Theatrical
[Outdoor Immersive Drama – Shekou Latitude: Whale Song]
Checked
8 ·
Publish Date
2025-12-04 19:26:34
类别 ☺Works ▎MORE+ ▎Theatrical ▎Outdoor Immersive Drama – Shekou Latitude: Whale Song
Tags Real-Scene Horror & Suspense Character Voice Design Education Realistic
[ Outdoor Immersive Drama – Shekou Latitude: Whale Song] Written by Yang Qian, recipient of the Cao Yu Drama Literature Award, this first-of-its-kind outdoor drama game is co-presented by the China Merchants Foundation and the Design Society Cultural Foundation, and produced by Performance Interconnection. As a limited-time cultural event, it merges theatrical elements with an escape-room format, using sound as the core narrative clue to unfold a surreal and gripping story through spoken word.
This work combines the interactivity of escape rooms with the narrative depth of murder mystery games. During the project’s early stages, the producer conducted extensive research on market-leading titles, engaging in deep discussions with industry experts to grasp the unique mechanics of these formats. After multiple brainstorming sessions, the team developed a tailored production framework to realize this groundbreaking concept.
We were honored to participate in the audio production for this event, encompassing sound effects, music, voice acting, and post-production mixing, dedicated to creating an immersive auditory feast for the participants.
Behind the Scenes: Music | SFX | Performance | Audio Post-Production
[ Music ]
For a drama that relies primarily on auditory experience over its full 2.5-hour runtime, the score became the most challenging part of the design process. Ensuring the piece possessed artistic beauty while also using music to accurately signal crucial plot clues presented a particular difficulty. The story is structured into 7 chapters and 16 scenes. The sheer length and complex narrative progression posed a genuine challenge. Through meticulous and repeated design by the [Music Department], the team successfully maintained narrative integrity while clearly guiding players from clue to secret. The music’s power and beauty impacted every soul engaged in unraveling the mystery.
[ SFX ]
「What you see now, is it real?」This uniquely creative premise—having players walk through Shekou’s streets to personally experience things they might usually see but not hear—ignited immense passion within the Sound Effects team. To authentically recreate the environments in the script, they traveled to the actual locations for extensive field recording and related audio capture. Afterwards, they applied their expertise in cinematic language to create evocative, atmospherically rich designs. Ultimately, they successfully crafted two seemingly「real」worlds: one of our present reality and a parallel world without cars or people, yet full of fantasy.
[ Performance ]
The whale, a deep-sea singer and a guide across time and space, is also one of the central clues in the drama. To bring this magical creature to life, the team meticulously compiled vast amounts of reference material and assets: the 52-Hertz call, sperm whales, blue whales, baleen whales—dozens of different whale vocalizations. After sifting through and designing from thousands of source materials, they finally created this dreamlike, elegant 「soulful singer」.
[ Audio Post-Production ]
In the sound production for this work, audio is a vital component for building atmosphere and strengthening the narrative. The post-production work revolved around original music composition, scene-specific sound effect design, and multi-track audio mixing. It covered aspects such as emotional layering, rhythm matching, and spatial construction to ensure harmony between sound and visual content. Through the emotional guidance of music and the detailed authenticity of sound effects, the realism of the scenes and the audience’s immersive experience were enhanced. This segment was completed by the post-production team and represents a key phase in the sound production workflow.