Watercolor Story is an Extra Large Immersive Artwork and Cultural Experience

The Making of the MGM Cotai Watercolor Story, Macau

A look behind the scenes at the making of the cFire MGM Cotai Watercolor Story.

This mini documentary video explores the story and behind-the-scenes strategy and artistic approach that Artist and Artistic Director Zheng Chongbin and the team at digital studio cFire used to create the world’s largest indoor LED screen immersive animated ink brush painting for the Spectacle atrium at the MGM Cotai luxury resort in Macau.

The Brief

MGM Cotai, a luxury resort in Macau, sought to create a visually stunning digital content experience for guests.

The ask was to create a digital watercolor painting at the “Spectacle,” the world’s largest surround LED array in the massive atrium at the 5 star MGM Cotai resort in Macau

The resort's centerpiece, "Spectacle," a massive atrium features 25 LED displays of 70 million pixels embedded into the architecture adjacent to the hotel, restaurants, retail, and casino. 

The brief was to develop a site-specific immersive experience in the form of a digital peaceful watercolor painting that would be a "feast for the eyes," to celebrate the strong connection between China and Macau during Chinese New Year.

The Strategy

Original ink brush paintings were animated across 25 Massive LED screens, immersing guests into a world of culture and tradition in a new, surprising and inspiring way.

Cultural Context

Watercolor Story incorporates three cultural contextual factors that celebrate the unity of Macau and China.

Firstly, the work features locations and shared cultural icons recognizable and significant to both China and Macau, celebrating more than 20 years of unity since the handover of Macau to China in 1999.

Secondly, the use of traditional cultural colors and symbols, such as cinnabar red and cerulean blue, the cranes, fish, and others, represent important cultural values shared by both cultures, including longevity, wisdom, good fortune, power, prosperity, repelling evil, luck, and harmony.

Thirdly, Watercolor Story aimed to capture the essence of Chinese New Year, an important Lunar New Year event in Macau, highlighting the destination's deep connection with China and making it a culturally insightful brand experience.

Key Factors of Success

The Watercolor Story is an immersive experience aimed at captivating and engaging guests, particularly those from Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia, and beyond. Using art, technology, and spatial UX, our aim was to immerse visitors in a world of local icons, bold colors, and stunning visuals.

To achieve this:

• We collaborated with a master ink brush artist to create authentic paintings celebrating Macau's and China’s identity.

• Culturally significant bold colors such as cinnabar red, cerulean blue, and ultramarine enhanced the spatial coherence of the 25-screen digital canvas.

• The use of icons including cranes, fish, mountains and water represent familiar cultural values shared by both China and Macau such as longevity, wisdom, good fortune, power, prosperity, luck, and harmony.

• The experience is optimized around user flow and lighting.

• We created a non-linear story in three acts highlighting Macau's connection to China, perfect for celebrating Chinese New Year.

The goal was to deliver an authentic artistic experience that mesmerized and delighted visitors with the sight of cranes, local harbor fish, and ships that come to life and move across the Spectacle. Sound design by the MGM Macau team ensures an unforgettable sensory experience.

Mastery

The project is led by cFire’s Artistic Director, Zheng Chongbin, a renowned fine artist who embodies the convergence of the classical Chinese ink tradition and contemporary pictorial abstraction. He is a thought-leading artist influencing the convergence of technology and immersive platforms and light-space participatory experiences and artworks across prolific global destinations, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, USA & Europe. The artist is in high-demand, and this MGM Cotai Spectacle Watercolor story of traditional ink and non-traditional immersive art using bright colors will be a first and a must-see experience for Guests. The art itself is an asset that draws new visitors.

Museums & Collections:

British Museum, London, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Brooklyn Museum, New York, Orange County Museum of Art, California, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, DSL Collection, Paris, France, M+ Museum, Hong Kong S.A.R.

The Creative Idea

The experience was designed to be something unique, and though it takes its original cues from classical Chinese watercolor landscape paintings, the MGM Cotai Watercolor Story is something entirely new.

We created “Watercolor Story,” a magical 10-minute animated digital experience to immersive guests in a world made up of the iconic elements of an authentic traditional ink brush painting.

The “Watercolor Story” evolves over three distinct acts, and consists of non-linear immersive storytelling so that guests may come and go without missing any narrative plot line. Each act is a sensory experience themed in a bold recognizable traditional Chinese ink color: cinnabar red, aquamarine and cerulean blue.

At the onset of each act, traditional ink brushed icons from Chinese and Macanese culture such as cranes, fish and sailing ships, are painted into the scene, and then begin to come to life, flowing gracefully through mountain landscapes and the Macau Harbor.

The Execution

Ink brushed icons went from brush to canvas to 8K digital video to animation and post production across the massive array of displays. 

Production

Watercolor Story was created by our team of artists, designers, and animators overseen by a renowned ink brush and light-space artist. The Implementation consisted of 15 weeks at our studio and MGM Cotai and included:

• Pre-production: We built a studio rig for top-down video recording of ink brush paintings.

• Deep research on Macanese and Chinese symbols and icons to feature in the work.

• Procurement of specific paint types and colors for the culturally specific elements.

• Painting and video capture: 8K video of single-session ink brush paintings, focused on paint application, textures, and icon creation.

Animation and Post Production

• Animation: compositing and animation of all elements, including 3D effects and motion of icons, bringing paintings, backgrounds and icons to life.

• Production: creation and timing of immersive animations, including time of flight across negative space.

• Rendering: output of 10-minute media files for each of the 25 displays.

• Post-production: color correction, optimization, and sound and music integration.

Results

Watercolor Story launched Chinese New Year 2023 in Macau, and generated the results below:

Quality of Experience - Watercolor Story offered guests a bespoke unparalleled immersive experience, making it a standout brand activation.

Engaging Experience - Watercolor Story caught the attention of guests, and generated a demand for the backstory, contributing to the cultural relevance of the destination.

Innovative Use of Traditional Art - Watercolor Story is a first-of-its-kind ink brush painting, that came to life digitally on the world's largest indoor LED wall installation, making it an exceptional digital art experience.

Enhancing Brand Positioning - Watercolor Story enhanced the positioning MGM Cotai as a luxury destination with a distinct authentic artistic offering, reinforcing its brand and unique value proposition.

Cultural Relevance - Watercolor Story captured the essence of Chinese New Year, a significant cultural event in Macau, and highlighted the destination's deep connection with China, making it a culturally insightful brand experience.

Links

Learn more at MGM Cotai and MGM Macau, and more about other MGM Resorts International destinations

For more on the fundamentals of LED video wall content please see our CFIRE blog, CFIRE website, and recent repost on Sixteen-Nine