Alicia Eggert - “Your Magic Is Real”.
In December 2019, while our founder, Wesley Kirk, was visiting his mom & brother in Houston for Christmas, they decided to check out The Color Factory, a pop-up interactive art exhibition. A few of his friends had contributed installations, including a fellow photographer / graphic designer Carra Sykes, who created a series of felt banners near the restrooms.
He was most excited to see a room with a giant interactive neo sign that said “You Are Magic” that was designed by Alicia Eggert & James Akers. Alicia is one of Wesley’s favorite artists, and he had seen a video of the first version of this idea, which included a custom inflatable that read “You Are Magic”, but he had yet to see the much more elaborate neon version. He spent probably 20 minutes in that room, taking in all the variations of the installation, and watching everyone’s reaction.
The installation has a platform in the center of the room for at least 2 people to stand on. There are pedestals on either side, with the metal shape of a hand on top of them. The pedestals are too far apart for any one person to touch them both, so it requires the people on the platform to work together by holding hands (or just touching skin-to-skin) and then placing their hand on the pedestals. This completes an electrical circuit that triggers the installation to begin.
The neon lights throughout the room slowly come to life, and the audio begins, which sounds almost like a music box winding up. It builds to a crescendo when a disco ball in the center of the room lights up, and the music & lights enter a sort of holding pattern. The lightshow ends when someone takes their hands off the pedestals or each other, cutting the circuit, at which point the lights wind down and the music sounds like it’s powering off.
There are at least 6 different songs and light sequences for people to trigger. And there are additional pedestals on the right & left sides of the room so that other’s can join in while they are waiting for their turn. It’s a beautiful exhibit all about connection and wonder.
Kendall McCrae posing with a banner by Carra Sykes.
Just a month later Wesley & our producer, Kendall McCrae, met up with Alicia Eggert to talk to her about possibly creating a mini-documentary about her. She mentioned that she was needing a film crew to document her installation, “Your Magic Is Real”, at The Color Factory, and she decided to hire us for it. It was a dream project for a dream client.
We coordinated with The Color Factory so that we could film on a day when they were doing routine maintenance throughout the building, and they were kind enough to find us an assortment of actors for the video, primarily employees who came in on their day off. We couldn’t have asked for nicer people to assist in creating the video.
We showed up early in the morning, got the lay of the land, brought in all our equipment, and formed a strategy for the best way to film everything to be as considerate as possible for people’s time.
We started by filming gimbal shots around the room with our actors. We paired them off, and asked them to run through the entire experience as if it was their first time seeing it.
Afterwards we went through each group of actors with closeup shots on the tripod, capturing nice little moments of wonder, joy and connection.
Once we wrapped with the actors, Kendall & Wesley spent a couple more hours capturing details of all the various elements to the installation. Close ups of particular lights, the disco ball, the pedestals, a wide shot of every variation of the light sequence.
Our editor, Penny Halcyon, worked on capturing the feeling of awe, while also showing the process of experiencing the installation from beginning to end. Wesley added in some additional sound effects to help accentuate some key elements, like adding a zapping sound when starting and stopping the sequence. We think the final video does a good job of recreating the experience and feeling when experiencing “Your Magic Is Real” for the first time.
Again, this was a dream project for a dream client. It was one of those days where we just love what we do.
P.S. Alicia created the installation with James Akers. Evan Scallon created the music. TXRX helped with programming. And The Color Factory was an enormous help to us in making this video.
