Analysis of Stage and Lighting Design for "Phantom City"

Program Introduction

China's first music creation performance show "Phantom City" attracted attention before its premiere due to its announced guest lineup and mysterious nature. After airing, it ranked first in ratings. The show uses a "live broadcast" format to enhance the on-site experience, putting pressure on participating guests and delivering the "unexpected plots" that audiences anticipate.

▲Phantom Experience Officer Faye Wong

The show adopts a format of "no NG, no editing, no post-production," combining variety show, musical, and film elements. Through seamless switching between multiple scenes in the same studio, it presents an immersive performance.

Stage Design

The stage of "Phantom City" resembles a cathedral dome, composed of nine scenic panels extending from all sides. Behind the screen is a 3000-square-meter area divided into four sections, set according to the needs of the music short films. Visual director Tang Yan and lighting designer Dong Jiang from the Sangong creative team jointly created a theater-level dreamlike performance.

▲Nine scenic panels arranged in a staggered manner

The studio is divided into a performance area and a viewing area. The performance area uses on-site film lighting; guests must complete an 8-minute music story short film recording. The viewing area uses television stage lighting for host interviews and audience viewing. The show broadcasts live behind-the-scenes and front-of-house in real time, with a one-shot continuous take.

Lighting Design

Lighting designer Dong Jiang used dramatic light and shadow to create an immersive viewing space. To simulate light from dawn to sunset, the team created five 4x4 beam lights above the viewing area, simulating parallel sunlight. These beams pass through the five scenic panels, casting light spots onto the audience, allowing them to experience the passage of time.

The show cleverly uses two lighting designs to set the mood: during host and guest segments, the lighting tone is rose gold, making the stage resplendent; during viewing segments, a cool tone is used to focus the audience's attention. The front light is divided into regular front light and viewing front light, using small-area front light to maintain image clarity.

▲Host and guest segment

The two areas are connected by a "time tunnel." The tunnel entrance uses full-channel mode LED bee-eye moving heads to create a vortex light array, enhancing the show's mysterious aura.

▲Bee-eye LED light position diagram

To accommodate the audience's perspective and camera shooting effects, the lighting team added camera positions identical to the on-site ones in wysiwyg, simulating live recording shots to find suitable light positions.

On-site, LED strip lights are used for basic color washing, and small LED moving heads with 7 lamp beads are installed at the connection points of the scenic panels to decorate them, enriching the visual effect.

Using wysiwyg software, the team pre-visualized the wide shot composition of camera 2 to predict the spatial positions of LED moving heads. The arrangement goes from sparse to dense from the bottom of the panels to the dome, creating a starry sky effect. Additionally, double-curved trusses matching the panel curves are installed on both sides of the five panels in the audience area, equipped with profile lights to outline the panel structures, adding depth.

▲C-type truss structure fabrication drawing

To avoid disrupting the cathedral dome stage visuals while meeting lighting requirements, the lighting team collaborated with the stage design team to create light stands integrated with the panels, minimizing structural footprint.

"Phantom City" breaks out of the music framework, delivering a real, panoramic stage performance that lets audiences experience a different kind of theatrical art.

▲On-site measurement master plan

▲"Phantom City" lighting position master plan

▲"Phantom City" LED BAR light position diagram