Hours of psychological torment, heavy drinking of alcohol,prostitutionand multiple axe murders all feature in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s extraordinarynineteenth centurynovel
Crime and Punishment. The story has now been brought to the stage in a one-of-a-kind musical creation that debuted at the Moscow Musical Theatre on March 17, 2016.
Russian-American filmmaker, Andrei Konchalovsky went to work on the production in September 2014, calling it a "poly-genre fusion performance" as it uniquely combines folklore, song, dramatic and operatic elements.
Adding to its appeal, the production uses key stage elements designed for projection. These were custom designed by Moscow Musical Theatre’s technical partner, Polymedia who brought in the BlackTrax realtime motion tracking system. BlackTrax was integrated with eight large-format video illumination projectors and a media server. Together the work to project the scenery on the entire stage and BlackTrax tracks the moving scenery in an astounding 36 scene changes.
“Each time a scene changed, so did the video projection mapping and was key to the production,” explained Elena Novikova, CEO at Polymedia. “The effect we created using such an intelligent integrated audiovisual system produced an immersive and dynamic 3D effect for the audience. Unlike 3D, it performs live, in a single sequence, that ignited everyone’s imaginations and emotions.”
Crime and Punishment follows the story of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in St Petersburg who is tormented by one question: “Am I a trembling creature, or have I the right?” He creates his own theory to save mankind from suffering and to test his theory he commits a crime. One scene involved Raskonikov imagining himself as young boy who comes across a group of peasants beating a sick mare. The clever use of video projection combined ‘emotional turmoil’ around that experience.
“The magnitude and complexity of the project meant that we needed to rely on the world’s most famous tracking system enabling us to maximize the use of stage space and giving the performance multi-dimensionality as well as unlimited creative freedom for the performers. Polymedia is extremely proud to be the very first company to deploy BlackTrax, in Russia. Now we see that our joint project was very successful – the production harmoniously combines the director's original idea and audiovisual technologies,” enthused Novikova.
“The project hails a new chapter for BlackTrax in helping to combine multiple production elements, maximizing audience impact as well as combining two performance genres for a production that was really spectacular and innovative,” said Gil Densham, CEO at CAST BlackTrax Ltd.
"Thanks to the Polymedia engineers’, Crime and Punishment at Moscow Musical Theatre has gone down in history as being one of the most technologically advanced performances ever to be staged in Russia,” said Mikhail Shvydkoi, Art Director of the Moscow Musical Theater.
About Polymedia
Polymedia is a leading integrator at the Russian PRO AV market and software developer. The company was founded in 1998, now it brings together offices in 14 cities in Russia and the CIS, as well as more than 700 partners of the dealer network across Russian Federation. The Polymedia holding's structure includes among others ART Polymedia – the company specializing in rental & staging solutions for live events. The company is a multiple winner of the national award for achievements in PRO AV and system integration ProIntegration Awards, international award in the field of AV innovations InAVation Awards, national award in the IT sphere Cnews Awards.
http://www.polymedia.ru/en/Facebook
About CAST BlackTrax
Since 1994, CAST has delivered award-winning solutions to and for the entertainment production industry and the special events meeting industry. Based in Toronto Canada, CAST delivers to the world!
CAST BlackTrax is a ‘complete solution', which means that either CAST or a BTExpert will ensure it is properly installed and trained, to deliver optimal results, as well as provide ongoing support and all new software updates.
Some Useful Links:
Twitter & Facebook: @CASTSoftware
CAST Forum: http://forum.cast-soft.com
CAST BlackTrax
35 Ripley Avenue, Suite 1
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M6S 3P2
