Special Event Design

The Tree of Souls

Christopher Law from SpringHill Camps brings us this stage design that fit in great with the Na’vi people on Pandora. (Avatar reference, anyone?)

They set design included a large tree constructed on stage built from a wooden and tubing frame wrapped with fabrics. They were able to get approximately 12 full rolls of fabric from an RV interiors supplier for $100 the previous fall. All of the fabrics came pretreated with fire retardant too.

A 30′ wide 16×3 (4267×800 analog) projection scrim was designed internally and sewn by Rose Brand. Framing was custom built from 3/4″ conduit. 3 projectors were used, driven by an iMac with a TH2G running ProPresenter 4. Side screens were separately driven by an iMac in 4:3 configuration. Both iMacs were using synced libraries and motion backgrounds.

Inside the “tree” they built in a 4×5 matrix of BR30 lamps all independently controlled via dimmer packs. This was used for simple patterns and symbols and driven by the Vista i3.

Additionally a 3/4″ OSB floor was installed on top of the installed stage and routed out to allow 2 circuit rope lighting to be installed as multiple branch circuits.

Additional lighting included:

  • 2x L & R Upstage double hung truss on end
  • 5x Martin MX4 Scanners
  • 60x S4 Pars
  • 26x S4 Ellipsoidal’s
  • 8x Generic 10mm PAR64 LED’s
  • 3x 4-way pin spot bars
  • 4x Times Square 701 strips (blinders)
  • Various Altman 360Q’s & Fresnel’s
  • 4x T12 4′ black light fixtures
  • Jands Vista i3 Controller running 2.x software

Mod Once Upon A Time

7 responses to “The Tree of Souls”

  1. Bethany Schmitt says:

    how did you create the color Roots coming off of the tree?

  2. Christopher Law says:

    The tree was framed with wood and chicken wire. Chasing rope light was used to make the lit part of the roots. We ended up using numerous runs and splicing/soldering to make some of the infloor splits and covering the splice points with apoxy to protect them. Rope light splicing is a bit tricky due to its encased design and internal wiring, typically you can only splice every 2-3′. You have to shave down the plastic until the wire is bare.

  3. This is awesome.

    How did you create the 16 x 3 aspect ratio?

  4. I got to see this in person last year, and I was absolutely amazed at what Spring Hill pulled off on a camp budget. I’ll be back in February and can’t wait to see what this year’s design looks like!

  5. Rob Greene says:

    What material was used to create the scrim? Very awesome and creative stage design.

  6. Tad Ruiz says:

    Where did you get the center screen from?

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