Big Fish: Musical Production & Projection Design Course

Overview

ROLE: Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Arts · Projection Designer · Course Developer

Big Fish is a Broadway musical about a son reconciling with his larger-than-life father’s tall tales.

This production marked the first time UNL students designed and executed projection design for a mainstage production — a full-scale collaboration between the Johnny Carson School of Theater and Film, the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, and the Glenn Korff School of Music, directed by Professor Ann Marie Pollard.

The production grew directly out of my Projection Design course, in which graduate and undergraduate students from theater and emerging media arts worked together to design, animate, and program all projection content for the show. The course covered the fundamentals of projection design and engineering, content creation, visual storytelling, live show control software (Watchout), and the end-to-end process of bringing a complex musical to life — from concept through tech rehearsals to opening night on the UNL Mainstage.