Freckled Sky is a multimedia company that specializes in performances and events with digitalspecial effects which includeprojection mappings. Freckled Sky was founded inChicago in 2015 and gained popularity competing inAmerica's Got Talent show where their team demonstrated the world's first interactive performance with a digital mapping on water. Since then, the company participated in a number of notable business, theater, and music events.
Freckled Sky was founded on February 24, 2015, in Chicago byUkrainian immigrants Val Syganevich and his sister Katia Korobko.[1][2] Before coming to the United States in November 2014,[2] the duo participated in the Ukrainian league ofKVN games (a humor TVimprov which also included the future Ukrainian presidentVolodymyr Zelensky[3]) and ran one of the top ten Ukrainianeventagencies.[4] Syganevich considered his move to the United States as an opportunity to reach out to larger audiences.[4] Syganevich and Korobko chose the name Freckled Sky (Ukrainian:Небо в ластовинні) after their father'spoetry collection of the same name.[5] Freckled Sky's debut wasAmerica's Got Talent show in the summer of 2015 which gained the team popularity and favorable media coverage.[2][6]
For theAmerica's Got Talent (season 10) auditions in 2015, Freckled Sky team cast two dancers, Olga Sokolova and Jalen Preston who danced in the artificial rain generated by a 15 by 20 feet (4.6 m × 6.1 m) water screen[5][7] The audience and judges were stunned by aprojection mapping on water – the world's first interactive performance of this kind.[8][9]Howard Stern who judged the auditions called Val Syganevich "a genius"[7] and used his once-per-season Golden Buzzer to propel Freckled Sky team directly to the quarterfinals.[10]
In the season of 2017, Freckled Sky produced special effects for Delaware Theater Company's production ofRay Bradbury's novelSomething Wicked This Way Comes. The production was highly acclaimed by critics:WHYY-TV calling the effects "jaw-dropping",[11]The News Journal – "wowing the crowds",[12] andBroadwayWorld – "mind-boggling, nothing before ever seen".[13] Freckled Sky set up included 36 by 20 feet (11.0 m × 6.1 m) video wall, 16 intelligent moving lights, and ascrim,[11][12] invisible to the audience – all combined to produce "stupefying, otherworldly special effects."[13]
In February 2019, Freckled Sky produced interactive water projection performance for theTry portion ofP!nk's mash-up at 39th edition ofBrit Awards,[14] leaving "the audience in awe."[6]
Freckled Sky's team is a mix of artistic creators and technology experts.[6] They aim to erase boundaries between performers and their audiences by creating new forms of entertainment and using high-end technologies,[9] by mixing together projections, dance, lightning, interactive solutions, and other special effects.[6] In 2018, Freckled Sky team included 30 permanent members and 35 additional part-time contributors.[9] The company produced multiple corporate and brand-promotion events in United States, Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia.[9] Freckled Sky's clients includeBMW,Ferrari,Mercedes-Benz,[5]Panama Canal Authority,[15]Unilever, andAditya Birla Group.[16]
^abcdMaksimik, Marina (September 2018).Звёздное небо искренних и адекватных.Reklama Magazine (in Russian).Northbrook, Illinois: Reklama Media. pp. 24–26.OCLC839252365.
Freckled Sky: America's Got Talent's Golden Buzzer Act, YouTube video