IMAGINE: UAE FESTIVAL CITY MALL

Created as the centrepiece of the Diwali festival of light celebration, IMAGINE features six water screens and over 70 projectors.

Produced by Foraus, Video Producer Travis Poe shares his design story:

“Foraus has been an industry groundbreaker for many talked about shows worldwide. With a vast background in both computer science and design, Foraus offers a unique range of creative solutions. A bespoke combination of media design and technical understanding has been our recipe for creating magical shows.”

“Our vision for this production was to create a dazzling multi-canvas video which could communicate a heart-warming story. Our client Al Futtaim presented us with the narrative storyboard, which told the story of a baby elephant that searches far and wide until it reunites with its family. They wanted us to create a Disney style show on the water, featuring original character animations of the elephant family.”

“For a production with this many screens, pre-visualisation is very important. Sitting with clients and creating content in real-time helps to paint a clear picture. Its a matter of opening up Notch, bringing in a few character models and having a play. This process is exciting for clients and it involves them within the creative process.”

“To create IMAGINE, a team of fourteen 3D designers worked on the project for six months. Character riggers, character animators, motion graphics artists from all over the world created bespoke content for this show. We created looks using a variety of programs such as Cinema 4D, Maya and After Effects. During development, we experienced exceptionally long render times. These sequences were being produced for incredibly high-resolution screens, and we had major concerns about the render times. We started rendering some of the scenes into Notch, and our output increased tenfold. We were able to render faster and be more flexible with client changes.”

“Creating this show as a centrepiece for the Diwali celebrations was a memorable experience. It’s not often you get to work on a show where the characters you are designing in 3D are fabricated into physical products. The performance went down a storm with guests and its exciting to know that this will be available for the public to enjoy every night of the week.”