The incredibly talented photographer/digital illustrator Mark Holthusen wrote this about his experience creating spectacular images like this one for Roger Waters' opera Ça Ira:
I was lucky enough to spend a couple months working on one of the most chaotic, fulfilling and challenging projects of my career with Roger Waters, a founding member of Pink Floyd. Hired only a month before a mid-November debut, I was to create the visual narration for Water's opera on the French Revolution. The opera would show in Rome, and rather than traditional sets, the audience would watch only a chorus accompanied by projected photo illustrations. I was to create 15 images for Ca Ira.
Unbeknownst to me, the seemingly daunting, original, 15-photo project turned into the creation of over 200 images. Naively, I began building a series of miniature backdrop sets in San Francisco and moved to NY to "finish them up."
After days of casting actors and holding meetings, I began to realize the project's scope. Following a solid week of shooting the cast, we edited the 7000 photographs and began the post-production process. I locked myself in an apartment for another week and started digitally constructing the final shoots.
During the last phase of the project, I moved to (into, really) Sony's Visualize studios, where the whole Ca Ira production team worked 18 hour days. No breaks, no sleep, just a client services book to keep us going.
Evergrowing Studio built an amazing new site for samples from this project; the site features photos, movie footage and soundtrack clips from Ca Ira.
