the elements to make the full presentation
“I found a nice view of the Corniche from the Museum of Islamic Art as a recognizable vista to introduce the video, some regional music with a nice tempo, and off I went, the Cecil B De Milne of the wysiwyg World!
Once this was presented to the Supreme Committee, the client requested several updates. I sent this slide to the Drone company GEO, whom I had been working on some pitches in Dubai, and they created this animation which we replaced the falcon sequence with. Again, we only had to update that one layer.
The original green laser effects created in wysiwyg needed further development so ER Productions produced this layer to insert into the next edit.
Inevitably, the client asked for a change.
The requested change was embedded in the base background surface and the videos from YouTube were replaced by some more appropriate laser scanning, again kindly produced for me by ER.
At this time, we learned that the Supreme Committee in Doha had gone with another concept, which was disappointing. The good news though was that our client, CSM Live, persuaded the committee in Doha to provide a budget for creative work on the concepts. We were fully paid for this animation work and the subsequent updates, which we could turn around in 24 hours using the layered technique.
Although it was a disappointing outcome, I was invited to light the World Cup Opening and Closing Ceremonies. We are headed to Doha and are interested to see what they will be doing along the Corniche.”
Despite Durham’s pitch not being accepted for the Doha Opening Ceremonies, he was still asked to contribute his skills to the Opening Ceremonies, and we are excited to see the work he does and thank him for sharing his techniques with us for this video.
If you are interested in learning more from Durham himself, we hosted a webinar a while back on how to turn CAD into CASH with great tips and tricks from someone who has been using wysiwyg since its infancy.
WEBINAR LINK: https://academy.cast-soft.com/courses/webinar-Turning-CAD-into-CASH
MORE ABOUT DURHAM MARENGHI
WEBSITE: https://durhamld.com/