Special Event Design

Throwback: A Beautiful Mess

Justin Heap from Ridge Point Church in Holland, Mi brings us this glowing graffiti masterpiece.

They had long been inspired by Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto “look” and the art of Misty Buckley, Paul Normandale and their people. However, Justin was not content to copy and paste, so it meant waiting for some more creative sparks to fall into place, the right series to come along, and the right time for their people to experience something of this nature.

Easter gave them the right time and series, “A Beautiful Mess,” with an incredible new inspiration—that they add depth to the MX look with a specific play on Light & Shadow by creating Polyhedron/Dihedral faces that would define their walls. The work was substantially increased, but the payoff was priceless.

Overall, this took about 4 weeks time—conception, construction, fabrication, painting, and completion. Everything was constructed on-site, backstage with their Construction Lead, their Assistant, and approximately 4-8 volunteers at any given time.

They built two identical frames (walls) at 24’H x 18′ W—making sure to leave room enough for one screen per wall (they used Rear Screen Projectors) in the middle, there. Each “Wall” was comprised of 8 total sections: 3 Bottom Sections 2 Middle Sections (because of the screen support) 3 Top Sections.

They had their teams fabricate the Polyhedron faces—laying the Constructed Frames down, on the ground at first, but then finding sawhorses were a little easier. Non-corrugated Black Cardboard straight from the manufacturer was a huge plus. It took about 4 hours per section of the “wall.” It resulted in about 65+ hours of work, and an inhumane amount of Gaff Tape, which they used to adjoin the cardboard pieces.

Justin and their Tech Director did all the Design Painting. It was a great surprise that it didn’t take as long as expected: about 2 hours per Section: 32 Total Hours, happening alongside the Fabrication. They were painting them twice as fast as they could make them, essentially.

40-60 Chip Brushes (1″-4″), 5 total Rosco Fluorescent Paint at 1-Gallon, and 12 cans of Rustoleum Fluorescent Spray Paint were used. Justin also used a couple of Flat Black Sprays for Texture or Erasing.

Finally, they used a massive winch and pulley system to move the walls into place, next to one another, bolting them, and then moving in the next section. They finished off the whole project with their killer lighting team. They don’t operate with a ton of lights, so it was all about color and placement. They did not use any blacklights, but a combination of gels specifically set to react with fluorescent paint.

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Linear Diamond Goodness Pixels

7 responses to “Throwback: A Beautiful Mess”

  1. theRVK says:

    Nice work on this guys. I love the simulated look of Black Light. Can I ask what font you used for your “ABM” graphics? its a nice clean future look.

  2. I’d like to know what the font was as well for ABM. Simple and clean.

  3. Gary says:

    Font please…looks amazing

  4. SAMSAM says:

    Hi! Could you help to cosntruct the Polyhedron faces.. Could send me more details? tks

    • JH says:

      The Polyhedron Faces were born out of a true collaboration between Designer and Fabricator; In essence, we took each 4×8 sheet of Black Cardboard, RANDOMLY penciled in the triangular lines which would form the polyhedron shape, cut the pieces, and then assembled them onto the Wall Frames (securing them with Gaff Tape.)

      I say, “randomly” meaning, that none of the Faces were exactly the same, and neither were they in the same place on the Wall; however, they were PRECISE in that they accounted for all the space on the cardboard and followed triangular/polyhedronic details so as to match up, of course.

      Honestly, it’s hard to simply write up –or even imagine, maybe– but once you take a sheet of cardboard and lay it out, it will make a lot more sense.

      Let me know if I can be of any more help! It’s a blast, enjoy!

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