Video Production Support, Event Staging for Kurtis Productions' Special Events
October 2010
October was gala season in Chicago. Resolution and their affiliate Show Department were called on to provide production and staging support for two of the city’s most high profile events.
First, The Chicago Community Trust celebrated its 95th anniversary October 12 at the Harris Theater with a multimedia mixture of live entertainment and video vignettes from trust grant recipients.
Eight-hundred donors and trust friends were treated to an evening of marching bands, penguins, dancers and testimonials capped off by a speech by New York Times columnist David Brooks. Bill Kurtis hosted the event, which was produced by Donna LaPietra and Scott Jacobs at Kurtis Productions.
One of the high points of the evening was a 3-D projection of a tribute to “Dance in Chicago” designed and directed by Fred Blurton, of Fred Blurton Productions. For production of the 3-D video, Resolution provided the production facility, lighting design, equipment, and coordinated the process between Kurtis and Blurton.
Show Department handed out 800 3-D glasses and used special projection to display the 3-D video. With footage of the various dance companies projected against Chicago cityscapes, Blurton shows two dancers from the Joffrey Ballet dancing across Buckingham Fountain, under the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier, down LaSalle Street, and in front of the Chicago Theater. The image was displayed across a custom 22-foot projection screen designed by Show Department’s manufacturing division, The Screen Works.
A week later, Kurtis again called on Resolution and Show Department to turn the University of Illinois Forum into an intimate dinner for 1,000 people to witness a conversation between Oprah Winfrey and Toni Morrison at the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s Sandburg Awards Dinner. In addition to the multi-camera shoot of the discussion, Show Department washed the walls of the forum with 120-foot wide projections of famous quotations and a 3-screen montage of library activities, both designed by Resolution’s graphics department.
“The show was absolutely wonderful!” raved Donna LaPietra. “Everyone involved should be extremely proud of the quality of the production. I don’t know how we could have reached that high level without Show Department and Resolution as partners in this endeavor.”
“A lot of thought and production went into the making the videos authentic and real,” Jacobs, talking about the Community Trust gala, “so we wanted to make sure, technically, they’d have the right impact. That’s where Show Department really stepped up. Everything was pristine HD-quality on screens that ranged as big as 22 feet wide. The 3-D dance video had a beautifully designed sound track. Both evenings were terrific, but the staging made them dynamic and memorable. Honestly, seeing the videos projected at that level of quality was breath-taking.”
Fred Blurton and Justin Zion put over 300 hours worth of effort into putting together the 3-D dance video, which was enormously well received. “We were just really thrilled to get a chance to work with such a great group of people on something we could really push the boundaries of our Z Space 3D techniques,” Blurton said.
In the glow of two seamlessly well-executed events, Show Department COO Jeff Facklis reflects on a very rewarding outcome. “From beginning to end, it was a wonderful experience,” he explains. “Both Donna and Scott had very high expectations of providing a visually appealing environment and well-executed show for the donors attending these events.”
When asked about the challenges that went along with delivering for these projects, Facklis seems to take it in stride, “Nothing makes challenges such as these sweeter than having a great team behind you and being able to pull them off flawlessly.”
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