Once Upon a Time in Dubai

First, introduce the world.

Before an audience can become interested in a new show, they need to understand enough to want to discover more. Our work therefore expanded into the communication surrounding the production, including social content and the material needed to begin introducing the musical to audiences. Then another opportunity arrived. The show needed a teaser for VOX. And it needed it fast.

24 hours. One cinema teaser.

The turnaround was approximately 24 hours. That changed how the production had to operate. There wasn’t time for a conventional sequence where one team finishes, hands over to another, waits for feedback, and then moves to the next stage. Production and post-production needed to function almost simultaneously. Around 14 people came together around the shoot, using Sony FX6 and FX3 cameras, gimbals, live transmission and mixing. Everyone needed to understand not only their individual role, but what the person after them needed in order to keep the process moving. The production happened. The material moved through post. The teaser made its deadline. And the project kept growing.

Then came the show itself.

Capturing a live musical is different from shooting a commercial. You cannot simply ask the performance to stop because a camera missed something. Music continues. Actors move. Lighting changes. Important moments can happen simultaneously on different parts of the stage. The plan was therefore to use a rehearsal to understand the production before the main capture: anticipate key moments, study movement, refine camera positions and give the crew a chance to experience the show before recording it for real. Then heavy rain changed the schedule. The planned rehearsal could no longer happen. Opening night would also become our first complete experience of the show.

So we designed around the unknown.

If we couldn’t reduce the uncertainty through rehearsal, we needed to build enough coverage and coordination into the production to respond to it live. The operation grew to around 28 people. We deployed 14 cameras, with at least eight feeding directly into the live mixer. Camera operators covered different perspectives of the performance. Dedicated DITs managed the large volume of media being created. Editors were working on the ground. Live feeds had to be monitored while the show continued in front of an audience. There was another layer too. We weren’t only thinking about a complete recording of the performance. The production also needed content that could continue supporting the show afterwards. So while one experience was happening on stage, an entire content operation was happening behind it. For the audience, there was one show. Behind the audience, there were cameras, data, live feeds, storage, editorial decisions and dozens of people working together to make sure that show could live again after the curtain closed. That part should feel invisible.

Six months later, the same footage had somewhere new to go.

The client subsequently secured an opportunity to bring the production to Emirates ICE. That created a completely different phase of the project. Content made for a live performance doesn’t automatically become content ready for an airline entertainment system. We returned to the production for mastering and technical adaptation, preparing the required versions and creating subtitles in English and Arabic. The same project had now existed in very different environments. Social media introduced it. VOX put it on cinema screens. The live production captured the complete performance. Post-production turned that performance into a film. And Emirates ICE gave that film another audience entirely.

One production. Multiple lives.

That’s what makes Once Upon a Time in Dubai an important project for us. Not because it became one enormous production from the beginning. It didn’t. It evolved. Each new opportunity created a different requirement, and our role evolved with it. Sometimes that meant communication. Sometimes a 24-hour production. Sometimes 14 cameras and almost 30 people working around a live performance. Sometimes it meant returning months later to prepare the film for an entirely different platform. The common thread was continuity. Understanding what already existed, what the project needed next, and how to get it there without forcing the client to rebuild the production process every time the opportunity changed.