Professional Lighting & Production - Spring 2020 | Page 22

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TERRA LUMINA
An Enchanted Night Walk into a Bright Future
BY ANDREW KING
C
reatures are indeed stirring after
nightfall at the Toronto Zoo – and
not just the kind you might expect.
Terra Lumina is an innovative
and imaginative new attraction at Canada’s
largest zoo, welcoming patrons through a
portal that transports them 80 years into
the future to a time when humans have
solved climate change and live in harmony
with nature. Created by world-renowned,
Montreal-based multimedia studio Moment
Factory, the immersive multi-sensory experi-
ence employs vibrant lighting and visuals, 3D
projection mapping, one-of-a-kind sets, and
an enthralling original score to entertain and
enlighten visitors as they traverse the 1.5-km
trail through the zoo’s unique terrain.
Running until mid-April 2020, Terra
Lumina is actually Moment Factory’s 11 th
active Lumina night walk experience, with
six others across Canada, three in Japan,
and one in Singapore; however, beyond the
name and basic concept, there’s nothing
conventional or commonplace about it. This
is a one-of-a-kind adventure in a one-of-a-
kind environment that sparks curiosity in all
who walk through its iconic Arch Passage.
In the fall of 2018, the Toronto Zoo opened
a bidding process for a new seasonal attrac-
tion that would run in the evenings after its
usual operating hours. The goal was to raise
awareness that the zoo is open through
the winter months while simultaneously
supporting the City of Toronto’s mandate
to develop more outdoor attractions and
activities.
The zoo had already established the
area that would host the attraction along
with some other basic parameters, but
much was left open-ended to spur creativity
and generate forward-thinking ideas.
“As soon as we read the RFP, we sent a
creative team to actually assess the site and
explore if a Lumina enchanted night walk
was possible,” begins Marie-Hélène Delage,
Moment Factory’s creative director behind
the project. “And in addition to analyzing
the site itself, we were also able to get some
inspiration for how the night walk might
come alive, and which elements of the site
could be the central parts of it.”
The Lumina night walks invite people in
with an inspiring narrative adapted to each
one’s specific location – as well as its history,
geology, flora, and fauna – and then relays
that story through a unique interplay of
nature and technology.
“We build our experiences on our raw
materials – the nature we’re coming into
and developing with multimedia – and the
‘local culture,’” Delage explains. “Here, the
‘local culture’ was really the zoo’s overall
mission and vision, so the part we tapped
into was their inspiring passion to protect
wildlife and their habitats.”
Being that much of the dialogue
surrounding climate change takes on a
distressing and gloomy tone (and under-
standably so), the team made a conscious
effort to root Terra Lumina in hope and
optimism – a literal and figurative path to a
“bright future.”
Subsequently, the company’s slogan of
“we do it in public” is particularly relevant in
this case, with the idea being that the com-
munal aspect of the experience can inspire
communal action.
When it came to conceiving and develop-
ing the overall experience and the individual
components that would comprise it, Delage
describes Moment Factory’s approach as a