the challenge Kate Dawkins Studio and dandelion + burdock faced when they were tasked with using projection mapping to produce ever-changing environments for global arena show, Fast & Furious Live.
Combining Kate Dawkins Studio’s extensive content creation expertise with dandelion + burdock’s creative and technical mapping know-how was a no-brainer to ensure the action burst from the screen onto the stage with the help of mapped content. Having created content for spectacular live shows and worked with clients such as Range Rover, Adidas and Samsung, Kate Dawkins Studio was first choice for heading up the creative direction. She laid out the vision for the show’s projection content, which heavily referenced the films, but took on a more stylised, graphical, game-like aesthetic for the arena environment. dandelion + burdock, mapping specialists and long-time collaborators of Kate Dawkins Studio, managed the complex challenge of creating the projection content and 3D animation.
The brief outlined the need for the two creative forces to produce all but one section of the show’s projection mapping. The main body of this work was the creation of environments; from neon-lit downtown Tokyo and a night-time Miami street through to the icy landscape of Russia.
“We wanted to work with the technology and set structure to create realistic environments that worked in both dimensions – floor and upright wall – aligning seamlessly with the amazing driving and set pieces,” says Dawkins.
“Fast & Furious is a multibillion film franchise, however. We couldn’t create filmic content and we also believed that this wasn’t the right route. The show deserved its own identity. After an initial phase of visual exploration, we settled on a ‘gaming’ aesthetic. This allowed us to create realistic looking scenes, but ones that also had their own style, one suitable for a show environment.”
Dynamic solutions and particle effects
The majority of the content was environmental and was all created in 3D. At times key action set pieces would take place within these scenes which were often required to interact with the performances on stage. The team animated cars and trucks, fuel tankers bouncing down canyons, submarines smashing through ice and airplanes in flames as they came crashing to the ground.
“We had to combine many techniques throughout these sequences, such as rigid body simulations, particle effects and fluid dynamics – all of which were brought together inside Cinema 4D, where we would do our keyframe animation and prepare for export,” says Knowles.
A number of render engines were required depending on the requirements of the scene, but the main go-to renderers were either the Standard Renderer inside Cinema 4D or Redshift which has become Dawkins’ engine of choice for most of her recent projects.
Compositing was handled by Adobe After Effects which made it possible for render passes to be combined or refined and post effects to be applied to scenes, as well as key and composite actors that had been shot in a green screen studio for one key sequence.
“Although the show included a number of urban locations in cities such as Tokyo and Los Angeles, many of the landscapes created were mountainous or deserts. These were all made from scratch by our modelling team,” says Knowles. “Many featured procedurally generated materials which we would then paint extra detail into as required. For instance, if our camera had to pass particularly close to a piece of the landscape.”
Real-time visual creation tool Notch was used to generate a number of real-time effects on top of the pre-rendered animations. Blacktrax was in place to track the cars and presenters in real-time, providing feedback to the lighting and projection systems and informing exactly where the cars were on stage at all times.
The technical process was enhanced by Previz – an online service that allowed them to virtually preview our content in a 3D representation of the stage. It was a quick and effective way to test work on the go and make sure perspectives worked correctly and the different projection surfaces were always in sync.
The team also relied on what they refer to as the “workhorse AV server” – the 4×4 media server from disguise. The set-up comprised two servers with 24 outputs to 48 DZ21K Panasonic 21K projectors, delivering all the pixels required for the expansive canvas.
Interacting with the action
“For nearly all the scenes we were asked to try to blend two projection surfaces – a floor and back wall respectively – into a continuous scene so that the animations on the floor would continue into the distance on the back wall. This was often combined with us having to align our animations with the live-action taking place either on stage or the mechanically controlled set pieces,” says Dawkins.
Another challenge was creating content that would interact with the action on stage. For any sequences that used controlled set pieces – such as one sequence involving a fuel tanker – the team created virtual versions of the props in the 3D scenes which followed the speed of their real-world counterpart as closely as possible. These would then be matched to the animated versions.
For anything that had to interact with a real driver there was no one possible solution, says Knowles “The drivers are amazing and extremely accurate. However, every slight change in their movement or timing would have a big impact on our animations. Therefore, where possible, we would build our sequences in a modular way, allowing for slight variations in the action. Finally, extensive testing and experimentation during pre-production and throughout the rehearsal period was needed to make sure our work could support the action to maximum effect.”
