London Symphony Orchestra
Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano
Working in collaboration with Superunion, we created the visual campaign for the LSO’s 2020/21 season. The title refers to the febrile atmosphere in Germany in the 1930s, as Europe lay on the cusp of profound social, cultural and political upheaval.
With such an emotive theme, we wanted to create something unexpected that would reflect the tension and volatility of the new season. This meant shifting away from a CGI approach and embracing practical live-action effects to create a dramatic and tension-fuelled abstract film.
Filmed against black, from a dramatic top shot, we worked with dancer Ella Robson Guilfoyle to interpret the motion capture data of Sir Simon Rattle’s baton into an expressive dance sequence. Impossible to perform in real-time, we broke it down into 19 individual bite-size movements. These were then edited together in post and retimed to precisely match the motion capture data.
In addition, we filmed an array of pyrotechnics and practical effects at high speed which were later composited into the sequence to enhance the volcano effect, culminating in the epic final shot.
