Exploring the 8K, 20-Hour Odyssey Redefining the Immersive Concert
Immersive, nomadic, and technically mind-blowing, Cercle Odyssey is setting a new benchmark for concert installations.
Premiering at the LA Convention Center on May 7th, it combines 360-degree visuals with live performances from artists including Moby, Paul Kalkbrenner, Empire of the Sun, The Blaze and Black Coffee. Odyssey is the latest – and most ambitious – creation from Cercle, the Paris-based platform known for producing music experiences in extraordinary locations, and its founder and creative director, Derek Barbolla. A towering celebration of art, music and nature, the effort that went into conceiving and mounting the event is as epic as the experience itself.
A significant amount of that effort was undertaken by director Neels Castillon, a filmmaker with Ridley Scott Associates and co-founder of the Paris-based studio Motion Palace. Neels has been central to the visual side of Odyssey – both in shaping the creative concept and in developing the technology to make it possible. Over the past year, his team travelled the globe filming original scenes inspired by characters from Homer’s Odyssey, reimagined through movement and dance in locations including Iceland, the Namib Desert, Polynesia, and South America.
The result is a 20-hour film, split into 40 scenes and projected across five giant 5-metre x 12-metre screens. To capture the visuals in a truly immersive way, Neels and his crew developed a custom 5-axis FPV drone camera – a major leap in aerial cinematography, capable of delivering sweeping 8K footage with extraordinary precision. Each night of the installation features a different version of the film, with musical artists curating their own scene selections. The team also collaborated with Meta and VFX studio Mathematic to build a full-scale pre-visualisation and editing suite inside a Meta Quest headset.
There’s a lot of information packed into that introduction, but that’s just the start of it. To find out more, read Addison Capper’s interview with Neels.
LBB> How did this project come about? And how do you even start a thing of such magnitude? What was the brief for the project?
Neels> Last year, Derek Barbolla – the founder of Cercle – got in touch to share the concept for an ambitious, immersive music show. I was immediately struck by the scale and originality of the idea. We’d been aware of each other’s work for a while, and there was a mutual respect that made the collaboration feel very natural. Derek already had a strong vision: a unique venue, an artistic direction, and the idea of surrounding live performers with cinematic landscapes from around the world.
What truly pulled me in was the opportunity to go beyond visuals. I proposed adding a narrative inspired by Homer’s Odyssey – a modern interpretation with characters, emotion, and a real storytelling arc. He embraced the idea, and I began writing a script that started with 40 scenes and grew into more than 80. The result is a nine-hour modular film that weaves together landscapes, abstract patterns, dance, performance, and scripted moments.
The film is structured in chapters, each carrying its own emotion and rhythm. Artists can curate their own version of Odyssey by selecting the chapters that resonate with their music. That means every show is different–- the audience experiences a unique journey each night.
LBB> Tell me about how The Odyssey informed your approach. How did you digest that poem and begin visualising the kind of content you wanted to shoot?
Neels> I’ve always been fascinated by The Odyssey. I studied it when I was younger, and coming back to it with fresh eyes felt like the right place to start. That summer, I reread the poem while listening to music, just letting the words and rhythms spark visuals in my mind.
With Cercle Odyssey, my goal was to reinterpret the myth of Ulysses in a way that felt poetic and contemporary. I cast four performers – two women and two men – to embody the same character. In Homer’s version, Ulysses is cursed to wander, unable to return home. That idea of a long, disorienting journey – both physical and emotional – became the core of the film.
We built the story around four symbolic worlds, each linked to a colour and a natural environment: gold for the desert, white for the Arctic, blue for the ocean, and green for the jungle. We shot across Namibia, Iceland, French Polynesia, and South America – places where nature could become a character in itself, shaping the narrative.
The result blends acting, dance, and cinematic poetry. It’s a visual odyssey in every sense – less about linear storytelling and more about emotional immersion. The mythological references are still there – Calypso, the Sirens, Hades – but reimagined through movement, symbolism, and atmosphere. At its heart, it’s about finding your way home.
LBB> And tell me more about the actual footage you captured. What was it like? What visual style and subject matter were you looking for and why?
Neels> I’m always striving to create images that strike you straight in the heart – without needing a single word. This project was the perfect canvas for that. Weaving a narrative into such an immersive spectacle was definitely a challenge – especially one that supports the music without overshadowing it. The storytelling is there to serve the music, letting it breathe and lead the emotional arc. At the same time, the music amplifies the visuals. Artists like Moby, with his naturally cinematic sound, brought a whole new emotional depth to the scenes.
The idea was to create a film that blends acting, dance, and a poetic journey through nature – a visual odyssey in every sense. At its heart is the theme of returning home, inspired by The Odyssey. Like Ulysses, our protagonist drifts through surreal landscapes and encounters mythological figures, reimagined through choreography and emotion.
In a way, it felt like going back to the origins of cinema – a kind of modern silent film, where the music drives the experience. There’s something timeless and powerful in letting sound and image speak directly to the soul.
LBB> Technologically, what were some significant steps you took to make this project a reality? What challenges did they bring?
Neels> To bring this kind of vision to life, we had to develop new tools. We built a custom 360-degree FPV drone in-house with a 32K resolution capture system designed by my team, Josselin Cornil and Brieuc Lemercier. It gives viewers the sensation of flying through the venue, creating an unparalleled immersive experience. All scenes were shot in 8K with RED RAPTOR VV cameras and Atlas anamorphic lenses, preserving a cinematic look even at this massive scale.
One of the most powerful moments we created was a scene called Synchronicity. With choreographer Fanny Sage, we directed all four Ulysses – each portrayed by a different performer in a different part of the world – to execute the same choreography, filmed identically. During the show, they appear simultaneously on four walls, dancing in perfect rhythm across continents. It was a logistical feat, but the emotional impact is stunning.
LBB> You filmed all around the world. Please tell us about that journey. Where did it take you and why? Which locations were most memorable and challenging?
Neels> We shot in some of the most remote and visually stunning places on Earth - the golden sands of the Namib Desert, the endless blues of Tetiaora in French Polynesia, the deep greens of the Marquesas Islands, the icy whites of Iceland’s highlands, and Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, where the sky and earth become one in a surreal mirror world. Every place came with its own challenges: sandstorms in the desert, shooting underwater with sharks, hiking for hours through rainforest in heavy rain, freezing winds in Iceland, car breakdowns in the middle of nowhere – six hours waiting for rescue. Plus the constant adaptation to different local crews and production styles. The travel hours piled up, but the journey was worth every second.
LBB> Can you share some general production anecdotes? Some memories that really stick with you?
Neels> One of the most intense moments happened during a thunderstorm on the Bolivian Altiplano at 5,000 metres. Lightning struck behind us, our assistant’s hair stood on end, and our actor felt electricity in his fingertips. That’s when we knew it was time to run. Completely surreal – and unforgettable.
Each location brought something unique, but the forest in the Marquesas stayed with me the most – not just for its beauty, but for the emotional weight it carried. I had asked our actress, Wan-Lun, to improvise a scene where she screams at a banyan tree - the sacred tree of Polynesia. As soon as she started, our local crew became visibly uneasy. They explained that you don’t raise your voice at these trees, they’re believed to hold the spirits of ancestors.
Almost instantly, the weather shifted from full sun to heavy rain. We stopped, apologised to the tree… and the sun came back. I’m usually quite pragmatic, but ever since that moment, I think I believe in forest spirits.
LBB> The editing process sounds fascinating. Can you please explain more about it and why you did it in that way? How did you work with the artists that would perform their music to the visuals?
Neels> My team and I – editors Sébastien Rouquet and Vincent Duluc David – pre-edited most of the scenes in the film. We then handed everything over to the Cercle team, who selected excerpts to present to the artists for building their shows. The goal was for me to direct a multi-hour film, which now includes over 80 scenes. Each artist then works closely with Derek and Mathieu to curate their own unique experience from the film.
With the exception of Moby – where I was truly involved in co-creating the entire performance – I usually step back during the curation process and give the Cercle team full creative freedom. I’m deeply attached to the footage – every shoot was its own adventure, captured in some of the most breath-taking places on Earth. That’s also why I choose to step aside. It’s my way of letting go and allowing others to interpret the work in their own way. It’s always a beautiful surprise to see what they select during the live shows. The whole process is highly collaborative, and once the film was complete, I deliberately removed myself to make room for new creative voices.
LBB> Speaking of editing. The film is 20 hours! How much footage did you capture and how do you go about crafting a narrative out of that?
Neels> Honestly, the biggest challenge was the sheer scale – creatively, technically, and emotionally. We produced nearly nine hours of 360-degree film spread across five interconnected screens, which meant crafting 45 hours of footage where every scene had to be imagined in five directions at once. It was thrilling, but also incredibly demanding.
To make sense of it all in post-production, we also created a virtual version of the venue using a custom app in a META VR headset, developed with Mathematic Studio. This allowed us to preview how the emotional beats and visuals would connect across the five screens - before even stepping on set.
LBB> On top of the scale, what were the trickiest components and how did you overcome them?
Neels> Director of photography Eric Blanckaert, our first AC, Félix Sulejmanoski, and my drone team, Josselin Cornil and Brieuc Lemercier, are all seasoned when it comes to filming in extreme conditions. They truly make my life easier. Sandstorms, ice storms, rain, cold, humidity – these environments are hell on gear, but thanks to our growing expertise, we manage it all with calm and precision.
It was also a very physically demanding shoot. You need to be in shape – to walk long distances, swim, endure the cold, and carry equipment as a small, tight crew. It’s tough on the body, and honestly, I could sleep for weeks after we wrapped. The hardest part for me personally is underwater filming. I’m very specific in my direction, and communication underwater is a real challenge. Everything takes so much longer than usual…
And if you ask me what I truly hate most as a challenge? Airports. The endless security checks with all our gear being inspected. Oh my god – I can’t stand them!
LBB> Any parting thoughts on this mammoth of a project?
This project was a true artistic deep dive – a rare opportunity to explore, learn, and evolve on multiple levels. I devoted a significant amount of time to studying visual language and storytelling, constantly asking myself how to craft moments that could truly immerse an audience, not just visually, but emotionally.
One of the biggest challenges - and most rewarding parts - was understanding how to work with large-scale formats. I had to rethink everything: composition, rhythm, and pacing. How do you design an image that resonates on a 50-metre screen? How do you hold attention, create intimacy, or evoke awe at that scale? It was like learning a new language – one rooted in clarity, nuance, and bold simplicity. I walk away from this project not only with new skills, but with a deeper understanding of the kind of work I want to continue making: ambitious, emotionally resonant, and open to the contributions of others.
