An Oscar-winning company that produced visual effects for Game of Thrones is set to cast its spell on an upcoming show at the Bird's Nest stadium. Deng Zhangyu reports.

This year's edition of Attraction, a sound and light show tailored for visitors to the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, will feature visual effects by Pixomondo, an Oscar-winning German company.

The show, scheduled to be staged in the evenings from Sept 13 to 30, is based on a fictional love story between a human male and a goddess of nature, whose union is attempted to be spoiled by an evil force. Chinese moviemaker Lu Chuan is back to direct the show as well this year.

Pixomondo's involvement also marks the three-year-old show's continued association with well-regarded international companies. Last year, a British company designed some visual effects for Attraction, helping the show earn an award from the UK-based International Visual Communications Association.

Pixomondo has produced effects for Attraction that are 12 minutes long, and cover almost one-fifth of the entire show, according to an official from the company's production team.

The State-owned Assets Management Company that runs the annual show may consider a future world tour with Attraction, according to sources at the Chinese company.

In 2012, the German company won an Oscar for best visual effects for the 3-D film Hugo, directed by Hollywood icon Martin Scorsese. Pixomondo has also produced effects for the Game of Thrones, an American fantasy TV series that is immensely popular in China.

By inviting well-known international companies and top Chinese directors, stadium authorities aim to produce the best outdoor show in Beijing as well as one that global audiences are able to recognize.

The stadium's resident show, which combines music, dance, acrobatics and high-tech visual effects, was launched in 2012, when it was directed by Lu.

The show was also made to gauge how well the stadium operated after it had held the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games. In the past two years, more than 400,000 visitors have watched Attraction in the summer.

According to Christopher Zollinger, a producer at Pixomondo, this year's project was undertaken partly in China and partly at his company headquarters in Frankfurt, mainly through Skype, involving about 30 artists and designers from across the world.

The settings were fashioned after the mountains and the landscape of Guilin, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Unlike some clients from Hollywood, who usually told Pixomondo to finish what they wanted within two weeks, Zollinger says that the company had many prior meetings with Attraction's team to discuss the work so that it satisfied both sides.

"Actually, we like doing our work in this way in China. We feel involved," Zollinger says, adding that the Chinese side walked them through the production process. It is also the first show on which Pixomondo has worked in China, offering them a potential foot in the door to the country's show business, he says.

In the coming years, Pixomondo hopes to keep working on resident shows at the Bird's Nest.

Since setting up its office in China in 2006, the German company has worked for Chinese movies such as The Breakup Guru, director Jiang Wen's latest film Gone With the Bullets and the 3-D version of Wolf Totem.

Contact the writer at dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 09/02/2014 page8)