Designing the MST3K Reunion Show set

NOTE: This post was originally published to Drip on January 25, 2019.

Hi everyone,

Erik here with yet another trek behind the scenes. As we are deep in preparation for our slate of 2019 Live Shows, I thought it'd be fun to revisit the process of designing the set for our RiffTrax Live MST3K Reunion Show!

Camp Digital, our RiffTrax Live production partner since the very beginning, has always done an amazing job of creating fun sets* that really elevate the entire show. Their team of designers and builders, led by Duncan Ragsdale, prepares by researching and cataloguing elements to serve as inspiration, or a jumping-off point, for what eventually becomes the physical environment on stage.

But when it came time to design the "creatives" for our Reunion Show, we were faced with a wrinkle: we couldn't use any of the well-known, and well-loved, elements from Mystery Science Theater 3000, due to licensing and copyright restrictions. Plus, we're big fans of paying homage while still making something new and fresh.

Fathom Events' brilliant solution for the logo was to use an industrial-looking font that recalled the homemade look of the Satellite of Love, and of course, those wise-cracking robots. 

It was very successful, but unfortunately only amounted to a small portion of what was needed for an immersive, fun theatrical stage design. We needed more elements, but without using any specific characters (or set pieces) from Mystery Science. Oh, and we had a quicker turnaround time than usual. That meant getting something awesome done quickly was paramount. So Camp Digital came to us for a change!

Duncan and her team knew we had plenty of MST knowledge to draw upon, and we jumped in to help. Our technical director David D. Martin, graphic designer Jason Martin, and I all began to brainstorm.

The best concept we had was a simple one: Jason had already been utilizing a silhouette-based approach to all of his recent RiffTrax art, such as product posters and trivia slides: Since MST3K was pretty much known for being "that show with the silhouettes at the bottom," it seemed like extending this motif would provide a natural bridge between the two worlds. And — as this was a reunion — we'd be remiss if we didn't include some of the most iconic characters from both the RiffTrax and MST3K pantheon. 

The fun part would be coming up with which ones to include! Ideally, we'd use characters who have been riffed by both groups — since we've done a handful of riffs on films that had also been riffed on MST3K at one point. Because of this, Jason actually had some usable art already in the can! That head start was perfect due to our compressed timeline.  The silhouettes were done as vector art, so they could be infinitely scaled - a requirement, given the size of our theatrical backdrop. We had a lot of choices, and which characters would make the cut would depend upon other aspects of the overall design, including the background we used. In order to reference being in space/orbit, we licensed a huge resolution image of Earth. From there, we began to mock everything up: Thanks, iStockPhoto!While I thought the idea of a window or a porthole would be kinda neat, it was hard to find any that really fit. That idea was scrapped. After seeing how the stage itself would work with the logo treatment, the riffers, and the huge selection of characters available to us, some cuts had to be made. Getting the balance right of characters from riffing history, the background, and the riffers themselves was key to making the whole thing work.  (Plus, we were on a short deadline, dontchaknow.)With the final design approved, Camp Digital fabricated all of the characters (from foam core, if memory serves) and shipped everything to the State Theatre in Minneapolis, where assembly would commence:Each character was also backlit, allowing the silhouettes to stand out against the dark background.Camp Digital also had a great idea to supplement the star field with LEDs which were mounted from behind the backdrop:Everything came together at last, and it looked pretty great:I hope you enjoyed this trip into the memory vaults! While not everyone may have been able to see every detail, I enjoyed the challenging nature of this particular project and collaborating with Camp Digital. 

This being one of our more important shows to date wasn't lost on any of us, and despite the time crunch, I think the result illustrated the thought behind the intent, and what this event in particular meant to everyone involved.

While I was a bit bummed that we couldn't include every character we would've liked, at least we managed to squeeze them all into a shirt (and poster)! Who would you have liked to have seen? 

Until next time, DripTraxians! 

Your pal, 

Erik

* Except for our first-ever event, Plan 9 From Outer Space , which didn't have any true set design. It was the "German Hamlet" of RiffTrax Live sets: