Photography by Matt Cashore ’94
As the opening notes of the Rudy soundtrack began and bright lights in the shape of “1842” filled the night sky, exclamations bubbled up from the crowd of students and community members. Drones, 400 in total, rose from the parking south of Notre Dame Stadium on September 13 for a light show that marked the culmination of the inauguration of Rev. Robert A. Dowd, CSC, ’87 as the University’s 18th president.
Starting with the year the University was founded, the 11-minute display featured 14 iconic Notre Dame images, including the Golden Dome, the Grotto, the Congregation of Holy Cross symbol and the University seal, all set to Notre Dame-themed music.
The planning committee focused both on the creative storytelling and the logistical side of the operation. The committee, led by Assistant Vice President of Strategic Communications Beth Grisoli ’87, ’90M.A., and Associate Vice President of Event Management Lee Sicinski, worked alongside the Dallas-based company Sky Elements to plan the big finale to the week’s inauguration festivities.
“Everyone brought up fireworks because that's what is usually the go-to,” she says. Sicinski suggested a drone show instead, because “if we want the opportunity to have a uniquely Notre Dame-themed story, this is the way we could do it.”
The show brought the images to life, incorporating animation that included a graduate tossing her cap into the air and candles flickering in the Grotto.
Grisoli says, “At the opening, we needed that beautiful, almost cinematic-type feel to the story starting and I thought: Rudy. Everyone loves Rudy music … and The Alma Mater is the last line [closing out the performance].” In addition to the soundtrack, they also incorporated “I'm Shipping Up to Boston,” “Here Come the Irish,” and music from Notre Dame band.
The process of producing a drone show begins with the client sketching out ideas to present to Sky Elements.
“It can be as simple as a napkin drawing all the way through to a fleshed-out storyboard, and then we'll work with them to see what the objective of the show is and what type of story they are looking for,” says Tyler Kubicz, a production manager for Sky Elements. “Then, we'll give it to an animator, and they'll start going through the formations and interpreting them into little dots.”
Those dots correspond to the drones, and the more drones the more detailed the images are, Kubicz explains.
The committee worked with Sky Elements, Sicinski says, to create mockups of the different images and AI simulations of what the show could look like from different vantage points.
Thinking about where people were going to be when the drones were launched was an important consideration for the planning committee. For best visualization, people should be within 1000 feet of the drone show and the drones should be 400 feet in the air, Sicinski says.
Lighting was another crucial aspect of the show, Sicinski says. They had to consider how the drones would look in the sky, factoring in the stadium lighting and those illuminating the parking lot. That’s where the simulations came into play, allowing them to visualize and optimize the overall effect, he says.
The planning committee experimented with a variety of images, revising and refining some, and eliminating others, before finalizing the lineup. One of the concepts planners ultimately set aside was the iconic Four Horsemen. According to Grisoli, they struggled to achieve the desired galloping effect for the horses, which detracted from the show.
Grisoli wanted Notre Dame’s first drone show to tell the story of the University and Dowd — the cross and anchor of the Holy Cross congregation serving as one link between them.
“I think Fr. Bob loved that,” Grisoli says, “because part of his family is the Holy Cross family.”
Caroline Collins, a senior environmental science major and journalism minor, is this magazine’s fall intern.