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F rom a childhood love of magic to directing large-scale immersive experiences, Filipe Carvalho is a creative force who has carved a unique path as both an illusionist and creative director. His work spans Disney, Secret Cinema, arena tours for 50 Cent and Kacey Musgraves, and redefining iconic IPs like Back to the Future and Batman . Known for transforming simple tricks into jaw-dropping moments, Carvalho thrives on collaboration, audience anticipation and exploring the meaning of ‘immersive’. His story is proof that magic, when paired with vision, can become unforgettable experience.
Interview Verity Butler
Being both an illusionist and director is certainly a niche profession. What led you here? It all started with magic and illusions, which have been my hobby since the age of five. I think the first time I saw someone do a magic trick, it just blew my mind. I was fascinated about how it was done, and usually the how was quite simple. The fact something so simple could create such a ‘wow’ moment was the big hook for me. Then from magic, I got into theatre direction. When I was 18, I produced Annie: The Musical in Portugal. Projects such as this gave me the background of what I wanted to do. Instead of becoming an electronics engineer, which is what my parents wanted me to be, I decided I wanted to find something I was going to enjoy and really want to do – rather than just doing something for the sake of it. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a producer. I researched the best places to go and decided to come to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2007, which proved to have an incredible theatre technology course. You do stage management as well as all the technical side of theatre such as sound and lighting. This gave everyone a broad understanding of the contribution of each department to a show, then in the second and third years you would specialise into what you want to do. In my case, I chose production. I wanted to know how shows were put together, which is what I did for the early parts of my career. I worked as a stage manager, a production coordinator – did all sorts of events management as well, which included festivals, musicals and immersive shows. At some stage, I started to miss the creative side of things and so decided to focus on going back towards that. One of the shows I did was Dinosaurs in the Wild! – one of the biggest immersive shows being done at the time. It had the original producer of Walking with
Dinosaurs – a big arena show – on board. We opened in Birmingham, then did Manchester, and it stayed in London for about six months. The show expanded my background in immersive hugely immersive, and from there the illusion side started to come in too. I got the opportunity to be illusions associate for Mickey and the Magician at Disneyland Paris; it was the first time I got to use my understanding of magic principles in a professional setting. I loved it. That was when I realised that I could merge all my theatrical know-how – from technical to acting – and my background with magic into one. After the Disney job, I got asked to do more and more shows, and my career morphed into what it is today. I’m now a creative director for live shows, and I specialise in immersive and was a big learning curve. That was my springboard into content – including the concept. I’m also involved in creating specific illusions for live shows, immersive experiences and concert events. Without spoiling too much of the magic, could you tell us a bit more about your illusions work? Professionally, my first role was as an illusions associate for Disneyland Paris. I also worked on Back to the Future: The Musical , which was a great collaboration with Chris Fisher, who’s also an illusions designer. I enjoyed that one a lot because I got to do all the magic and AV workshops for it as well. One of the biggest tasks was working out how to get the DeLorean car to move at the same time as the projection. Then, on the magic side, we got to do some really cool stuff too. One of the jobs was to make the DeLorean appear out of nowhere. I can’t exactly reveal how we did it, but it involved technology and a very good understanding of how lighting works. Haze is an illusionist’s best friend – it’s a combination of lighting, projection and haze that allows you to achieve such incredible results.
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