Turning High-School Students Into Stage Designers With HeavyM

Classical music comes to life thanks to video mapping

Stage designers with HeavyM - Cover Top

Recently, a significant amount of high-schools has been working on offering original projects that allow their students to discover unusual fields, to use their knowledge and develop their skills.

The Edouard Branly High-School, based in a French town called Châtellerault, has been focusing on avant-garde initiatives that bring together discovering new disciplines and gathering professional experience. As the region’s orchestra offered to play a concert in the high school’s amphitheater, Philippe Lainé, head of vocational and tech-oriented training, saw this as a perfect opportunity to achieve two goals: introducing the students to classical music and involving them in the event’s organization in ways that match their curriculum.

HeavyM at School

Stage design is a crucial aspect when it comes to hosting a 45-musician orchestra in an amphitheater. Aiming to woo your guests? Nothing better than video mapping! And when it comes to learning how to master this technique in a snap and easily creating a visual animation that syncs with the music, no software beats HeavyM!

10 Year 12 students currently preparing their vocational baccalauréat in Digital Systems were tasked with planning this aspect of the event. Their main goal is to become skilled technicians and to be able to work on various equipment and installations relying on interconnected systems, and that in the consumer, professional and industrial sectors. Therefore, video mapping appeared to be an ideal tool to push their creativity, boost their sense of initiative and allow them to come up with unique solutions.

The group was supervised by video maker, VJ and sound producer Fabrice Giraud. Fabrice found out about HeavyM online as he was looking for an easy-to-use video mapping software to teach beginners. He really enjoyed how easy it is to start using the software, its effects library, and the simplicity to create a video mapping without needing any other additional software.

The artist is used to organizing similar education-based workshops. He really appreciates the way human interactions can improve while working in a fun, relaxed way and loves seeing how students slowly get the hang of things and end up realizing that nothing is impossible! One of his mottos? “There are no limits, everything can be done! Keep an open mind and be ready to imagine absolutely everything”.

This project was conceived as a global effort and the students got to work on it from A to Z, including listening to the musical works, learning how to use HeavyM, creating wall decoration using our Olga Kit, designing all animations, installing the equipment, adjusting all settings and, of course, carrying out the performance during the concert.

A race against the clock to organize an interactive classical music concert

Fabrice Giraud coordinated the concert and guided the students through 4 main steps:

  • First half-day: Exploration of the amphitheater to assess the location’s specificities (where should the video projector be placed, how big is the room, where should the structure be installed, where should the sound and video control area be placed…) & introduction of the project to the students. Music workshop and introduction to the musicians.
  • Second half-day: Introduction of the software and its features. Getting started with setting up the Olga Kit structure and its triangular units. Fabrice Giraud noticed that, at this stage, the students were already starting to feel comfortable with the software and the Olga Kit, as it makes it “easy and convenient to create a video mapping structure, all while having a very elegant look and feel”.
  • Third half-day: Finalisation of the structure and positioning on a metallic frame. Creation of various visual animations (this is where HeavyM’s pre-installed effects came in handy!)
  • Fourth half-day: Creation of the transitions in between all animated sequences and finalization of the project.
  • 15 March 2018, date of the concert: Installation of the structure and recalibrating of the visual animation created by the students. Rehearsals of the effects with the musical work of Gilbert Amy that would be performed during the concert.

Fabrice told us that everyone was impressed by the quality of the result! The conductor and the musicians enjoyed the video mapping aspect as they felt it brought a lot of energy and contemporaneity to their performance. The audience and the teachers felt that this addition of videos and light allowed for a different experience and a more thorough immersion into the performance. As for the students, their feedback was unanimous: “It was so cool!”

Lastly, let’s quote an article published in local newspaper La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest on 17 March 2018: “Geometrical, light-based effects added to the visual aspect of the show as they lit up in rhythm with the music. Actually, visual effects were perfectly in sync with the tonality and fluidity of the music. Considering how focused all members of the audience seemed (220 high-school students attended the concert), we can safely assume that they enjoyed this relevant and enjoyable combination, which perfectly illustrated the various music genres.”

Thanks to HeavyM, give a playful dimension to your school programs and boost the creativity of your students. Contact us for more information on how to integrate video mapping into your school.

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