WHERE THE HECK IS BOB?
IN QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES!

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In the last few days, you’ve probably noticed some colourful new projections lighting up seven buildings in Quartier des Spectacles. That’s Trouve Bob, a game created by the Champagne Club Sandwich collective for Luminothérapie. From the Grande Bibliothèque to UQAM’s President-Kennedy building and points between, you have to be alert to find mischievous Bob. You’ve got until February 2 to do it!

We talked to Gabriel Poirier-Galarneau, co-creator and co-producer of Trouve Bob, and Champagne Club Sandwich co-founder with Rémi Vincent.

^{Rémi Vincent and Gabriel Poirier-Galarneau. Photo : Cindy Boyce}

Where did the idea for Trouve Bob come from?

The concept of Luminothérapie was a big inspiration right from the start. We imagined colours, motion and light. The idea of getting people of all ages playing in public came to us more or less spontaneously. Se we decided to create a city-format animated game. We’re 30 and part of the Nintendo generation, and you can see that reflected in the game’s design, colours and music. Obviously, there’s also a reference to Where’s Waldo? It’s a quick and easy way to get people to understand the game’s concept. But we didn’t want to make a pastiche.

^{Magic Forest at Métro Saint-Laurent. Photo : Martine Doyon}

What are the rules of the game?

It’s pretty simple, because there’s just one rule: find Bob! There are three levels per site. The first level lasts 70 seconds. Bob is motionless and visible, so small children can find him. The next level is 60 seconds long; it includes more characters and movement and Bob is less obvious. Then there’s a final scene, 40 seconds long, in which everything moves, including Bob, who changes position four times. At the very end, after you see “Game Over,” we project a card that directs people to the other sites.

Are the animations different at each site?

Yes. We created a different graphical world and story for each of the seven sites: the carnival at UQAM’s President-Kennedy building, the magical forest outside Saint-Laurent metro station, a barbecue for Place de la Paix, the acid factory at UQAM’s Centre de design, the space shuttle at the UQAM bell tower, Futurville at the Grande Bibliothèque and the pirate ship at cégep du Vieux-Montréal. We created families of characters to populate the different worlds. We even have some characters that travel from one site to another to tie them together.

But Bob is always the same…

I don’t want to say too much, but Bob might decide to disguise himself occasionally. I’m not sure Bob would go into space wearing shorts!

What did you do to get pedestrians to stop for the game?

Trouve Bob is very colourful; that attracts people. It’s very playful. The illustrations, animations and music were all designed to make people smile.

^{Carnival at Président-Kennedy Pavillon of UQAM. Photo : Martine Doyon}

To create Trouve Bob, you had to put together a multidisciplinary team…

Right. Rémi Vincent and I are creators and producers. That’s what we do at our company, Champagne Club Sandwich. We have ideas and then we build teams to make them happen with us. For Trouve Bob, we needed an illustrator, a graphic designer, an animator, a composer. We managed to get it all done with a small team: Delphine Dussoubs (illustration), Aurélien Jeanney (graphic design) and Jean-Sébastien Roux (music).

This isn’t your first project in Quartier des spectacles.

Champagne Club Sandwich was born in Quartier des Spectacles when we produced a project for the Fête de Montréal this year. It was an animation for the song Hello Montreal remixed by Plaster. It will actually be presented again after Luminothérapie, on Théâtre Maisonneuve. Before that, I had worked on architectural video projections in the Quartier: Le cycle de l’eau, on the President-Kennedy building at UQAM, and another on Saint-Laurent metro station for the 150^th anniversary of the Société de transport de Montréal.

^{Pirate Ship at Cégep du Vieux-Montréal. Photo : Martine Doyon}

Why did you decide to submit a proposal to the Luminothérapie competition?

Quartier des Spectacles is an incredible playground. There’s nowhere else in the world where you can do architectural video projections on so many buildings in one area. We are used to working with TV or the web – rectangular formats. Having a completely different work surface, for example the UQAM bell tower, is very inspiring.

What image comes to mind when you think about Quartier des Spectacles?

Right off the bat, the red dot, the Quartier’s symbol. I’m also very sensitive to the area’s past, when the Red Light district was there. I thought it was too bad that there was nothing left of that history. I think Quartier des Spectacles is bringing back that spirit and highlighting that past.

Luminothérapie – every evening until February 2
Champagne Club Sandwich

^{Posted December 18}