2012 ARTISTS OF THE YEAR AWARDS
Working with the wonderful team at CMT, The Ether designed sky lanterns that were used as looping backdrops during a performance by Ryan Tedder and Bryan Luke at the Artists of the Year 2012 event.
Because of California’s statewide ban on sky lanterns (a potential hazard for starting brush fires) there wasn’t a place nearby where one could readily acquire them. And since time was of the essence we did the next best thing and created them ourselves. We built our own “sky” lantern with some paper bags, thin wire, tea-light candles, a little tape, a lighter and a ton of creative ingenuity. We suspended the lit lantern from the ceiling and filmed it at slightly varying angles. We then treated and refined it several ways to give it more of a natural lantern look and feel, adjusting motion and speed accordingly. We used a particle system to populate the scene with a sea of lanterns and added blurring effects to give the impression of depth. The result was a light, comfortable tone that framed the performers in a warm and zen-like ambience.