Cirque Du Soleil Video Combines Quadcopters and Dramatic Lighting in "SPARKED"

I'm not much for gambling, but I've always said that if I spent some time in Las Vegas that I would check out a show by Cirque Du Soleil. This short film absolutely confirms the kind of creativity and magical displays that I've longed to see in person.

Combining quadcopters, which are arguably all the rage right now in the photo/video world, and a mysertious, thoughtful sound track (produced by Danny Elfman) watch as a lamp-maker toils away in his workshop. Suddenly, the lamps come to life on their own, and then put on an utterly surreal performance, seemingly dancing around through the air. At the end of the video, text on screen proudly displays that no CGI was used or needed.

Having them move independently but than also in unison, with such precision, is captured in an equally elegant way. Look for the orbiting shots at around 2:35 that really show the full movements in action, as the "lamps" fly around in one direction and the camera moves in an opposing direction, while the lamp-maker twirls as well.

An Ideas.Ted article explained a little bit of what was going on behind the scenes:

The quads are attached to lampshades with high-power LEDs mounted inside, and they use an algorithm to determine roughly how to execute the choreography. The quads run custom software for estimation and control — but they’re flying completely autonomously.

This is a tremendous example of the possibilities of controllable flying machines, presented in a very artful way. I hope we see some more of this kind of thing in the future.

[Via Ideas.Ted]