Press Release: The first 3D theatrical show in world history

The first 3D theatrical show in world history

Unlikely as it would seem, a new musical, Terracotta Warriors 3D, opened in Beijing as the world’s very first 3D theatrical production on September 2^nd, 2014.  Associated with that event, a previously unknown venue in Beijing has just become the world’s first 3D digital theater.  This has history-making implications!  With the increasingly popularity of 3D cinema, the claim of being the first 3D theatrical production in human history is notable enough, but to have this happen in China is truly a shocking surprise.  After all, even though Japan became the world’s most dominant imitator for decades after the Second World War, China has surpassed Japan as the greatest imitator since the last quarter of the twentieth century.  Now, it is showcasing something that is the first in world history?

This game changer is based on Terracotta Warriors 3D use of the first large 3D LED video wall as the backbone of its art direction.  The most worthy aspect of this first-of-the-kind LED video wall is that great 3D effects can be appreciated by the audience using common passive polarizing 3D glasses used by 3D cinema worldwide.  Dr. Dennis Law, the director and producer of Terracotta Warriors 3D claims: “Given the technology today, true and high quality 3D effect can only be achieved by wearing 3D glasses.  This unique LED video wall used by Terracotta Warriors 3D is the first one manufactured in the world suitable for theatrical use.  That is why the audience will experience a theatrical experience that has never been achieved before.  I am certain 3D theater will improve with time, but the fact remains that it started on September 2^nd 2014 with Sight, Sound & Action’s Beijing production of Terracotta Warriors 3D.”

The producers of this historical 3D show believe that the alternative of “glasses-free 3D” offers image quality that is both too poor and too dependent on center-position viewing to be useful in theater applications.  Other methodologies like “3D-mapping” do not really offer real 3D effects useful in a story-telling stage setting.  Conventional high-end 3D projectors used in modern cinema are ineffective in stage works because theatrical lighting washes out the projected image too drastically.  Lastly, even though excellent 3D imagery can be obtained using a specialized LED video wall with active battery-dependent 3D glasses, this application is totally impractical for theatrical live-show use.  Active 3D glasses not infrequently lose its synchronization with the screen --- with hundreds in the audience, huge uproars are inevitable as batteries lose power and synchronization is dropped intermittently.

Terracotta Warriors 3D has successfully solved most of the important problems with regard to live actors performing and dancing in front of the high definition 3D video screen.  Our 3D LED video wall is truly the first in the world.  A pioneering 3D digital post-production company in Beijing has overcome unique difficulties with regard to launching this history-making show with eighty minutes of 3D digital graphics and animation.  For the first time, the human brain has been asked to appreciate real-live 3D (as in live dancers on stage) and virtual 3D effects and scenic background at the same time ---- and successfully so! 

Being the very first in world history is a rare opportunity indeed.  It would be hard to argue against Terracotta Warriors 3D’s legitimate claim.  Check for more details at www.tcw3d.com. 

Monique Q,
V.P. Marketing, U.S.,
Sight, Sound & Action

e-mail: info@eArtChina.net  

Costume Design

Mo Xiaomin, Original Costume Designer

Mo Xiaomin began studying Sichuan Opera at the age of thirteen.  For ten years, he worked as both an actor and set designer before enrolling in the prestigious Shanghai Drama Academy in 1987.  Later, by joining the Shanghai Opera House, he found himself doing costume designs for regional opera and television series and feature films.  To date, Mr. Mo has designed costumes for over a hundred major films, television series, and stage productions.  Mr. Mo is one of China’s most distinguished costume designers.  In 2004, Terracotta Warriors was Mr. Mo’s first assignment for an American Producer/Director.  In 2007, Mr. Mo won the Canadian Toronto Dora Award for Best Costume Design for the Action-Musical Tang Concubines produced by Sight, Sound & Action. 

Ah Kuan, Designer for New Costumes for 3D edition

Ah Kuan is one of China’s most notable costume designers working in Beijing.  Recognized for designing costumes for over a hundred productions of theater and film, he was widely touted for his designs for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.  Ah Kuan has also been the costume designer for the last three Action-Musicals by Sight, Sound & Action, Heartbeat Hawaii, Monkey King, and Senses (Las Vegas edition).  For his work on Monkey King, Ah Kuan won a nomination for the 2010 Toronto Dora Award for Best Costume Design.

Choreography & Stage Direction

A show that tells a story of history using modern revolutionary technologies as a basis for its unprecedented art direction demands choreography and stage action that is fresh and innovative.  Terracotta Warriors 3D’s choreographer, Jonathon Feng Han, leads his team to create a show in which all dance movements transcend boundaries of various traditional dance styles while including many elements of Chinese martial arts.  We hope that the mixture of enhanced martial qualities of male dancers juxtaposed with the more poetic and uniquely sensual qualities of Chinese female dancers will provide fresh visual perspective.

Jonathon Feng Han,  Principal Choreographer & Staging Director  

Jonathon Feng Han is a National Class I dancer in China and started his work in choreography with the Action-Musical, Tang Concubines, produced by Sight, Sound & Action in 2006.  His first outing as a choreographer won him and Tang Concubines the prestigious Toronto Dora Award for Best Choreography.  With his second choreography effort for Sight, Sound & Action’s Monkey King, Jonathon and the show won a second Dora Award for Best Choreography in 2010.  In 2011, he choreographed a piece for the Beijing Acrobatic Troupe and won the prestigious Golden Chrysanthemum Award.  Jonathon owes his rapid rise in the world of choreography to his remarkable record of having performed as principal dancer in hundreds of dance dramas while touring with Sight, Sound & Action in North America.  Very few national class dancers in China have ever had such extensive experience on the international stage.  

About Dr. Dennis Law

Dr. Dennis Law retired from a career as a well-known surgeon in Denver, Colorado in 2001.  Dr. Law started in the field of entertainment by producing Warriors of Virtue in 1996, a high budget family feature film distributed by MGM, Warner Brothers and Columbia Artist worldwide.  In China, he also produced a prize-winning CCTV children’s film Xiwa as well as the acclaimed television series April Rhapsody.  After the acquisition of The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts in 2002, Dr. Law became the C.E.O. and President of The Centre and its associated production company Sight, Sound & Action.  Dr. Law has utilized The Centre to act as a launching site for a new genre of musical theater known as Action-Musical.  In order to support these unique productions, he owns the theatrical production company in Beijing, Law Brothers Chinese Performing Arts International.  Since 2002, nine Action-Musicals (Of Heaven & Earth, Terracotta Warriors, Senses, Heartbeat, Tang Concubines, Phoenixia, Heartbeat Hawaii, Monkey King and Senses, Las Vegas Ed.) have been performed nearly a thousand times in major venues of many cities of North America and China, a feat that is without equal in the history of Chinese performing arts abroad.  In 2005, Dr. Law was nominated for a Toronto Dora Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the show Heartbeat.  In addition, among three shows that were entered into competition for these Dora Awards, the productions gathered a total of seven nominations, while Tang Concubines won Dora Awards for Best Costume Design and Best Choreography in 2007 and Monkey King won for Best Choreography in 2010.   During the summer of 2008, three Sight, Sound & Action productions were mounted in thirty-seven performances as an Action-Musical Festival to celebrate the occasion of the Beijing Olympic Games.   The world premiere of the first Chinese Rock-Musical, Monkey King, was history making for Chinese musical theater both in Beijing and worldwide.  In 2011, Monkey King became the first theatrical work ever to be shot and produced as a 3D high-definition movie and Blue-Ray DVD, and this 3D cinematic version went on to win the Best Foreign Film Award at the Korean 3D Film Festival in 2012.  Dr. Law continues to dedicate himself to giving Chinese performing arts a proud legacy in the international marketplace.  His current production of Terracotta Warriors 3D truly makes entertainment history by being the first 3D theatrical show ever.  

DIRECTOR’SNOTES for Terracotta Warriors World first 3D Stage Show

Using an unprecedented 3D LED video wall as the basis of its art direction, Terracotta Warriors 3D becomes the world’s most unique musical theater production.  The world’s first true 3D show puts the audience in an impressive 3D environment in order to enjoy a moving story of transformational love and sacrifice involving the legendary First Emperor of China, 200 BC.

This show makes entertainment history by combining two factors in a manner never achieved before: the realness, spontaneity and risks of real live-action on stage together with the thrill and visual impact of high-definition 3D grand cinema.  Traditional theater has always depended on complicated “fly-systems” with hanging and painted backdrops and more recently on projected digital images.  Terracotta Warriors 3D’s first use of this new and patented 3D LED video wall technology allows the audience to be fully engaged by being part of a three dimensional set where not only does the background truly recess back into space but at times certain stage elements would invade forwards into the audience’s personal space.  This kind of spatial participation with the story and its characters is heretofore unknown in conventional theater. 

It is rare indeed for anyone or any entity to have the opportunity to create something that is truly the first in humankind.  Terracotta Warriors 3D is such a production because it is the very first time in entertainment history that a true high-definition 3D video wall is used as a backdrop for a live-action theatrical dance drama.  The fact that the most famous Chinese story involving one of the “Ancient Wonders of the World” is combined with uniquely spectacular high-tech art direction will certainly make for a compelling theater-going experience.

This Action-Musical is not merely a high-tech theatrical production; it is also a meaningful and engaging story of love and power and transformation.  Although the story of China’s First Emperor is an important part of its history of thousands of years, Terracotta Warriors 3D tells this tale of Emperor Qin Shi Huang differently by letting the audience see this most influential monarch through the eyes of his loyal eunuch, Zhao Gao.  Castrated by the Emperor who was his childhood best friend, Zhao Gao nevertheless served his master faithfully albeit in a conflicted manner; he eye-witnessed the Qin Emperor’s powers and weaknesses, his loves and his fears, his cruelty and his human frailties.  Finally, it was the Emperor’s sudden and unexpected death that allows Zhao Gao to be freed from his emotional conflict and spiritual bondage and be transformed into a new man.  

Welcome to Terracotta Warriors 3D.  I hope this would become for you a thrilling and satisfying journey through musical theater of unprecedented proportions!

Elements of the First 3D Show

World’s first 3D LED video wall for theatrical application by:  Central China Display Laboratories, Ltd.

Visual & Sound Effects by:  Beijing Sky Fire Culture & Communication Co. Ltd

Music Recording and Sound Effects Design by:  Duan Xiaozhou

Visual Effects & Film Editor and Special Effects Supervisor:  Wei Yong

3D Production & Animation by:  Soaring Dragon Culture & Communication Co. Ltd

Project Supervisor:  Wang Zhen

Visual and Sound Effects Director:  Zhang Chao, Zhang Chunmiao

Terracotta Warriors 3D is most grateful for these companies and their talented artists for their expertise and hard work.   Their combined efforts allow the production to truly push the horizons of modern musical theater in a manner never achieved before.

                Jin Tao, 3D and Digital Effects Supervisor, Sight, Sound & Action

Terracotta Warriors 3D Makeup Design

For the purposes of combining a story of antiquity with futuristic art direction, Mr. Jia Lei, one of the youngest and most recognized makeup designers of his generation, provides totally new designs for this 3D edition.  He has artistic license to be more surreal, dramatic and non-traditional in his approach.  In this manner, the audience can more readily feel the impact of the mysterious culture of ancient China. 

Jia Lei, Makeup Designer

Born in 1983, Mr. Jia has become one of China’s most sought-after and most decorated theatrical makeup designers.  He has served in the capacity of Makeup Art Director for over thirty dance dramas, ten musicals, six acrobatic circuses and nine large-scale tourist galas.  In addition to this large body of work, Jia Lei has won numerous accolades, including “China’s Top Ten Makeup Art Directors” in 2003 and “Asia’s Top 100 Makeup Designers” in 2004.  In 2008, he was the Makeup Art Director for both the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Paralympic Games.  In 2010, he was in charge of all makeup art direction for the opening ceremonies of the Guangzhou Asian Games and was designer-in-charge for the Shanghai World Expo show segment, “The Attraction of Beijing”.  For Sight, Sound & Action, Jia Lei created spectacular makeup and body painting designs for the show, Senses – Las Vegas in 2012.