Symphony VR – Journey in to the Heart of Music

Symphony VR – Journey in to the Heart of Music

Visualise captured and produced all of the live action content for the Cannes nominated Symphony. This involved the planning and production of over 150 crew, extras and talent in Barcelona. The production was planned for over 8 months, scenes were captured in the Gran Teatro Liceu and in the hidden secret workshop of the violin maker, David Bague. Glassworks created all of the CG and VFX for all the other scenes and the overall vision and creative direction for the project was by Igor Cortadellas.

Symphony VR Poster

SYMPHONY is a travelling, immersive, project that brings the music of the greatest composers to the public. There is a large converted bus travelling around Europe that will be delivering this experience to a selection of schools and locations over the next couple of years.

On the bus, 360° headsets coupled with 3D sound and with the collaboration of Gustavo Dudamel, one of the most important directors of our time, will deliver an unforgettable experience.

We travel to the heart of music, clearing a path for the viewer to understand the torrent of emotions that the music by the greatest composers has to offer.

With SYMPHONY, this new audience will have the chance to experience music from within an orchestra, without sheet music and closer and more intimately than has ever been experienced before.

Meta One 360 Camera

Each of the scenes was carefully planned out and beautifully lit by our Director of Photography, James Medcraft. The scenes were both natural and dramatic, as you can see here with the shot of David Bague, the violin maker in his studio in Barcelona.

The Meta One is seen here on set with David Bague in the background. The director and crew were able to view the takes live, on headset by a local live 360 stream from the camera to a remote room outside the workshop, hence keeping the crew inside to a minimum.

Each of David’s violins is worth tens of thousands of pounds so it was vital for his sanity and to get a relaxed man on camera that the crew was able to operate and review remotely.

The ability to capture scenes like this in low light, in 360, was granted by the use of the Meta One camera. This camera has unparalleled quality in it’s dynamic range and the prototype was finished for this project, the first two Meta One’s in the world were used on this project.

Symphony VR Take 10

We worked closely with the Production Club as our local partner in Barcelona, who helped us to navigate the complicated legal rules associated with Spanish film sets, along with finding the best local suppliers for each component of the shoot. Here’s another teaser from the project:

The 15 stops of dynamic range and the ability to capture the footage uncompressed at ProResHQ meant that the quality of the footage could be maximised in the grade.

Barcelona Symphony VR

For any 360 video productions, live action or live streamed, please give us a call.

We’ll leave you with the thoughts of the man himself on the project, Gustavo Dudamel: