Projected on the façade of the Grandmaster’s Palace, A Tale of Strings took over 10,000 hours to complete. Marija Schranz goes behind-the-scenes.

The Grandmaster’s Palace in Valletta has been given a Christmas makeover thanks to Mcast students who have prepared special installations for its façade.

One of the first buildings to have been erected in the new city of Valletta in 1566, it was enlarged and developed further by grandmasters of the Order of St John to serve as their official residence. In its storied past, it also served as the Governor’s Palace during the British rule and as home to Malta’s parliament until 2015. Nowadays, it is home to the Office of the President and will be the hub of activities for Malta’s EU presidency.

This is the fourth year that Mcast’s Institute for the Creative Arts is collaborating with Valletta 2018 to produce an audio-visual projection. The project unfolded over the past couple of months, with an initial meeting held back in October to discuss and visualise various possible concepts for the work.

Daniel Galea

Daniel Galea, 23, is currently in his final year of a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and Interactive Media at Mcast and one of the producers of the installation.

“One of this year’s wishes and the main point that was driven home was the inclusion of a narrative,” he explained. “The specific theme was chosen because it was inspired by the theatre scene, and what better place to put that on display than Valletta, where the Manoel Theatre is located?”

This year’s installation carries the name Tale of Strings, a title which strongly hints at the type of experience the audience will watch as the puppet theatre fantasy unfolds on the impressive limestone front of the building. The projections revolve around the characters of two siblings, Ġorġ, the youngest, and Nina.

The projections revolve around the characters of two siblings, Ġorġ, the youngest, and Nina

While happily handing out presents to Valletta’s residents under Nina’s direction, a present gets lost following an argument between the siblings. Ġorġ, who wanted to keep the present for himself, goes in search for it at the bottom of the sea and must try to get it back in time for Christmas. He eventually finds the gift and proceeds to choose to give the last present away, too.

Fellow student Michael Grech, 23, was appointed director of the project and together with another producer and a team of 39 students and some teachers moved this project forward.

This also meant identifying each individual’s area of strength and setting them to work on that. This was, in fact, the first time that any of the students had worked on such a large project.

Six main teams were needed to focus on writing the script and storyboarding, 2D and 3D assets, animations, sound, the creating of an augmented reality application as well as marketing.

“This year we also wanted to build an emotional connection between the story being told and the viewer,” Mr Galea added.

“To achieve this we needed to create a story that would be intriguing, yet easy to follow. Everything started from an idea and discussions that then went into planning and sketching.

“Once the sketches were completed, every character, scene and asset that was on paper had to be digitised and painted. Now visible on a screen, it was time to animate, a long process that involved moving 2D flat objects and making them feel and look real.

“One of the hardest parts was matching what we had on paper and screen to the actual façade of the building. We wanted to make sure that the whole animation would integrate with the architecture of the building and the timing had to be flawless.”

Sound was also added to further enhance the work. All in all, the whole project took over 10,000 hours to complete, all within the short space of time of two months.

This year’s project also sees the use of an augmented reality application. Augmented reality uses technology to superimpose information on the world we see around us, thus bridging the real world with computer generated graphics, bringing Valletta and the projection mapping closer to the viewer. This way, viewers can enhance their experience of Tale of Strings by using their very own smartphones.

■ The projections can be experienced in St George’s Square in Valletta daily until December 31. The first projection starts at 6pm. It is then repeated every half hour until 11pm. A final show is also scheduled for December 31 as part of Valletta’s New Year’s Eve festivities.