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[Exclusive Preview] A Sinister Force Descends On Sundance With Ricardo Rivera's Newest Projection

Our exclusive video teaser shows the facade of The Egyptian theater transformed into a ghostly apparition.

The showpiece of last year's New Frontier exhibit at the Sundance Film FestivalWhat’s He Building in There? (created by Ricardo Rivera and Klip Collective) transformed the facade of the festival's venue into a live action screen with a 3D short film project mapped directly onto the building. A mixture of live action and animation, the piece embodied the New Frontier program’s mission to “identify and foster independent artists innovating in the art and form of storytelling at the convergence of film, art, media, live performance, music and technology.”

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Klip’s work celebrates the 30th anniversary of the festival, which has already seen its share of critical acclaim and big deals, including the well received festival opener Whiplash and Zach Braff’s Kickstarter funded Wish I Were Here. Joseph Gordon Levitt premiered the first three episodes of his crowd sourced HitRecord on TV, which is also a part of the New Frontier convergence of film, television and digital media.

Last year, we spoke with Rivera at The Creators Project about the history of Klip, his patenting of 3D projection mapping, and what it means to be an artist in America. Rivera and Klip return to Sundance this week, but instead of projecting onto one of the satellite venues, they are right on Main Street, using the world famous Egyptian Theater as a canvas. Commissioned to turn their massive projections into a pre-roll bumper that will play before every film screening at the festival, Klip riffed on the bumper to create another nightly, live 3D projection installation, What’s He Projecting in There? (The Projectionist).

Like Klip’s previous New Frontier piece, What’s He Building in There?, The Projectionist unfurles itself when the walls of the Egyptian appear to slide down to reveal the inner workings of a projection booth. The Projectionist enters with a mustachioed manager who shows The Projectionist around the booth on his first day and explains, “The last guy went nuts and mixed up all the films.” The Manager leaves The Projectionist alone to his work, but various apparitions, including his own doppelganger, mysteriously appear. Nestled in the mountains of Park City, Utah, the projection booth takes on the energy of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. Where the bumper for the festival offers a nostalgic, magical quality, “The Projectionist” feels quirky and sinister.

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Today, Rivera was able to offer us an exclusive sneak peek into The Projection installtion:

"What's He Projecting in There" (The Projectionist) Sundance 2014 Teaser from Klip Collective.

Recently Rivera was also kind enough to take time out of his intense installation process to share his thoughts on what it means to have his work back at Sundance, not only on the main stage venue but on every screen at Sundance.

Sounds like the bumper for the festival really made an impression for Sundance to ask you to create the installation. What are the challenges of portraying 3D in 2D and then jumping back again for an installation?

The real challenge is framing the installation so that the experience, the scale, and the fact that it was actually projected is communicated and captured. For the bumper, we included some live action to lead the viewer as if they too, like our actress, have chanced upon an animated illumination of the Egyptian Theater. I think it is imperative that there is visual proof that the installation existed in reality. One way we achieved this was by wetting down the road in front of the Egyptian to capture the reflections of the building projections.

Jumping back was easy. The biggest challenge was redesigning the piece technically, as we did not have the same amount of projectors for the New Frontier piece, nor could we place the projectors where we had them before, on the sidewalk, due to the festival. During the execution of the bumper in the summer, the Sundance team discussed the option of doing the install during the festival. We just figured it out. It's what we do.

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Sundance Film Festival 2014 Bump from Klip Collective on Vimeo.

Last year’s What's He Building in There? was inspired by Tom Waits song of the same title. What’s the soundtrack to What’s He Projecting in There? (The Projectionist)

This year's piece was inspired by the work we did last year, for sure. Although the Tom Waits song was the inspiration for last year's piece, this year the inspiration came from a visit by the "dream tiger" to Josh James, who penned this year's piece. We wanted to tell a story of the projectionist, a sort of unsung player in cinema, and also a kind of reference to what we do. We combined Josh's script with the idea of cinematic apparitions from Sundance's past that appear and somewhat torture our protagonist.

How was your process for making What’s He Projecting in There? (The Projectionist) compared to What's He Building in There?

Well, we didn't have much time to put this one together, so we had to cut out the stop motion process from last year's piece. Something I was pretty bummed about. All in all, it was very similar to our process last year. We laid out the projection canvas of the architecture and then used that as our roadmap/stage to tell the tale.

You are using the same character as What's He Building in There? Did the factory worker finally escape his endless torture to a better position in The Egyptian, and did he get a pay raise?

Ha. That's amazing. If that's what people get out of it, brilliant!!!

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You’re on Main Street this year. Is it more challenging to create an installation with that much foot traffic?

If by challenge you mean dealing with a bunch of drunk people, then yes.

As an artist, how important is the support you receive from Shari Frilot, the director of the Sundance New Frontier program

Invaluable. Her guidance and trust have given me and the team so much. The fact that she and New Frontier have developed a stage for this type of medium within something as prestigious as Sundance is mind blowing. In my opinion there is no better stage for our medium.

You’re calling What’s He Projecting in There? (The Projectionist) a “love letter” to the festival. If the festival loves you back, would you want to make this an annual rendezvous?
With my birthday during the festival, I may need a year off when I turn 40 next year. I plan to knock something off of my bucket list.

I want to create a projection mapped mini-city out of foam core which I will destroy wearing a Godzilla costume.

What’s next for you and Klip? 

A night in the garden (3 month installation). That's all I can say about that for now. We are also working on a piece called Vacant America for which we were selected as New Frontier Story Lab fellows this year. What a great experience that was. But that, my friend, is another conversation.