CT China and BFA – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Following Creative Technology’s success with the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee, CT Asia and CT London continued their relationship with Mr Yang Qingsheng, Visual Image Creative Director for the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics by providing services to The Beijing Film Academy’s (BFA) production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Edinburgh Festival.

The Chinese adaptation of this Shakespeare classic was unique. The BFA’s version of this romantic comedy featured 18 Chinese performers and merged music and dance with martial arts and computer gaming. Staged within the ornate McEwan Hall, Mr Yang wished to portray elements of the story via projected images directly onto the painted murals and timber panelled organ and walls with a view to animate the murals, bringing them to life.

To cope with the non-reflective nature of the ‘screen’ and the difficult aspect ratio of the projected area, three Barco HD20 projectors were positioned on their sides to form three portrait screen areas blended by Watchout, with an additional three HD20 projectors overlaid to double the brightness.

Two separate, side screen areas utilised four Panasonic 10K projectors, again mounted on their sides, to project animation of a spider spinning a web throughout the performance, whilst all content was delivered by ten channels of Dataton Watchout 4 triggered via remote Midi Keyboard commands by Chinese operators.