Behind the Scenes by John Miller – March 2024
King Triton’s court, Ursula’s Lair, and a storm-tossed Galleon; are just a few of the many scenes set under and over the sea in the Reif Theater Arts production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid JR. How do we go about designing these scenes without breaking our budget? Very often we will make use of digital scenery.
Digital Scenery can be still or moving images and can be projected onto a set or displayed on a TV or LED wall. It’s not just smaller productions using it either, “projection design” or “video design” have become an integral part of live concerts, Broadway shows, and Hollywood blockbusters! Many of the skills involved in creating a digital world also cross over with video game graphic design. It’s quite an employable field!
One of the latest and most impressive uses of LED technology and digital design is the Sphere in Las Vegas, where both the inside and outside of the structure are covered in LED lights, 1.2 million LED lights just on the exterior! It’s hard to out-Vegas Vegas but the Sphere has done just that. “Invokes pure awe,” “A new industry standard,” and “Bucket-list item” are just a few of the superlative reviews it has received.
Our budget for Disney’s Little Mermaid JR. won’t quite cover this level of extravagance, but there are good budget-friendly options for smaller theaters.
Disney’s Little Mermaid Jr. is a Music Theatre International production. This means we have to apply to MTI to get the rights, or a license, to perform the show. MTI collaborated with Broadway Media to create digital scenery packages for most of the shows where MTI holds the rights. We have used these packages for several Theater Arts productions and Katie Smith, our director, and I have a good sense of their strengths and weaknesses.
Broadway Media packages are relatively cheap, a digital package with multiple scenes is just $450, while renting a single stage backdrop can run $600 once you factor in shipping. Digital scenery saves money because less physical scenery needs to be built. Digital scenery helps make the “magic” happen on stage. For Disney’s Little Mermaid JR., the digital scenery is not just still images but incorporates movement and special effects. Waves move up and down, storm clouds swirl in the sky and Ursula’s wizardly spells all add to the production without extra work and expense.
Some drawbacks of digital scenery relate to how we project them at the Reif Center. With a huge budget, it would be great to have a LED wall at the rear of the stage. That would give you the brightest, crispest images (anyone with deep pockets out there?). At the Reif we use a projector located over the sound booth to project onto our rear cyclorama, also simply known as the cyc. The rear cyc isn’t really designed as a projection surface, so there is some loss of quality there. In addition, bright stage lighting will wash out the projected image. Katie Smith tries to keep the cast far enough away from the cyc so that we can light the cast without hitting the cyc. It’s not always possible with 75-80 kids in a production! One final problem is projecting the images from out front. Any scenery or kids that are too tall or too close to the cyc will cast shadows on the cyc where the projection hits them. Sometimes we can work around it or we just live with it. It’s more important to light the cast than have perfect looking projections.
There are design choices we make when we rent Broadway Media packages. All their packages tend to be very cartoony, which is great when we do a Disney show. When Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical JR. was selected I couldn’t see bringing myself to using their projections. Much of my inspiration for the set design came from the Broadway musical and the recent film, and cartoony was not the look I wanted. In fact, it’s the only recent production I can think of where we didn’t use Broadway Media.
Digital Scenery has changed the entertainment industry and will continue to do so as technology is continually improving and getting cheaper. Maybe someday I’ll even get that digital LED wall I want!
[Editor’s note: This article was written by John Miller, Technical Director at the Reif Performing Arts Center in Grand Rapids. It is part of a series of monthly articles titled “Behind the Scenes”. All of his articles are available on the Reif Center’s website at https://www.reifcenter.org/reif-behind-the-scenes/. MACT would like to thank John and the Reif Center for allowing us to reprint this article. The Reif Center will be the location of MACT*Fest 2027.]