Welcome to the 60's
Hairspray is a musical based on the 80's movie of the same name. The play gravitates around discrimination, segregation, acceptance, and empowerment, through funny, catchy, and upbeat songs.
Indie Teatro, a student workshop, produced the play on their acting bootcamp before the COVID pandemic, and after almost a year off stage, months of zoom rehearsals, and a few weeks of on-stage rehearsal, the play was presented and recorded for streaming due to the health restrictions that halted live shows again in Mexico City, late 2021.
The Challenge
Jonathan, director of the company, called me to collaborate with his production team to develop the backgrounds that will serve as backdrop for the musical. The main concept was creating a 60's inspired cartoon. They previously stopped production of the show scenery due to the pandemic and had no way of creating a new one in such a short notice.
I took over the responsibility of designing backdrops and animations for the 18x10m led wall of a concert venue he booked for the taping of the show. For the show, I would operate the screen using MadMapper and my MPD controller to sync with the play and light cues.
Backdrop Design
Due to the comedic nature of Hairspray and the director's choices on performance and acting, a vector lifelike cartoon design was chosen to be the backdrop of the play. In total, thirty-five backdrops we made for the complete two-hour performance, also combining them live to map specific portions of the sets in our led screen.
Apart from the main backdrops, some sprites and overlays were created to be triggered live via MIDI to add a layer of motion to it.
Video Mapping & Performance
For the live performance, we created detailed cue sheets that kept audio, video, and lighting in sync with the show. Some additional sync was made by extending the video feed into the lighting console for pixel mapping in specific scenes using a HDMI splitter running directly into de MagicQ wing used it.
For video, Scenes were created through Mad Mapper, using an AKAI MPD40 as a cue controller and to input MIDI to live perform some assets into the scenes, like lighting fixtures of the backdrop and some animations.
Videos from the Performance
Rubia, Hermosa, Muy Sensual (Big, Blond and Beautiful)
Entreacto / Casa de Muñecas (Big Dollhouse)
Yo Se Bien Quién Soy (I Know Where I've Been)
