IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
32
One of the most
by David Howe, working with design studio 808 Create and equipment supplied by White Light. “There’s been a huge amount of work in the design phase,” says Simon Reveley, CEO of Layered Reality. “We had to take all of these complex ideas into the room to figure out how the hell we would try to blend amazing lighting with all of this projection and LED.” That’s no small feat when your toolkit includes high-definition LED walls, 360° projection and multilayer gauze effects, in different combinations depending on the scene. “At the start of the show,” says Pirie, “we drop you into the forties in Tupelo, Mississippi during a summer storm. Gauzes and projection help to create those expansive, rural landscapes.” Elsewhere, the team play around with illusion and presence. “We love that blurry line,” Pirie says. “There’s something magical about being able to step into a room where you can’t tell whether you’re watching something
to a new place just like it did for him.” The show’s focus around sensory detail extends to the smells, movement and haptics woven into performance. In a sequence set on a labourer’s train through Mississippi, audience members can feel the rumble beneath their feet, the rush of air and even the scent of sun-drenched earth after rain. “We’re thinking about everything from scent dispersal – bourbon in Beale Street blues bars – to haptics and fans for recreating physical sensations,” says Pirie. “What did the blues smell like in fifties Memphis? What did it feel like to be on a train rolling through the countryside? That’s what we’re trying to evoke.”
central visual moments is the finale: an explosive, multilayered dream sequence showing Elvis in different stages of his life
LIGHTING, PROJECTION AND BLENDED WORLDS
Creating immersive environments means balancing light and shadow, physical sets, live performers, digital illusions and virtual landscapes. That complex task fell to a lighting team led
Powered by FlippingBook