Digital Projection, a specialist in laser projectors, provided its innovative Satellite Modular Laser System (MLS) to the renowned French theme park Puy du Fou for its latest theatrical production, Le Mime et L’Étoile, which uses state-of-the-art audiovisual technology to take viewers back to the Belle Époque.
Le Mime et L’Étoile (The Mime and the Star), a celebration of the invention of cinema, puts the audience behind the camera and takes them on a trip through the development of filmmaking, from silent to talking pictures and from black and white to colour, all while narrating a love story set in pre-war France. Audience members witness the artistic and technical innovations that defined motion pictures at the beginning of the 20th century as they participate in Le Mime et L’Étoile’s performance inside a show.
Le Mime et L’Étoile is a technical and narrative masterclass that employs many costumes, movable props, and stage effects, along with a moving stage that creates the illusion that the 30-minute performance is one continuous tracking shot. All of this is done to faithfully recreate the aesthetics of a period movie, in which the 2,000 viewers in the specially designed auditorium are participants, viewing the film from the ‘inside’ as it moves from era to era.
“The artistic approach to Le Mime et l’Étoile is radical. The idea is to offer our visitors a new and unexpected historical experience,” says a Puy du Fou representative who worked on the project. “What could be more immersive and original than shooting a film in black and white? This is the major artistic and technical challenge of this show: the stage, its sets and its actors instantly turn into black and white, transporting visitors into the story.”
The technology behind the illusion
To create this effect, Puy de Fou’s in-house technical team uses a state-of-the-art AVL setup with lighting, projection mapping, and spatialised sound that is synchronised in real time with the movements of the sets and actors.
Four discretely placed Digital Projection Satellite MLS INSIGHT 4K laser projectors at the rear of the Le Mime et l’Étoile auditorium serve as the system’s mainstays. Using precise video pixel mapping and subtle shades of ‘grey’ colour mixing, the lighting designer used Digital Projection’s ColorMax technology to convey the transition from silent films to modern cinema. Thanks to the INSIGHT 4 K projectors, the in-house technical team was able to switch between colour and black-and-white scenes seamlessly.
As part of Digital Projection’s flagship INSIGHT series, the INSIGHT 4K laser projector has a contrast ratio of 2,000:1, a light output of up to 40,000 ISO lumens, and native 4K (4096 × 2160) resolution. The INSIGHT 4 K’s virtually silent, lightweight (40 kg) projector “head” may be detached from a separate, fully hidden laser light source (placed remotely up to 100 m away) in Satellite MLS configuration, enabling incredibly bright images with the least amount of physical projector impact.
For the Puy du Fou technical team, minimising the intrusion of modern technology into the show’s historical narrative meant that the projectors’ infrastructure needed to be easily concealed. Because of this, the AV and technical aspects support the performance, and viewers may be mesmerised by the spectacle without even realising the show’s impressive technical capabilities.
A reliable solution
A technical team representative from Puy du Fou says: “The projectors are used very heavily. Due to the thousands of people coming in, there is a lot of dust, and these projectors can stand up to that – plus they don’t run too hot, and the laser source is protected. This brings peace of mind as we know they will run smoothly for a very long time.”
The video setup is completed with a Modulo Pi media server, and thanks to a spatial sound system, the 4,000-square-metre Le Mime et l’Étoile theatre appears to have several audio sources coming from different directions.
Naostage’s automated show control system, K SYSTEM, offers automatic lighting, audio, and video effects synced with the staging by tracking the 16 principal actors and dancers in the play. This allows for real-time synchronisation of the AV and lighting, which is a very important aspect of the act, yet something that a human operator could never accomplish.
The show’s technical crew explains that manually tracking Le Mime et L’Étoile’s intense action would be impractical due to the show’s 140 tonnes of constantly moving décor and more than 120 actors: “It would be extremely complex without Naostage. All the actors come and go from the stage very quickly, and the theatre set is in constant movement. If we had to do it manually, that would be crazy – it would simply be exhausting.”
After Le Mime et L’Étoile debuted successfully, Digital Projection provided nine more projectors, this time in an even brighter 40,000-lumen format, for Le Dernier Panache, another attraction.
The multi-award-winning Le Dernier Panache, which follows the adventures of a French naval hero in the late 18th century, is set on an immersive 360° stage in the 7,500 square foot Théâtre des Géants (Theatre of Giants) in the park. Eight Digital Projection INSIGHT 4K 120Hz (40,000 lumens) help to bring the story of François de Charette to life. The eight INSIGHT 4K 120Hz projectors, plus a spare, replace the original projectors installed ahead of the show’s opening in 2016.
Digital Projection recently revealed two of its most advanced laser projectors to date at ISE 2024 in Barcelona. The firm, a Delta brand, unveiled its all-new E-Vision 16000i WU and a new TITAN line of projectors at the leading event for the AV and systems integration sector.
