Moby Dick Takes on Cosmic Proportions

In a recent collaboration with Dead Puppet Society, an Australian based production house and design company, Christie provided projection and content management support for its latest visual-theatre performance, Ishmael.

Based on Herman Melville’s timeless novel Moby Dick, Ishmael makes its long-awaited world premiere on September 3, 2021 in the Cremorne Theatre at Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) as part of the annual Brisbane Festival. It features a talented Queensland cast and creatives, state-of-the art technology, brilliant puppetry and an outstanding original score to deliver an inspirational, thought-provoking and enthralling experience to audiences. Among the highlights are stunning projections made possible using a Christie GS Series 1DLP laser projector, with content management and processing accomplished by the versatile and powerful Christie Pandoras Box Version 8.

“One of the key elements of Ishmael is the creation of a realistic realm that’s not only captivating to watch, but also for how the story is told,” said Nicholas Paine, Executive Producer, Dead Puppet Society, and Creative Producer of Ishmael. “Christie has supplied us with its GS Series laser projector and Pandoras Box Version 8, providing not only awesome visuals that augment the storytelling process, but the displayed contents also blended seamlessly with live performers, miniaturised landscapes and models to tell this fascinating story about personal redemption and the grace of humanity, with hope and humour.”

David Morton, Creative Director of Dead Puppet Society, and Director of Ishmael, added, “The throw distance that we have between our 7-meter screen and the Christie GS Series projector is ridiculously narrow. So we were impressed by the huge images produced when first switching them on. Pandoras Box Version 8 doesn’t just have content ingestion functionality, but also Z-depth compositing that allows us to compose animation content both behind and in front of the live feed of models and animation with zero latency.”

Ishmael is set in a not-too-distant future where the earth’s oceans have been recast as the vastness of space and the titular character as a young climate refugee grasping at the chance to build a new life for herself. To survive their voyage to the outer solar system aboard the MV Pequod, Ishmael and the obsessive Captain Ahab must navigate the immensity of space and its endless possibilities and terrors.

The 80-minute performance, which will be staged daily from September 3-18, 2021, represents a significant industry collaboration between Dead Puppet Society, QPAC and Brisbane Festival, in association with Screen Queensland.