Major Study: Technical Development
I started my weekend by getting a student license for Cinema 4D, and then began to really sink my teeth into it. The best way to learn a whole new software from my experience is to go to the courses on LinkedIn learning, so I found one by Andy Needham that served its purpose in 2X speed! It went over the basics of the layout and general buttons I would need to use regularly.
I ended up having to switch over to eyedesyn's tutorial, because Needham's were more focused on the camera work of it all, and while I will be returning to those lessons in my own time, it's just not relevant to me in this project currently. I needed to lock in on modeling.
Because I already have some pretty good experience with 3D, I really just needed to go through the process of learning the shortcuts and capacity of this software. Thankfully I have experience doing this, since we had to learn Blender for an assignment in the fall! This means I will have a decent understanding of Cinema 4D, Maya, AND Blender.
Usually I am not one to follow along with the project files given in these tutorials, but eyedesyn's piggy bank was simply too cute to resist. And I figured I could use the opportunity to flex my 3D muscles a bit, which have certainly been out of commission.
After getting a good night's sleep, I realized I needed to be working at a proper scale in Cinema 4D. I decided just to convert meters to centimeters, since cm is what C4D mainly operates in.
For starters, I needed to convert my measurements of the stage from feet to meters to account for the scaling dimensions of Cinema 4D. It makes sense seeing as the theater itself is in LA, but for my purposes it makes more sense to operate this way.
Proscenium width: 39 ft 10 in -> 12.15 m
Proscenium height (center): 21 ft 2 in -> 6.45 m
Perfect! For my scaling the proscenium needed to be 1215 cm X 645 cm. I also needed to account for how back the stage goes, which I didn't do initially when looking at the dimensions of the theatre. The depth of the stage is 19 ft and 8 inches, or about 5.99 meters. (599 cm for my purposes).
This was phase 1! The actual stage was in PLACE!!
The next phase of this model involves some guess work. Since the set dimensions aren't online, I needed to go by both the visuals and what I have in terms of projection limitations.
It looks like each of these pieces are fabric that has been designed and painted with the school spirit designs. If they aren't, then I am going to act as if I am collaborating with the set designer to make some changes for my needs.
Since the limitations of the projector are to 10.78 meters (from the projection manual's 35.36 ft), I will cut the top screen to match those dimensions. In fact I am going to cut it to 10.75m to be safe and make sure the edges of my projections could work within reason.
By placing this reference image of the stage on a flat plane with the back wall to scale, I can approximate the height of each of the screens.
It was at this point that I decided to sketch out some diagrams for the document that will accompany my final projection package. And comedically, I got really tired of using my blog as my guidelines for sizing as I was working.
I ended up trying one with colors, but felt that the black and white one felt more professional.
Now I had all of my dimensions of the stage!
The next step was to approximate and diagram where the projector is in reference to the actual stage. After referencing the #PT-D1000U's manual once again to know the projection throw distance, I found myself becoming rather frustrated by the difference in units of measurement... dang Americans. It seems like the projector needs to sit between 20-25 meters in order to fully pick up the screens, and to cover everything it has to be center stage.
After looking at the El Portal Theatre's website (wow it is old) I found this photo that helps me understand the layout of the interior, and subsequently where to place the projector in order to ensure there is no distortion.
Arguably, the most helpful thing about this photo is knowing that the widest camera angle was likely taken from that exact window. This means that as long as I angle the camera in Cinema 4D to line up with the camera angle in the video, I should have a good sense of where we could realistically out a projector. if anything I would likely adjust to the height of the projector as if it was being placed above or below the tech window to avoid shadows on the set.
In terms of which lens would be the most useful on my projector, for the purposes of this project I picked the ET-D75LE2 Zoom lens listed in the PT-D10000's manual. I picked it mainly because according to Broadway Media, the standard projectors to be placed at the back of an auditorium have a long throw ration that exceeds 1, with home theaters having about 1:8:1. The ET-D75LE2 has a ratio of 2.0, which will ensure that my projections can be the highest quality.
Knowing what lens I'm using will help me adjust the settings on my camera in Cinema 4D. In order to better understand the cameras in Cinema 4D for my purposes, I watched this video explaining how exactly the cameras operate so I could try to get as close to the resolution of my projector as possible.
I set the focal length to the highest output of 50.9 to try to get an accurate distance that accounted for the similarities between the footage and the photo of the stage, and then placed it approximately where I think it will be in reference to the most upstage flat.
As I was setting up the camera, I realized that the best way to minimize shadows would be to decrease the distance between each projection screen. I wanted to still maintain the depth of the original set, but backing the upper ones up will allow for less awkward shadowy spots in the finished projections. But to account for the rigging layout of the stage I decided to keep them all at 0.75m distances from the upstage object, because where things hang is usually going to be at a fixed location with similar distances when you're that far upstage. I only know this from my time hanging lights when I stage managed for a bit
I also realized that due to the lack of public information about the height of the stage to the audience floor, getting precise measurements from this point on would not be fully possible.
I had to estimate the height by working backwards, treating 17.61 m as the hypotenuse of a right triangle. The bottom line being the distance from the center point of the projector to the back wall with the tech, and the line on its side being an estimate of the height it would ideally be placed in. treating it like a 60 30 90 I got a base length of 15.25m and a height of 8.81m (rounded from 8.805) above the projector's center focus point onstage. All of this was really to demonstrate that I am thinking about the distance and the technical details while I work, but I also understand that usually these things are the jobs of the video engineers or video programmers on an actual set.
After having all of the details figured out, the next step was to connect After Effects with Cinema 4D. I walked through this tutorial and found that it was strikingly simple! In order to not muddle my quality, I decided that it would be best to render in 4k despite the projector's resolution only being in 1,400 x 1,050 pixels.
By the time I was importing into After Effects, the realization did hit me that I could probably just have taken a still image rather than going through the trouble of using and purchasing Cinema 4D. But truthfully, learning a new software is always a good thing. And on top of that now I am more accurately simulating what the real workflow is like.
If I were to appear onsite for the hypothetical performance of this hypothetical show, anything that wasn't lined up right could be quickly fixed in Cinema 4D in real time.
I decided that the best way to do this workflow is to feed cinema 4D into After Effects AFTER I have some stuff animated, but in order to make sure I'm animating in a way that fits the proper sizes I wanted to do a bit of a tester.
I made 4 compositions that would function as templates, three of them being fitted with the same aspect ratios of the projection screens, and the fourth to function as a projection option that would make it easier to make all of my animations easier to interact with one another.
I overlayed the master in position with the projector camera in Cinema 4D, and made sure that each "flat" (they are in fact projector screens, not flats) would be easy to tell if there was any warping. In my shadowing I remember moments of adjustment where the set would change to these grids and lines, and it totally makes sense now that I see how all of this works!
I imported image exports of each from AE, and then imported them as textures in C4D. I figured out how to up the resolution on my images, and VOILA! They each fit perfectly!
From here I decided to make a test animation with my "masker" surface. The trick to this was going to be to start in the individual layers, and then move to the master to make sure the animations are cohesive. I have yet to find a way for my mask layers in the "masker" comp could be properly converted to the properly sized compositions, but I imagine it shouldn't be crazy difficult in resizing as long as I work in vector images. The test is super simple, but I wanted to ensure that each of the pieces would be able to interact well enough for me to work without switching and guessing the locations of things.
Then I looked at my 3D model to find where I needed to adjust for the overlap in my screens, and found the grid to be even more useful than before! I marked in each composition where I shouldn't animate and then made the shapes in the "Masker" layer overlap where they overlap on the actual set. It does mean I'm losing a lot of working room on the middle and upmost flats, but I also know that working with what I have is what's important! So I will make every centimeter count.
(2006) Audiogeneral. Available at: https://www.audiogeneral.com/Panasonic/ptd10000u_brochure.pdf (Accessed: 27 May 2026).
(2026) The El Portal Theatre. Available at: https://elportaltheatre.com/mainstagetheatre.html (Accessed: 01 June 2026).
eyedesyn (2023) 3D Modeling For Beginners In Cinema 4D, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RlpLEN4xLE (Accessed: 01 June 2026).
Facciani, L. (2021) Hardware: Choosing a Projector, Broadwaymedia.com. Available at: https://www.broadwaymedia.com/blog/hardware-choosing-a-projector (Accessed: 01 June 2026).
Needham, A. (2022) Navigating the 3d viewport - cinema 4D video tutorial: Linkedin learning, formerly Lynda.com, LinkedIn. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-cinema-4d/navigating-the-3d-viewport?autoSkip=true&resume=false&u=49485105 (Accessed: 01 June 2026).
Panasonic (2021) S P E C F I L E Zoom Lens ET-D75LE20, Panasonic. Available at: https://catalogue.lang-ag.com/files/2974/1855.pdf (Accessed: 01 June 2026).
Szymkowicz, J. (2019) Cinema 4D: Camera Basics Explained, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRjmqQaz3mE (Accessed: 01 June 2026).
Tierney, M. (2019) Cinema 4D to After Effects | Tracking Data | Easy, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3wLh7sPcWE (Accessed: 01 June 2026).