The-Art-ers

Once in London, one can't truly complete their visit to the city without watching a west-end theatre musical. My personal favourite is Disney’s Lion King. Winner of 6 Tony Awards (best musical, best scenic design, best costume, best directing etc...), two Laurence Olivier awards, and the Theatre World Award, the Lion King musical has attracted millions of viewers over a span of 12 performing years, and is almost always fully booked. To get more insight on the amazing artistry and theatrical achievement this play represents, you can watch the below youtube trailer.

The Creativity used in the transposition of the Disney animated film to a real live performance is the essence and power of the piece. But what makes this play even moer unique is its Co-Creation with the audience. As the Director of Costumes, designer Julie Taymor said :" The Whole Point in Theatre, is that people fill in the blank, you give them a bit and they see much more.."

The most difficult "Bit" was to create live animals on scene and get the audience to believe in them in order to imagine their own atmosphere of the Safari jungle.

My personal favorite is the Gazelles representation. The close similarity between the real motion of a Gazelle running, and the ballet dance was at the heart of this representation, and illustrated grace and creativity, adding another trade in the arts involved in the theatrical masterpiece. 

In order to add a twist of creativity, the artist chose to project 3 gazelles on one ballet dancer, thus focusing and concentrating the gazelle’s motion in one representation. The result :  a pure projection of the Africa jungle!

Another "Bit" which was also difficult to transfer to the audience was the rising sun, which is very symbolic of the balance in life , how the world is connected with each other which is the true meaning of the "Circle Of Life" soundtrack.

Again, here, a connection was made between a plain and simple circular shape, combined with an unrelated item, which is the store curtain, producing the sun’s haziness and an impression it was actually moving, thus making the rising sun very realistic in the scene:

Result : Amazing real sun that pulls you directly towards the heart of the story.

Finally, one of the biggest challenge in the play was to recreate the original stampede scene from the animated film, which groups scores of different animals!

In order to animate this sequence over a 20m2 area, I believe the art director was inspired by the setup of a foosball game, where 24 moving players are set in 1m2. In order to emphasize the infinite scale of the jungle, she placed the animals at different depths and heights and staggered them, optimizing the functionality of the stage and using up the space more efficiently.

Again the result is nothing short of astonishing:

For those who didn't see the play yet, or would like to watch the stampede scene again, click on the below link and get to minute 3.50 to see what the real scene looks like (not professional  filming) :

Stampede Scene at minute 3.50 ( Sneak Peak )

Where Else?

After watching the play, you might ask yourself where else could someone implement the approach of "Give a little a bit and people can see much more"??

One could think of directly applying it to the sales methods of ad proposal, in order to help clients get further insights and transpose to the story the advertising agency created to promote the brand. However, this could backfire if the real ad turns out to be different from the perception taken during the proposal, thus making it misleading and less credible.

Other direct implementation could involve PR events, concerts, special events or occasions etc...

However, another way to approach this method would be to apply it in the Co-Creation of a brand or product in marketing. For example, the packaging of a product could be designed in an imaginative way that involves the transposition to the world of the brand from the consumer.

The Art-Vertising

In order to be competitive and successful in new age  advertising, an “outside the box” approach should be adopted, while using different ways to communicate.

 One of the approaches to captivate is to link the benefits of the products to any material in the real world. As a first example, Lego emphasized the fact that you can create a building by projecting it onto a real one from your surroundings.

Nike , Rejoice shampoo and Oltimer Motorway rest shops used unconventional material in the real world to emphasize the benefits of their products.

           One way to be consistent was to search for a similar problem:

Or similar forms and shapes:

Jobs in town, used coffee machines, oil machines, etc. for advertising. 
It linked the negative perception of the old human work machine used by Charlie Chaplin and the new machines that have replaced them. This process placed emphasis on the need for change for any employee who's enduring bad working conditions, stating that " Life is too short for the wrong job!".

Taking It Further...
These creative links used in the advertising industry would be interesting to implement in other categories, in order to generate further benefits and trigger a general impression of products. For example, on a personal level, I have experienced these creative links when I was preparing with some friends an NGO gathering dinner. Limited by the constraints of a low budget to decorate the dining room in order to create a warm atmosphere, we came up with some creative ideas. The flower vases were replaced by Perrier green bottles and a few Marguerites, generating a buzz effect. To stress on friendliness and interactivity, we put some balloons on the floor, thus creating a playground, relaxed atmosphere. 
Some objections for these unexpected decorations could be that they must seem cheap or unprofessional  , however in our case it helped us directly communicate the objectives of dinner and generated the fun and friendly environment we were aiming for.