Experiencing neolithic history at the Calanais Stones Visitor Centre
This experiential project forming the spine of a newly constructed multimillion pound visitor centre on the Isle of Lewis, comprised a suite of videos created to bring the neolithic history of the Calanais Stones to life. Our films encapsulated the folkloric origins of the stones, the lunar origins of their construction, and what they continue to mean to local people on the island.
Working closely with our AV and install partners, Wavetek and Pixel Stag, we designed three core experiences for the new space. The largest of which is ‘The Theatre of the Heavens’; a 270 degree audiovisual experience crafted to retell the construction of the Calanais Stones. Since historical archive imagery of the stones is largely lost to time and little is concretely known about their origins, we pitched a concept that opened on an evocative live action scene showing neolithic visitors to the site, before pivoting to animation to visualise the stones in different eras through the millennia.
All of our Calanais AVs required a delicate balance between communicating the technical aspects of the construction of the stones and their shifting lunar alignments, and keeping the content engaging for young viewers. We leaned strongly into atmospheric effects; moonlight kissing the edge of the stones, mist rising from the peat bogs and fire flickering from dropped braziers. Resources meant opportunities for full character animation were limited, so instead our team made the sun and moon our hero: a minimalist evocative approach that perfectly complimented the 270 degree cinema setting for ‘The Theatre of the Heavens’.
On set, we battled skirl winds and spitting hail when attempting to capture the walk up to the stones in all their glory. Given our opening shot is set four thousand years in the past, we had to lean into VFX skills to patch out electric pylons and infrastructure in order to preserve the neolithic aesthetic.
During visual scripting, the regional sensitivities around religion proved an interesting challenge. Our team carefully considered the presbyterian traditions on the Isle of Lewis, and the visualisations of pagan traditions in contrast to Christian ones, avoiding overlapping imagery between the beliefs.
The vast scale of the Theatre of the Heavens screen proved a technical challenge for our team. The film was set to be screened in a purpose built room, boasting a 270 degree wraparound display, 11640 pixels wide and 1200 pixels tall and projected using a custom designed 6 x projector system. This was supplemented by immersive 5.1 audio, with waves and crumbling stone sounding out from each side of the cinema room.
On site testing of this setup was essential. When our AV partners Wavetek transported the install equipment via ferry to the island, our animators met them to review the work in-situ, making tweaks to ensure legibility and pacing worked in the context of a vast screen.
Our Client Case Studies:
