Connection Campout | MELT EVERYTHING

For Connection Campout, a stage drawing became the starting point for a family of animated visuals. Justin designed the stage structure in AutoCAD and shared the design with Morgan Lavery at MELT. Morgan built motion around its contours: light tracing the paths, color crossing the surface, and details emerging from darkness.

A collaboration years in the making

Justin is an old colleague and friend—and one of the people Morgan spent substantial time teaching visual arts. This project brought that shared history into a new collaboration, with Justin shaping the physical stage and Morgan developing its animated visual language.

The drawing sets the rhythm

The ornate silhouette already had a strong identity. Its central face, sweeping outer shapes and dense internal curves offered a natural structure for motion. Tracing treatments follow that linework; broader color treatments let the whole form read at once.

Morgan created the animations using a range of tools, developing rendered loops that give Justin different ways to animate the same stage. The animations can be played in Resolume or in the custom Majich project, with looks ranging from restrained white tracing to luminous blue pulses and warm, glowing filaments.

One structure, multiple moods

The selected animations show how much expression can come from a fixed design. A traveling highlight draws attention to individual paths. A glow treatment emphasizes depth and contour. Color flow changes the atmosphere across the entire silhouette.

Justin’s testing photos and video connect the animation studies to the physical stage: the unlit structure in daylight, then its contours illuminated by projection after dark. The rendered loops below show the individual content treatments, while the testing documentation shows the work on the actual piece.

Project credits

Project: Connection Campout
Stage structure & AutoCAD design: Justin
Animation & visual content: Morgan Lavery / MELT EVERYTHING
Scope: Custom line tracing, animated loops and performance scenes

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From linework to light

Molten filament · Warm filament-like light gives the same geometry a different energy.

Blueprint pulse · Cool blue pulses bring the intricate contours forward.

Laser plotter · A moving highlight traces the drawing, turning its paths into choreography.

Constellation connect · Points and connections pick out details within the larger design.

White trace · A stripped-back treatment keeps the focus on the original linework.

Testing on the physical stage

Photos and test footage shared by Justin.

The Connection Campout stage structure assembled outdoors in daylight — The physical stage in daylight, before projection.

Purple and yellow projection following the ornate stage contours at night — Nighttime projection testing on the assembled piece.

Projection test · animated contours playing across the physical stage. Footage shared by Justin.