ARMANI HOTEL

Located in the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, MassMutal had high expectations for the event opening. Designers Nicola Barresi and Fabio Bompani exceeded all expectations using a combination of Notch and synchronized choreography. They share how they created a dazzling show without the luxury of time:

“The brief came from MassMutal agency, they asked for a piece of entertainment inspired by Dubai. The theme of their dinner was diamonds and stars, so we knew that particles and 3D objects would play a large part in our design. We have several shows in collaboration with dancers, and we knew that for this production, we wanted a dance that synchronized with video content.”

“First, we start off storyboarding our ideas to communicate with the client. Next, we create the audio track from which Scott Marshall can choreograph an original dance. Once Scott and the dancers have their movements locked, we come into their studio and film the routine. This video becomes the guide for our digital design. On this kind of project, the storyboard gives you the mood, but the real inspiration comes from the choreography.”

“We chose Notch because of the amazing speed of the software. These kinds of projects are always time short and pixel heavy. Working in Notch, we can make changes and adjustments without waiting for a new render. This workflow helps us save time but also increases the quality and preciseness of the final project. Notch’s suite of dedicated graphics tools gives us the creative freedom to create challenging, high-quality live projections.”

“We used Notch to create a combination of particles and clones for the majority of the visuals. Notch is a very powerful tool with a high level of control and an incredible velocity. We have been able to experiment and search for the right mood in a fraction of the time.”

“The audio-reactive tools in Notch were extremely useful. We animated our background elements using audio-reactive modifiers instead of using keyframes. This allowed us to concentrate our creative efforts on the main components, while the background elements automatically animated on the beat.”

“Volumetric lighting was the perfect tool to give readability to the performers. The particles trail render in conjunction with the mesh renderer allowed us to create awesome animation with minimal effort”

“In the days running up to the event, we tweak the final positions and movements of the dancers and the animation to ensure complete synchronicity between the two. Fortunately, we always work with amazing dancers without their precision we would not achieve such a result.”