King Kong: Live on Stage

Steve Schulze

Hey chaps.
I thought you guys might like to see some stuff from my latest announced project - King Kong. It's a musical retelling of the Kong story featuring 7 metre tall semi-mechanised puppet of Kong.

We've also got the likes of Robert Del Naja, Elbow, Justice, the Avalanches and Sarah McLachlan writing music which is pretty cool.

There's a bunch of videos up here that give a fair idea of what we're about.
http://kingkongliveonstage.com/gallery/videos/
There's still a lot of stuff that they haven't revealed yet, including the final version of Kong - the one in the videos here is the Prototype 2 mech and isn't nearly as sexy as the final one.

rolfness

very awesome !

The Mad Artist

That is very cool!

Steve Schulze

So with the show about to launch the marketing folks have finally done the big reveal on King Kong. Despite doing a lot of design work on him, this is actually the first time I've seen him really moving. He's quite the impressive beastie if I say so myself.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/article/-/17284028/king-kong-hits-the-stage/

The Mad Artist

That is a very impressive video. If this was anywhere near me, I'd go and see it in a heartbeat. Can you say what all you worked on and how you got involved in this?

Steve Schulze

I did a lot of digital design work on the puppet inside and out. His overall appearance is very much a collaborative process - he's mostly hand constructed, but there are still bits and pieces that are rocognisable as ones that I worked on in ZBrush and Maya.

Getting into this was as much a right place, right time kinda deal as anything. I started off doing game art, did a little bit of film stuff where I met the guy who eventually became head of digital design here at CTC who then contacted me when he needed so 3d work done.

Kong isn't the most mobile of shows. It needs to be pretty much built into the theatre. For the moment it's only in Melbourne, Australia, but if it's a success there's talks of taking it elsewhere

tottot

Congrats man, that looks killer. Ive never gone to the theatre but for this I totally would, I bet seeing him on stage would be really something.

gray

congratulations, it looks really polished.

not many people get to see there work end up as practical fx anymore. this looks quite involved. it would probably do well if it ever traveled.

Steve Schulze

I just got back from the first preview showing. It's a pretty amazing show. There's some really amazing stuff going on with lighting and projection alongside the puppetry on Kong and the giant snake that takes the place of the T-rex. Kong gets some moments of genuine poignancy as well as being utterly terrifying while he's crashing around on Skull Island and during his escape. The super eclectic music works surprisingly well too within the surreal tone.

It's a shame that this show is going to be so hard to tour. Hopefully we'll get a couple of venues set up in other countries some time in the future.

Cheez

That is so freaking cool !
If only you could bring it to the US :P

The Mad Artist

Is there any talk of it being taped and distributed later for us that can't make it down there?

Steve Schulze

I don't think it's likely to be released on video.

They are looking into overseas possibilities, but its way too early to talk about any of that. We haven't even had our official premiere here yet.