WICKED

Using artful projection, IKONIX extends the world of Oz with rendered content made in Notch. Jason Haggerty explains how he designed video that complemented Wicked’s physical set:

“I’ve been in the industry for ten years based out of South East Queensland. I enjoy making things previously thought to be too hard or impossible a reality for clients in theatre, corporate events and concerts. I started incorporating Notch into IKONIX shows around 18 months ago and haven’t looked back.”

Vision

“This was my first time working on a theatre production of this scale and complexity. A lot of thought went into understanding how projected video might enhance a production with an established set design. It was very much a process of bouncing between the Set Designer, the Director and our in-house team to finalise the overall design brief.”

Production

“In the studio, I would sketch a scene, turn that into a vector drawing, and then recreate the elements in Cinema4D models. Those models were then textured and imported into Notch, where I would work out the final composition, lighting and animation.”

“This production allowed me to discover new ways of designing offline content with Notch. I developed processes for larger scenes, from keyframing to lighting, facial tracking for animation, and various weather conditions.”

Clouds

“This production of Wicked was to be dark and smoky, so a lot of my direction came with the words, 'fog, mist and clouds'. Using Notch, I was able to utilise procedurals to create clouds, and volumetric lights for mist/fog, and quite easily integrate them into my scenes.”

“On the week leading up to the opening night, the director had some tricky revisions. I was able to make these changes, render, and upload the files onto the server usually within the hour. The dizzying speed that Notch can render complex scenes meant that we could perfect animations on-site, without worrying about render times.”

Flying monkeys

“In this scene, the Wizard lets loose his army of flying monkeys. I was able to clone a single rigged FBX with some animation offsets to create a busy swarm.”

Changing Weather

“The inspiration for this scene came from a collection of magical and mystical source materials. It was important that, while the content was animated, it still created a sense of place, a world where things could change and time could pass. Volumetric lighting allowed the projected scene to complement the existing set, lighting, actors, and props.”

“Some scenes required weather conditions to change, from sunny to cloudy, moonlit to moody, dry to torrential rain. The Notch toolkit had everything I needed to create these effects.”