The DI 75 (#25): Give back to your community. You have to give to get.
The seventh-annual Thundergong! hosted by Jason Sudeikis took Kansas City by storm, raising over $800K for the Steps of Faith Foundation – a national nonprofit that provides under or non-insured amputees with life-changing prosthetic care. DI and the DI Foundation are proud supporters of Thundergong!, and we were honored to once again be a part of the fun by adding our own creative flair to the all-star variety show.
Every year, illustrator and designer A. Micah Smith creates a unique theme for the event – primarily based on Jason Sudeikis’ latest niche interests. Last year’s theme was Magic, which inspired our team to help create 'Hatrick Swayze', an improvisational and interactive character charged with comic relief, crowd engagement and donation tracking throughout the show.
Leaning into this year’s theme of Pinball, we carefully mounted a 3’ mirrored dome in front of one of the two large LED walls flanking the stage. This highly-reflective physical element – a dead ringer for an oversized pinball – served as an intriguing focal point for the theme while helping drive our creative efforts as we moved forward.
We first greeted the audience with a digital, fully functional 3D pinball game based on the show’s branding and promotional posters. Multiple camera angles within the digital environment yielded awesome “in-game” views – one of which was “locked” on the pinball, creating a mind-bending optical illusion when paired with the physical mirrored dome. DI technical artists captured additional live-action pinball sequences using Unreal Engine to serve as an interactive “HIGH SCORE” moment that showcased growing fundraising efforts throughout the night.
Music is a key driver of the Thundergong! experience. So, in addition to 3D pinball animations, we created a custom live-rendered music visualization application using TouchDesigner to bring the beats of the night to visual life. A team of DI-ers set up offstage, where we communicated with the show director while manually driving a drum pad to initiate reactive visuals for each performance – resulting in over 22 real-time animations, each inspired by the brand kit and tailor-made for each performance.
“We experienced it ourselves, but everyone we’ve talked to has said this was our best Thundergong! yet. And almost all of those people have talked about the visual production elements taking it over the top," Steps of Faith Foundation CEO and Co-Creator of Thundergong!, Billy Brimblecom Jr., said. "For DI to work with a little charity like ours is a dream, and they have helped us up our game in such a big way."
Forming a trusted partnership with the Thundergong! team gave us the creative liberty to explore and execute innovative ideas to help give the one-of-a-kind fundraiser an additional edge. With next year’s event already in the works, we are excited to continue the collaboration to benefit a remarkable cause (all while having a little fun along the way).
