Moment Factory rolls out multimedia show Vroom!
Think of Vroom! as a drive-in movie night with a twist.
Drive-in theatres are back with a vengeance this summer as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sector had been fading for years, but has had a resurgence in recent weeks because it’s a safe socially distant night out and regular movie theatres have been closed until recently. Drive-ins have popped up everywhere from Dorval to Vaudreuil-dorion and there are also a bunch of live concerts happening at drive-in sites across Quebec.
The drive-in trend is being given a new spin with Vroom!, an unusual multimedia event that will have its première at the Ciné-parc Orford in the Eastern Townships on Friday and continue through July 12.
It was created by Moment Factory, the Montreal-based studio that has created sound and light shows around the world, for everything from Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime show to a Nine Inch Nails tour. Moment Factory is also the producer of Foresta Lumina, a nighttime sound and light show in the forest by la Gorge de Coaticooke, which just recently reopened.
“Vroom! is a concept that was born during COVID when we were low on work (at Moment Factory),” said Vroom! producer Daniel Jean. “That’s when one of our creative directors came up with the idea of doing something in a drive-in. Basically the whole idea is based around lost fables and the drivein theatre is kind of the city of lost tales. So we created an overarching story that hosts eight movies from the National Film Board.”
Moment Factory produced a two-minute animated film that kicks off the evening with a young boy opening a book and watching as all of these stories come to life. The multimedia producer also produced short snippets between the NFB films, featuring the young boy. There are also multimedia effects on both sides of the screen, on the screen and in front of the cars. There are 400 light tubes in the drive-in and another 200 in the forest beside the drive-in.
“This is like a drive-in experience but reinvented,” Jean said. “It’s really unique.”
The animated NFB short films on the program include: Eva Cvijanović’s Hedgehog’s Home; Claude Cloutier’s Sleeping Betty; Cordell Barker’s Strange Invaders; Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s Naked Island — We East Sh--; Patrick Péris’s Nadine; Alison Snowden and David Fine’s Animal Behaviour; Guy Delisle’s The Tooth; and Claude Cloutier’s Carface.
François Pradella, who recently bought the Ciné-parc Orford with Yvan Fontaine, said they’re thrilled to be collaborating with a prestigious company like Moment Factory and they’re particularly happy to host the première of Vroom! given that there are still no new Hollywood movies being released. The Vroom! site can fit 320 cars.
“When you get a call from Moment Factory, usually you answer and that’s what we did,” Pradella said “They saw the site and said we can do something nice here and we just went on from there. There’s a new access to the site. It’s not the regular drive-in access. There’s a new exit, too. When we were talking to them, we just thought this is the drive-in of the future. It’s an experience. The basics are like a drive-in. We’re showing movies but then it’s all augmented. There’s lighting, fog machines. We just thought we should give it a try.”
There’s a photo booth for your car just as you come in. You stop in front of a green screen (which can be used to superimpose images) and then have your photo taken, and then the photo is made into a little movie, which you can download from the website.
It costs $50 plus taxes per car and the show starts at sundown, usually around 9 p.m. Ciné-parc Orford is located at: 2751 rue Roméo-lacroix, Sherbrooke, just on the outskirts of Magog and within view of Mount Orford.
For more information visit vroomorford.com