Behind the Cover: Chinese Influence
Creating scenery with graphics and light
Published in April 2010 behind the cover | Departments
Creating scenery with graphics and light
Effi Shoua of Firefly LA, an award-winning multimedia design house, created more than a dozen different scenes for a private event that literally colored the room with Chinese-themed graphics.
The event, a reception accompanying the premiere of an exhibit of the works of Chinese artist and photographer Quentin Shih, included food, drink and entertainment. Jeff Brown of Brown Hot Events (brownhotevents.com) hired Shoua to create the “scenery” for the event—scenery that needed to change in stages.
“We did 12 or 13 different scenes,” Shoua says. “Something for the reception, something during each performance.”
After research online and using Chinese art books, Firefly’s graphic design department (managed by Shoua’s wife) created images that used a variety of Chinese elements.
Shoua used just four special film projectors to create the effects he wanted on the interior surface of the standard tent used for the reception. Before the event, Firefly’s team took shots of the tent and figured out the angles of the light beams. The graphics were developed on a special film, to be used in the projectors.
The four projectors were connected via a DMX cable during the vent, so they all followed the same queues and could fade in and out with the images in the right order. “I use the same technique on large surfaces, big buildings and domes,” Shoua says.
Every 20–25 minutes, the projected images changed, so the “scenery” was constantly changing. “We let the people feel the different art work, and then moved into a different one,” Shoua says. “It really gave an incredible ambience to the event.”
He says Brown told him later that the event would have been “pale” without the imagery, instead of the colorful success it was.