Saladin

Everything started when Andreas Matt and Peter Patrick Baumgartner visited the Forum Alpbach in the year 1999, where they saw a horrible opening event. They decided to organize something special for the opening in the following year. They wrote a concept of a show that combined a slide show (with 6 projectors on 3 screens), music, juggling, fire-breathing, acting, video and computer animation in an interactive story-telling. The concept was accepted by the Forum Alpbach and so they produced the show. Alexander Senfter and I took part by creating a short animation and showing a part of our animated film-let ExKloration.
In Alpbach we realized that the slide show which was synchronized with music in combination with live action (acting, juggling and fire-breathing) created an intense performance. During the forum the idea for Saladin was born: let's create a compact stage-show that combines background projected computer animated graphics with juggling, live acting and music to tell a fantastic story.

Andreas Matt got in contact with Walter Steidl who organizes the 'fairy tale' events in Tirol and managed to convince Mr. Steidl of our Saladin idea. Walter Steidl wanted the show for his 'Festival for Legends and Fairy Tales'. Andreas (fablua international) gathered a small team of jugglers, musicians (composers) and graphic artists to work out the concept. Together we worked out a story-line in a 'one thousand and one night'-setting. It contained sword fights, a ride on a magic carpet and a lot of juggling. We borrowed screens and video projectors and started some first tests on combining live action with computer animated backgrounds.
We finally created a quite spectacular 20 minutes stage show, that was performed at the Congress (Saal Tirol) and at the 'Festival for Legends and Fairy Tales' at the ORF Center in Innsbruck. Later, we performed at the 'Kristallwelten Swarovski' and at the town festival in Wattens.

In 1192 AD - in the time of the third crusade - sultan Salah al-Din is attacked by sword fighters in the Arabian desert. During the sword fight an evil shadow demon approaches and kills the sultan. When a vulture tries to approach the corpse of the sultan a friend appears and scares it off. Full of sorrow about the death of his friend, he slowly walks to a close oasis, where he falls asleep exhaustively. He has a strange dream and visions of special places and events. When he awakens he recognizes a great rock, that he had seen in his dream before. Thus, he takes a walk and finds a stone portal at the rock. There, a diabolo was waiting for him and after some juggling a djinn is conjured. He may now get a wish full-filled. He wishes to get to the town he has seen in his vision. The djinn casts a spell and a magic carpet appears, that gives him a ride to the ancient Arabic town. After a wild ride through the rock and a canyon the carpet lands on the marketplace in the old oriental town, where he is introduced to join the stand of a carpet trader. Soon, a local juggler appears and starts to show his tricks. Since the friend is also capable of some juggling he introduces himself and they alternating show off their best tricks. They end up juggling together. After a synchronous diabolo performance, the juggler from the ancient market place gives his diabolo to the sultan's friend and tells him a secret (spell).
Suddenly, the old town crumbles to dust and the friend finds himself next to the corpse of the sultan. He starts to cast the spell by juggling with two diabolos and resurrects the sultan. After a hearty embrace the evil forces attack again, but are defeated by the two heroes. They also succeed in exorcising the demon with seven swords performance.

Andreas Matt (organisation, story)
Peter Patrick Baumgartner (organisation)
Ulrich Matt ('Jonglier-Duo Schwerelos', juggling, choreography & story )
J ('Jonglier-Duo Schwerelos', juggling, choreography & story )
Max Kamenar (music)
Valentin Sysel (music support)
Marcel Ritter (graphics, story, technical staff)
Alexander Senfter (graphics, story and technical staff)
First session only:
Romina Kolb (dancing)
Julia Urschler (dancing)
Christina Urschler (dancing)
Erik Hoertnagl (sword fighting)
Rainer Fantur (sword fighting)
Michael Schiestl (sword fighting)
Second session only (Pflasterspektakel):
Hans Woppmann (organization)
Ruth Karner (organization)
Bert Obernosterer ('Dreynschlag', sword fighting choreographer & sword fight)
Reinhold Berger (sword fighting)

One aim of the show was to combine live action and computer animation. We played around with a lot of ideas and made tests and prototypes. We started with simply moving the background from one side to the other, so an actor could walk in front without moving. We tried to rotate the scenery synchronized with a rotation of an actor, which gave quite an intense optical impression (although being physically wrong). Another idea was to move into the scene in normal direction to the background (moving inside the scene), what became the magic carpet ride in the show. Also we wanted create virtual creatures like demons or magical beings. We played with 'interaction' with such virtual characters. Another idea was to use the animation to visualize thoughts and dreams of an actor. Also we could emphasize atmospheres on the stage using colorful abstract animations. And of course we could visualize dynamic processes in the scenery, like wind or a rising sun or the town that crumbles to dust.
Designing the scenery has gone hand in hand with developing the story. The story starts in the dessert, when sultan Sala al-Din is attacked by evil sword fighters and higher dark forces. Alex and I decided to support this beginning which involved a lot of live action on and besides the stage by animated red plasma to signal danger and not to distract the audience from the sword fights. We created the plasma using particle systems textured with noises and different emitters.

When the fighting people reach the stage we fade to a stormy desert. The desert should have a dark and pale look, reflecting that evil things are going on. We choose brownish colors for sand a sky and an indirect illumination. While Sala al-Din is defeated and lies dead in the desert, some text is shown to inform the audience of the scenery: '1192 AD, Time of the Third Crusade, Arabian Desert, Sultan Salah al-Dinh is dead ...'. Meanwhile a vulture approaches and wants to cut up the dead body. The vulture is a 3D animated character and before it can reach the corpse it is scarred off, by a friend of Salah al-Din, coming too late. Next the hero that scared off the hero walks to a near desert. To enhance his walk the background is move side-wards. The movement stops at a near oasis, where the hero sits down and falls asleep.

The lighting on the stage gets dark blue - indicating night a scenery. The camera tilts upwards into the sky and ripples, like a drop of water falling into the sky, introduces a dream sequence. The dream's coloring supports the stage lighting. It shows several rendered stills of locations that are going to be visited later on. The dream is a short vision or prophecy. Two dancing women appear as shadows. In 2002 we had dancers live at the show that danced synchronous behind the projection screen (the Urschler twins). For the 2004 version we captured the dance performance and composited into the animation sequence.

After the hero awakes he takes a closer look around at the oasis. To support this in the animation we do a rotation (orbit) of the camera with the hero on the stage in the center of the rotation. When he turns left and right the whole scene rotates. The hero recognizes a rock he has seen in the dream and points into its direction. A highlight appears at the rock.

Again, the hero takes a walk through the scenery, again the background - some sand dunes - is moved side-wards. The hero reaches the great rock and now leaves the stage, while the camera flies freely over lot of steps upwards. When it reaches the top of the stairs a portal made of stone blocks the path. The hero appears at the stage, inspecting the portal.

After a short while a diabolo rolls to him from the side of the stage. He starts a juggling performance with the diabolo and conjures a djinn by doing so. First, some steam gets out of the angular shaped funnels, again realized with noise textured particle systems. Simultaneously, we start two real fog machines to get smoke on the stage. A djinn forms out of the smoke, the second digital character. The hero and the djinn communicate with gestured. At the end of the conversation the djinn casts a spells and a magic carpet appears. The hero steps onto the carpet and the stone portal starts to opens. A spectacular ride through the rock, though a valley, over dunes of sand and through an old oriental town begins...
In the inside of the rock the carpet rides through several pitfalls, where the hero almost is thrown off the carpet. The valley is steep and narrow. We used the same textures for the rock of the valley and the great rock itself.

For the ancient town we used a lot of geometry. We build a kit of several parts for the buildings near the camera and assembled the parts in multiple variations. The buildings farer away have much less detail. Just opening the scene on my computer (athlon 650mghz, 1024MB) took about 9 minutes, in the end, though we used a lot of XRef objects. To get reaonable rendering times and nice shadows, we used a grid of spotlights, illuminating only a limited number of objects each. Other objects were excluded from calculations per light which reduced rendering time tremendously...
Finally, the carpet lands at the market place, a location with lots of stands with carpets and pottery. Now, live action on the stage takes over and computer animation becomes static. At the end of the elaborate juggling performances on the market place, the sun goes down and the town crumbles to dust.

Back in the pale desert, the hero resurrects Salah al-Din. The evil forces attack again, also the demon shadow. The demon was played by an actor and similar to the dancers, we replaced him later for the 2004 stage show version. After the evil forces are defeated, the pale look of the desert magically disappears. The magical effect was done in post production with glows, blurs and a lens flare.

The Music was mainly created by Max with help of Valentin. Max had just worked on a CD production in before with his group Tres:ciel. He sings, plays guitar, bass and piano and can do a lot with recording and digital FX. Valentin has good experiences as DJ. For Saladin they created an soundtrack that is gripping, supports the right atmospheres, is calm and intense in the right moments. They mixed the music carefully and, thus, it sounds great on big speakers! Valentin placed some great unconventional sounds into the soundtrack.

After several sessions of planning and discussing we met in a gym and Ulli and J showed us some of their amazing tricks. Ulli was very good with clubs (up to five) while J was very good with the diabolo (up to two). As we thought about the synergy between performance and graphics, we liked the idea that the diabolo could be our 1001 night magic lamp. So during the show some magic spells are cast at the end of the diabolo performances: a djinn is conjured, the town crumbles to dust and later Sala al-Din is resurrected.
At the market place in the ancient town most of the juggling takes place. The juggler from the ancient town (Ulli) gets on the stage and starts to do some tricks with balls. One ball finds his way to the guest at the carpet stand (J). As the juggler changes from balls to rings, the hero - J - introduces himself by taking away one ring and then showing some tricks with the rings. Next, the juggler wants to show the hero some of his spectacular tricks with clubs. The tricks with five clubs is a highlight of the show. Then the hero suggests juggling with diabolos. Ulli and J then do a synchronous performance with one diabolo each. As the town disappears the juggler gives his diabolo to the hero. J then starts to resurrect Sala al-Din by juggling with two diablos at one time, another spectacular highlight.

Live performance have a great magic by themselves because they are ... live. There always happens something unexpected.
Congress:
We managed to perform the show before it was completely produced. Actually, we performed a short version of Saladin (about the half of the show) at a youth event organized by the bank 'Raiffeisen Bank' in Innsbrucks biggest concert hall at the 'Congress'. We used a better desktop computer to play the video (also sound) which was connected to two high-end video-projectors with special lenses. It was pure madness that we had no other display devices to see what's going on on the computer. We disabled the screen saver and all power-saving processes, opened the media player, set it to full-screen and paused the video in the beginning. We did this 30 minutes before the show started. All I had to do was pressing the space-bar to start, and, during this 30 minutes - No chance to see if everything is OK! If something would have gone wrong everyone in the hall would see the graphical user interface of the operation system screen, while trying to fix a problem ... I was so happy that everything worked just fine. *phew* From there on we always brought TFTs monitors to the show!
ORF:
Two horrible things happened at the performance at the studio 3 in the ORF center (the radio and TV station). First, a problem with the operating system, which always logged the root account out if one tried to log in. With some really fast mouse/keyboard athletics and a lot of cold sweat I managed to create a second user account with root rights, which solved the problem. Second, one of the projectors switched off, during the show. (Un)fortunally also the owerner of the video projector was in the audience (They were rented and sponsored by Wulz). While it took us a while to find the problem Mr. Wulz already was back-stage and helped us out. Again, we learned something new. This time about gaffer tapes and projectors ... Unfortunately, the video projector did not adjust correctly and a part of the image of the video was cut for the rest of the show, but fortunately the audience didn't recognize this.
Swarovski Kristallwelten
One week before the show we were at the 'Kristallwelten' to find out where it would be best to build up the stage. This place was harder to find than expected, because there is not a single simple rectangular room in the exhibition center. The show requires enough space behind the projection screens and needs enough height for the juggling and lighting. We found a place that worked with strong compromises, though. At the day of the show, the stage was built up at the wrong side of the room. We needed a lot of time to move the stage, what delayed many other preparations such as, installation of the screens, adjusting the projectors, adjusting the spot lights, testing sound and video, make-up, warming up of the jugglers and actors ... We finished our preparations just in time, when the people entered the room. Also we cut into the projection screen during the sword fights, because there was jusd too little space for everything.

After several performances, we had no further clients for the show and the project was set on ice. Iin 2004 when Ruth Karner got in touch with fabula-international and got to know of this show, she was that delighted by the project that she organized another performance for us at the big festival for street arts Pflasterspektakel in Linz. We gathered the team again and overworked the video, the sword fights and optimized the 'show flow' so that less people were involved during one performance.
At the Pflasterspektakel we had much space for everything in contrast for example to the Kristallwelten. We had the whole patio of Linz`s tax office and a big stage for our own.
The changes we made for the performance really improved the show and brought it to a next level. The whole process got more professional. For example, we learned the make correct turbans, that really looked much more scary than the hoods we had before.
We performed Saladin on three evenings and we were very lucky with the weather. It rained on two days a bit on the afternoon but the evenings were just fine. The feedback from the show was great. One guy really got crazy as he recognized that we used original cloths from Pakistan (imported by Andreas Matt on one of his many journeys).
The Pflasterspektalel performance was really a great experience for all who worked on the show. At the end have a look at some impressions of real street arts from the spectacle.