Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Building, animating, and projecting backgrounds for live theater productions is something anyone can do — and it adds a ton of depth and dynamics to any performance. In a recent community theater production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I made over 30 projections for our backdrops...and played Mr. Salt with my daughter as Veruca! In this tutorial we'll dig into using Firefly Boards for generating ideas, creating assets in Photoshop, and compositing and animating everything together in After Effects.

0:00 Intro
1:25 Planning & Firefly Boards
8:56 Stock
10:48 Projecting onto different surfaces
13:17 After Effects - making a basic scene
21:35 Transitions
23:23 Fresco timelapses
26:04 Location compositing
29:22 Animated text with Mister Horse
33:26 Generative green screen transition elements
34:52 Golden pipes
39:05 Nut room
41:35 Mixing room
43:28 TV room
46:42 Elevator and export
47:35 Outro

Watch the Wizard of Oz projection tutorial here: youtube.com/watch?v=t_jPKdwyH8M

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