London Symphony Orchestra New Season 2022/23, will be Sir Simon Rattle’s last at the orchestra.

When he joined in 2017, the orchestra launched a new identity using motion data of Sir Simon conducting to shape the visual expression. Since then, each New Season’s film has seen new interpretations of the data created in collaboration with different digital artists.

Our brief:

Create a final Season’s campaign for Sir Simon, one of the world’s most respected conductors.

Our solution:

To pay tribute to Sir Simon’s artistry the theme draws a parallel between music and art, titled The Master Conductor.

Working with a digital artist we transformed Sir Simon’s gestures into an expressive art-piece, painterly in texture with a sculptural physicality. The piece builds following his movement and gathers intensity until the crescendo, when the sculpture dramatically liquifies & drops to the floor – powerfully symbolising the end of an era.

Placement

The film formed the basis of the 22/23 New Season’s campaign. The film is being shown at the Barbican, on LSO’s website & social platforms. A series of stills from the film were selected to reflect the narrative of the film. Typography was integrated into the chosen stills echoing the movement of the art-piece – these feature in the New Season’s brochure and advertising. Posters are displayed at the Barbican and at key London tube & rail stations.

The making of

There were many technical hurdles to overcome to translate the motion data of Sir Simon’s gestures into an expressive animation. Most challenging was balancing the dynamism of his movements with computer generated fluid simulations. Materiality was also a challenge. We wanted to develop a photo real aesthetic rather than CG. Instead of traditional "3D paint" there's a myriad of materials; from nearly-opaque black and blue glass to surfaces that absorb and scatter light – all of this was created using a combination of Cinema 4D, Houdini, and X-Particles. It was rendered using Redshift.

Timeline

The New Season launched in March 2022. The project was started in November 2021.

Brand Relevance

The 2022/23 New Season continues to reinterpret the identity shaped by Sir Simon’s conducting movement. Launched in 2017 to help the orchestra with their ambition to take classical music to new audiences. The expressive and emotive approach was developed in response to a simple insight that the traditional representation of classical music at the time (static photos of conductors, musicians, and music halls) was actually a barrier to younger audiences, reinforcing their negative perceptions of classical music: that it’s old-fashioned, elitist and boring.