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May 15, 2022 05:34 pm

How Industrial Light & Magic Helped Resurrect ABBA with Digital ABBA-Tars

"After they broke up four decades ago, ABBA famously refused all kinds of money for reunion ABBA-tars and performances," writes Rolling Stone. "But a few years ago, British entrepreneur Simon Fuller pitched an idea that piqued the Swedish superstars' interest...""We got sort of turned on by the thought that we could actually be onstage without us being there," ABBA singer-songwriter Benny Andersson says over Zoom. The band, along with Fuller and their producers Ludvig Andersson (Benny Andersson's son) and Svana Gisla (music-video producer for the likes of Radiohead and Beyoncé), initially explored reproducing themselves by hologram technology, but that didn't pan out. They finally realized a grander dream: ABBA Voyage, the 196-show concert residency at newly built ABBA Arena in London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park that begins May 27. Made with help from George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, digital avatars (also known as ABBA-tars) embody the stars in their Seventies prime, performing a 22-song set alongside a flesh-and-blood backing band assembled by James Righton of the Klaxons and including U.K. singer Little Boots on keys.... The band and the team and ILM realized early on that an existing venue wasn't going to work for the residency. There are 1,000 visual-effects artists on ABBA Voyage, making it the biggest project ILM has done, according to Gisla (and this is the company behind Star Wars, Marvel, and Jurassic Park). The roof of ABBA Arena was reengineered three times to fit the complicated lighting system. Where many concerts might use only one lighting rig, this one uses 20. There was a lot of work put into making the ABBA-tars — which, the band stresses, are not holograms, but digital versions of the members that look like real, physical performers. Not too long before the pandemic put things to a near-halt, the four members of ABBA met from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, for four and half weeks straight, performing for 200 cameras and a crew of nearly 40 people while wearing motion-capture suits. They posted up in a sound studio within the Swedish Film Institute, playing all the songs they had carefully curated for their first show in 40 years. "It was really a pleasure for all of us," Andersson says. Back in London, body doubles emulated the performances, but with a younger energy. "We are sort of merged together with our body doubles. Don't ask me how it works because I can't explain that," Andersson continues. "If you're 75, you don't jump around like you did when you were 34, so this is why this happened." Producer Ludvig Andersson adds: "We hear often, 'This is the dawn of a new era in live entertainment.' I think that's an incorrect statement. I don't think it is. This is unique."

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