The Sultan’s Palace by Bright Ong

By decree of His Royal Highness, the Sultan himself, The Sultan’s Palace will be taking a brand new direction in light of these times that we are living in. Seeing as to how humans are even more dangerous to the people of his land, especially in these times, His Royal Highness has decided to give access to all those that are invited to his palace, digitally! Following the advice of his council of wise children, The Sultan will be opening up the palace grounds for special invited guests only! You’ll get to experience the grand palace from the comfort of your home, from your media devices, with a little help from an adult of course. You’ll get to see the palace from a 360 degree point of view, and also interact with the occupants of the grounds. You may even get to help the Sultan and the palace’s occupants solve some of their problems!

For Practitioners and Parents:

The Sultan's Palace is an exploration into a new genre of Arts for Young Audiences, borne out of the challenging restrictions placed on live theatre in these times of a global pandemic. What we are trying to achieve is to experiment with the art form of live-action puppetry on film, and incorporate elements of interactivity and children's agency of choice from live performance, but modified for a digital/film medium. We are not replacing live theatre with another form, neither are we expecting the same results, emotions, learnings that live theatre gifts to us, but we are merely exploring how else we as artists can express our work in the “new normal”. It is a strange and weird time for us all, and we hope to find a way of developing and producing art for young audiences that isn't static and passively consumed, but instead, stimulating, engaging and arresting.

Project Overview:

In this beta version, the film starts within the palace grounds itself. The view is on a 360 camera, and audiences can view the palace in its entirety by engaging with their devices. Whilst on this “home page”, the palace is alive with activity. Characters randomly pop out of their doors, and the sky above is teeming with moving clouds and characters. This loop goes on for 10 minutes, and replays again. Each palace wall is a clickable waypoint. And when clicked on, the video then zooms in and transits into a 2D video, where the character behind that particular waypoint talks directly to the viewer. In this interaction, the scene then starts to present playable options for the viewer, which results in different scenarios being played out, depending on what responses the audience member clicks on. As this is still a work in progress, each interaction is kept short in this beta version, and is not fully fleshed out. In future iterations of this project, we hope to include a stronger intertwined storyline, with more “game” features that the viewer can explore. The Sultan's Palace is recommended for children 4 – 6 years.

About the artist

Bright is a multidisciplinary performance-maker with an established and diverse practice in theatre and puppetry. Born in Malaysia, Bright now resides in Singapore and is an alumni of the Singapore Repertory Theatre’s Young Co. In his capacities as a director, actor, and puppetry creative, he has worked on numerous projects of vastly ranging styles involving the art of puppetry. His experiences range from film and television, to highly physical movement-based work, to pairing traditional art forms with contemporary puppets. An independent artist, he has worked with arts groups including Esplanade, Wild Rice, The Artground and Namhwa Opera. Most recently, he was also consulted for work on the Offaly Youth Arts Forum in Ireland. He has been an adjunct lecturer for puppetry at LASALLE College of the Arts for the past five years and has conducted multiple workshops overseas – including Singapore’s first presentation at the renowned biennale, Pesta Boneka, in 2018.

He has also performed at festivals including Imaginate 2019 (Edinburgh, Scotland), ASSITEJ Korea K-PAP 2020 (Seoul, Korea), the 100 and 100 More Festival and SIFA 2020 (Singapore). As the Resident Director and Puppetry Supervisor for Ninjago: The Realm of Shadows, at Legoland Malaysia (2015 to 2018), the show was awarded the IAAPA (The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) award for Best Theatrical Production 2016, edging over Disney and Universal Studios in that category. His commercial clients also include Transtudio (Indonesia) and Madame Tussauds (Singapore).

Bright is also an Associate Director with Five Stones Theatre, Associate Artist with Mascots and Puppets Specialists, and is a participant member of the Closed Community of Artists under The Paperboats Collective (Australia). This arm of his work reaffirms Bright’s belief in the power of theatre for young audiences. Moving forward, he is excited to bring puppetry into the digital realm – combining live-action puppetry, video gaming and choose-your-own-adventure storytelling.