WORDS KATIE KASPERSON
O ne of Britain’s most successful reality shows, BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing pairs celebrities with professional dancers who perform for a panel of judges as well as a national audience. Fresh off its 22nd series, the programme blends live dancing with bold backgrounds and VFX, elevating each performance for everyone who tunes in. This year, Strictly added virtual and augmented reality and floor projections, which matched to each dance number, whether a spicy salsa or a slow ballroom waltz. These graphics – provided by JP Motion and TetraVP – were essential in maintaining Strictly ’s status as a hit show. STICKING TO THE SCHEDULE The team included JP Motion’s Joe Phillips (whose credits include The X Factor and
For 22 years, reality ballroom show Strictly Come Dancing has dominated the BBC’s Saturday evening slot. Its latest series was all the more magical thanks to LED and AR graphics by JP Motion and TetraVP
The Masked Singer ), TetraVP co-founder Oleks Skrypnyk and lighting director David Bishop ( Britain’s Got Talent , The X Factor ), so Strictly was in good hands. Together, they populated the stage’s LED screens and dance floor with images while delivering additional AR graphics, rendered in real time via Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and DVS-supplied servers. As Strictly airs twice weekly – with Saturday evening seeing the contestants perform – the graphics team faced tight turnaround times and heavy workloads. They worked roughly a week in advance, creating, refining and loading graphics for three or four dance routines per show. In a typical week, the producers would send a brief on Sunday or Monday, review graphics on Wednesday, load them on Thursday, rehearse on Friday and air on Saturday – then do it all over again
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