FRANCIS LAPORTE
Images and Projections Designer

“In drama, I looked at shows from the director’s point of view, whereas in video my approach was more theatrical. As a projections designer for live shows, I’m finally working on bringing these media together.”
– Francis Laporte

Video Projections Designer Francis Laporte belongs to the new generation of creators who integrate digital video production and projection technology with more traditional live show forms. Since finishing university in 1992, he has worked on some 20 projects integrating video with the performing arts and theatre. One of his landmark professional assignments was the video design for a stage adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey directed by Dominic Champagne. He also does performances and installations, both alone and with other artists.

As a projections designer, Francis Laporte can make good use of his diverse training. After studying communications and drama in college, he entered the theatre program at the Université du Québec, specializing in directing and stage design. His interest in images led him to video and multimedia production. “In drama, I looked at shows from the director’s point of view, whereas in video my approach was more theatrical. As a video designer for live shows, I’m finally working on bringing these media together,” he says.

Francis Laporte also creates images for prestigious television broadcasts, such as the opening ceremonies of the Jeux de la Francophonie and the awards ceremony La Soirée des Jutra. In 2003-2004 he developed the visual concept for Eros Ramazzotti’s show and created the set design and visual concept for a performance of the Fantastic Symphony by Berlioz at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. He has also taken on the stage design for live concerts, including singer-cellist Jorane and Quebec singer-songwriter Stefie Shock.

In 1999, Francis Laporte created the multimedia overture for Dralion. But Varekai was the first Cirque du Soleil show to fully incorporate this new artistic language. He further extended his approach in LOVE, and now in Wintuk. Francis is also doing double duty as the Projections Designer of the new Cirque du Soleil magic show scheduled to open in Las Vegas during the summer of 2008. “At Cirque du Soleil, we have the great good fortune of working in a context where everything isn’t seen in terms of constraints; instead there’s a shared determination to see how far we can push the limits,” he notes.

Drawing his inspiration from children’s illustrations, Francis Laporte helped create the settings of Wintuk (the cityscapes and landscapes), the characters that appear in the form of video projections, the wind and the skies, the northern lights and the shadows, the sun and the moon. The imagery has a cardboard cut-out look created by transposing a two-dimensional world into a three-dimensional perspective. “Images are passed through the filter of a child’s imagination,” Francis explains. “Everything is drawn and coloured by hand. We are inside a make-believe world. This is the stuff of fantasy that captures children’s minds.”

Francis Laporte was born in 1970. He grew up in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec.