INDUSTRY ICONS
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mirroring that back in terms of mood boards and concept stories, developing a common understanding of what we are creating before moving to the next step. We work in 3D – everything is drawn in AutoCAD 3D and animated 3D. As you can probably see, the renders are a big part of what we do and how we work. The renders are not just pretty Photoshop collages, but actual 3D, so they can be as precise as possible. With CAD drawings, I aim to highlight where the problems are. All these discussions and little issues are so much easier to have before you go out on site – and a lot cheaper! Avoiding problems on site, where time is extremely limited, makes the pre-production key – and is where we are strong in catching all the problems. When I worked with Mark, we always said that, if anything needed to be changed on site, then we’ve not done a very good job. You have been referred to as the ‘Queen of Eurovision’. Could you share your Eurovision experience? Since 2014, I’ve been lucky enough to work with many delegations where they’ve come to me to deliver their performance on the show. There are three performances in particular that I’m incredibly proud of. One is Latvia from 2015, which turned out to be an absolutely stunning show. It didn’t rate anywhere prior to the broadcast, which made it a project where I realised how much power the visuals have. After the first rehearsal, she went straight to the top. It was one of those projects where everything just aligned. Also, there was Australia from 2016 in Stockholm, where they nearly won. Dami Im was so fantastic to work with and she worked so hard. As a Korean-Norwegian representing Australia in Eurovision – there were just so many steps that she leaped over to get there. From every performance, she just got better and better. In terms of AV, that was a really challenging performance because they were introducing a brand-new kind of projection netting. The performance was about social media and how the conflict between things are so connected in the virtual world that you are really lonely in your own private real world. That led us to have a lot of discussions about what social media would look like in the future. Paul Clark, who’s the head of the delegation of Australia and also a creative director, wanted to create a Blade Runner theme. When you look at the performance, you get that feel of her being in the future, and she was moving the content around with her hands on the projection, which she couldn’t see. Technically, that performance was really difficult – even I didn’t think we’d get through it at one point. And from Junior Eurovision, there was Melani from Spain in 2019. Her
Eurovision 2014, where Refsing worked as the creative director and content producer
Latvia’s 2015 Eurovision entry rose up the scoreboard with its bold visuals
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