After the departure of Kawkab al-Sharq, Umm Kulthum, 44 years ago, the great Egyptian artist "stood" on the stage of the Dubai Opera, the day before yesterday, with a hologram technique, where lovers and singers of the rites enjoyed a concert that simulates reality, and they were transported with this technology from the virtual world To the real world, where the concert company, NDP, managed to take the audience to the time of originality and recovered over the course of an hour the performance of the late Umm Kulthum in four songs, with a three-dimensional presence that added a lot to the amazement of enjoying the sound and performance.
At the beginning of the ceremony, Sanaa Nabil, known as the granddaughter of Umm Kulthum, appeared and led clips from the late songs, and then the attendees moved to the hologram display, where the three-dimensional stereo of the late Umm Kulthum landed across the light from the top of the stage, amid warm applause from the audience who lived the experience of the late singing directly. The ceremony spanned over an hour and a quarter of an hour, included four songs, and each song came with different lighting and colors, as well as a different dress, while the model was identical to reality in conveying the accuracy of performance and standing of the late on the stage characterized by balance and strong presence.
Regarding the preparation for this ceremony, the executive producer and director of the ceremony, Hassan Hayna, told «Emirates Today»: «The preparation for this ceremony relied on the technique of reconstructing the face again, through the high-quality images that we collected from the family, or that are available on search engines, Which allowed us to draw the details and features in their realistic form, and it took nearly a year to work on the Umm Kulthum party. ” He pointed out that building existing personalities necessitates relying on a person who is capable of the character's movements, and can play her role, and for this reason contact was made with the actress Sabreen, who mastered the role of Umm Kulthum, and identified the character and movements in the series in which she embodied her character, and performed the songs that were shown during the ceremony, In order to capture the movements to apply to the 3D stereoscope. After completing the process of implementing the shape and the image, there was a serious work on the sound, and it was sometimes explained that he pulled the sound of Umm Kulthum from the songs, and after that the sound was combined with the interactive model, to provide the experience of direct singing to the audience.
And on building personality, he pointed out that it is a process that relies on specialized programs, which are programs that are able to give a high-quality image of the model, then it is colored and the details of eyes, hair, and all the features are laid out, so that the movement is moved to, as the movement is linked to the human being.
He explained that the situation of movements was done again by the second, as the facial details move every second, and therefore the movements are studied and placed sequentially, and here he mentioned the role of the actress Sabreen, who was perfect for the movements of Umm Kulthum and imbued with her personality, which facilitated the preparation process, explaining that «must "The character who plays the role and is portrayed is completely aware of the main character that plays it."
As for how to take the movements from the actress Sabreen, he pointed out sometimes that a helmet was placed on top of Sabreen while performing the songs, and the helmet is characterized by being equipped with cameras, and then marks were placed on the face to determine the locations of the muscles, then the installed cameras recorded all the muscle movements, then transferred these Movements to the three-dimensional hologram. He pointed out that building movements based on the movements of a realistic person is what gives this virtual image this realistic approach, and this differs from creating a character that does not exist at all.
As for the biggest challenge in such production, he confirmed at the time that it is related to the picture and sound, pointing out that the challenge related to the sound is no less difficult than the challenge of the image, so searching for sound with very high quality and strong in terms of recording is the most important, indicating that the withdrawal of sound took a lot From time to time, this technique is usually used with a lot of clips that show for minutes and a very short period, not in long clips. He pointed out that it carries more difficulties in a large ceremony and on the stage, because it is presented directly in front of the audience and it is not possible to escape some details through the camera, lighting or angle of photography, as is the case with their use in films. He noted that clips were chosen from the most famous songs of Umm Kulthum, which are "You are my life", "One Thousand and One Nights", "Lessa Faker" and "Biography of Love". Hina stressed that the longest possible period of singing and avoiding the long music that characterized Umm Kulthum's songs was chosen, to provide the greatest pleasure to the audience with this experience that carries a lot of feelings and feelings, especially since there is a big difference between seeing a person who loves people across the screen or in front of Their eyes.
And about choosing Umm Kulthum and presenting a party for her, executive producer Mahmoud Bisha pointed out that she is an artist that is very popular in the Arab world, and there are many generations that love and love to watch her, she is part of the Tarb culture and part of our daily life, pointing out that they are working on preparing for a party for Talal Maddah, Especially after his song preparation test presented in Saudi Arabia.
Mahmoud Bisha pointed out that the hologram experience will be an integral part of entertainment. A ceremony was announced for Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson in the western world, using this technology, and many products were promoted in Dubai through this technology, and this is why we strive to present it differently. He pointed out that the future and the researches presented indicate that the world is going to find this technology in a large and large way and on a daily basis in the future, as if we see these figures regularly, and will enter in education and other fields, as these figures can be moved from place to place, The virtual world will exit from the window of the screens.
Cost of production
Executive producer Mahmoud Bisha confirmed that this type of production is characterized by a lot of huge, and that the material cost is very high, so the production of the concert is close to the cost of producing a movie, as it requires a long time of work, noting that with work with multiple experiences they have the ability to reduce hours Work a little. He pointed to the possibility of producing many parties for personalities who deserve to be given their rights, and they have a large fan base in the Arab world.