A first of its kind performance by Sila Sveta combining live artistic choreography and holographic imagery to reveal the brand new BMW 7 series.

Professional ballet dancer Denis Medvedev performed in unity with two holographic doppelgangers and stunning visual graphics. Reality fused with the digital world of levitating holograms complemented the live act and demonstrated the new car’s distinctive features. The award-winning performance “7 Questions to Yourself” was a successful collaboration between Sila Sveta and DEPARTAMENT Creative Marketing agency.

The new premium BMW 7 was the key point of reference for the smart yet ultra contemporary style of the whole presentation. We had the idea of building parallels between space and the depths of the ocean. Thus most of the visuals were composed from shiny particles resembling sparkles, stars on the night sky, or glare on the water. Art Director of the project Arthur Kondrashenkov compiled a moodboard:

We started a risky experiment aiming to bring together all our creative ideas on one stage. A live dance performance was augmented by background projections and a holographic setup. As a result, the dancer virtually controlled myriads of digital stars with a wave of his hand, and we also made his clothes turn into holograms suspended in air. We taught the man to fly, sent him underwater, and choreographed a trio dancing act — all on one stage and employing only projection screens and holograms.

It was our first experience in using holographic projection technology for a stage act. This allowed us to create a fully immersive live performance in combination with several visual technologies. We went beyond simple background projection and created an illusion of live interaction between the dancer and the visuals. One of the first setup drafts looked very simple:

And here is the final look of the venue during the event which took place in Stanislavsky Electrotheater, Moscow:

From a technical perspective, the production process was extremely complex. However, its key features are easy to explain. Have a look at the technical stage visualization below:

As seen from the picture, we needed only five projectors to light up the stage. Three of them were used for the background content. We used special screens for back projections to avoid unwanted shadows and hide the equipment. The other two units brought the hologram to life.

To build the holographic setup, we used one of the most advanced solutions available in the industry. A special projection film called Musion is stretched at a certain angle to reflect content from the screen below. At the same time, the film remains transparent in other areas.

The pictures below show the setup for the performance with Musion film and the reflective screen in front of the stage.

To prepare the content for the holographic projection, we needed a lot of video footage. It all started with the script and the list of scenes to be shot:

Choreographer Oleg Glushkov and dancer Denis Medvedev during the rehearsals and subsequent work in the studio:

In order to turn the video footage into holographic content we used Chromakey. Filming in a green screen studio allows proper post-production to leave certain areas of the Musion film transparent in the end.

The biggest challenge for us was the underwater segment, which we shot through a transparent wall of a huge water tank:

Some footage was directly put into animatic. This is a draft visualization of the whole performance serving as a reference for the designers working on the final content:

The performance was shown to nearly 1000 spectators during three evenings of the BMW 7 premiere event:

Producers: Evgeny Mishin, Alexander Us, Aleksey Rozov, Denis Astakhov
Art Director: Arthur Kondrashenkov
Project Manager: Sveta Yermolayeva
Supervisor: Maxim Chepukhalin
Technical Director: Mursal Mamedov
Designers: Vitaly Babich, Philat Matveev, Sergey Maslov, Daria Shurkina, Nastia Chamkina, Anatoly Belikov, Vitaly Zykov, Alexey Churochkin, Maksim Bitiukov, Polina Sukhanova
Director of Photography: Evgeny Arkhipov
AC: Konstantin Bykovskiy
Technical Engineers: Denis Akopov, Dmitry Masaidov
Stage Director: Philipp Grigorian
Choreographer: Oleg Glushkov
Performer: Denis Medvedev
Musion foil: Holographic Technologies
Music and sound design: Monoleak
Lighting Design: Stepan Novikov

Event.ru Awards 2016
Car Launch of the Year (winner)
Best Event Creative Concept (nominee)
Best Event Direction and Production (nominee)