Creativity and technology merge to create Hydro Express

After climbing Le Massif de Charlevoix hundreds of times, Hydro-Québec’s Hydro Express is presented from every angle in a new making-of video produced by lg2. Merging digital, sound and space design, the unique gondola is designed to pique the curiosity of passing skiers. The public can now dive into the experience in a new way through this video that takes us behind the scenes.

“Projects that seize the imagination such as this one are possible when we combine our technological inventiveness and creative talent. After rolling up our sleeves alongside Hydro-Québec to create something extraordinary, our team managed to bring the natural elements to life in a rich experience that gives them the entire stage. Hydro Express is the perfect example of a digital experience that moves off the screen,” stated Nicolas Baldovini, Partner, Vice-President, Creative Director, Digital Experience, lg2.

The gondola presented a range of intriguing technical, technological and creative challenges that required all the ingenuity of lg2’s experts. “The entire digital installation, housed in such a small space, nevertheless had to be top of the line not to affect the quality or presentation of the experience within the gondola. The asymmetric surface forced us to quickly switch to solution mode when installing the projector in the lift. The video itself had to be altered and reshaped using several sinusoidal waves,” added Nicholas Charbonneau, R&D Director, Digital Experience, and Julien Jean, Creative Director, Digital Experience, lg2.

It is also extremely rare that the content produced for a project does not have a set run time. As the gondola lift can stop at any moment, our talents had to work with the only certain feature of the ascent: its altitude. By linking the content to an altimeter, the audiovisual projections in the lift can be interrupted at any point without impacting the videos’ presentation or narration tracks.

The agency’s Digital Experience team put in hundreds of hours to create the Hydro Express experience, taking their digital skills beyond the screen in a highly imaginative way. The lift, which is exposed to frigid temperatures as low as -40 ̊C, has travelled hundreds of kilometres to date along the sharpest vertical drop in Canada east of the Rockies.