For the Spring 2020 High School Musical, I was asked to design the projection for their production of The Little Mermaid. I had previously collaborated on a very little bit of this type of work for a production of Newsies at our local theater, helping animate two scenes. This was a bigger bite: Designing the backgrounds for every scene—and animating many of them.
Sketching in Procreate on iPad
The Bay, converted to layers in Adobe Illustrator, enhanced and colored.
Near the climax of the show Ursula enters the ballroom during singing tryouts. We had the idea to have the actor speak from offstage and use animation to represent her Enormity. The texture on the animated legs was from the costume, and the ballroom needed to change from day to night in the process.
There is a scene where Eric falls overboard during a storm. We needed to transition from regular high seas to lightning, and we added some strobe effects with stage lights to enhance the storm. A lot of the scene happened in silhouette. The waves were raised to accommodate the boat stage piece.
Transition animation between King Triton's Court and Ursula's Lair. During this transition, the screen illumination is enough for the stagehands to move props and set pieces.
Sketching in Procreate on iPad
Converting to shape layers in Illustrator
Triton's court Still image for background. Texture added in After Effects.
I developed a process for this project with several stages:
1. Draw sketches in Procreate on iPad.
2. Import PNG layers to Illustrator, using outline tool to convert to editable shape layers.
3. Import layered files to After Effects for texture and animation. I used the puppet tool for most subtle animations.
My animated clouds passing by behind a rehearsal of the prince singing on his boat.
Ursula's lair queued on the computer in the foreground using software: QLab.
The photos below are courtesy of Karl Palmer, local photographer. They show rehearsals with the backgrounds—the screen was pulled tight for the performances so these show them a bit wavier than they really were.
Triton's Court
Under the Sea - animated sea creatures
The Beach
Palace Dining Room - animated candles
The Beach (*all photos courtesy of Karl Palmer)
The background during Under the Sea features some sea creature cameos...wait for it...
