James was the creative director and creator of Artmageddon–a live music event for over 1200 students and alumni with a budget of $75k. He oversaw the entire production and led departments in art, dance, music, actors, and technical theater as well as coordinated with outside technical vendors, security, facilities, and hospitality services.
The story of Artmageddon (or artmaggedon as the school’s social media team apparently spelled it) is a post-apocalypse festival held in the ruins of the institute by the disparate gangs of wasteland raiders. While a lot has changed since “the event,” the survivors of CalArts have created factions loosely based on the colleges that preceded them. They put aside their turf war for one night a year to celebrate CalArts long tradition of infamous Halloween parties to party like the world’s going to end…again.
In addition to creative directing and writing, James also shot all of the behind-the-scenes production footage used by the institute for their video. CalArts has a much larger gallery of images from the event available here.
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- View of the main stage
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- Dancers and DJs
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- Musicians performing
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- Guests enjoying the party
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- Guests at the cocktail bar
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- Character actors getting into the immersive storytelling
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- James leads a preshow walkthrough
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- James presents to industry guests and vendors
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- James presents to industry guests and vendors
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- A very haggard James has a final meeting with scare actors before doors open