The Enchanted Forest: Immersive Animation and Projection, Pitlochry
(2023–2026)
The Enchanted Forest is one of Scotland's most celebrated outdoor sound and light experiences, transforming Faskally Wood in Pitlochry into an immersive night-time journey through projection, light, and music. Since 2023, we have been commissioned to create animated worlds and projection experiences that shape key moments along the trail — from water-screen storytelling on Loch Dunmore to large-scale landscape projection onto the cliff face surrounding the loch.
Across four editions of the event, our role has grown year on year, reflecting a deepening creative partnership with the Enchanted Forest team.
2026 edition currently in production.
Project Overview
Years
2023 – 2026
Our Role
Animation
Projection design
Character animation
Landscape projection
Immersive visual storytelling
Technologies
Water-screen projection
Landscape projection mapping
LED installations
Large-scale environmental projection
The Challenge
Producing animated stories within a living landscape
The Enchanted Forest trail winds through protected woodland, presenting a unique creative challenge: installations must enhance the natural environment rather than compete with it.
As part of a wider creative and production team, we work as immersive animation specialists — crafting visual content that works in harmony with lighting, sound, and the surrounding landscape. Each year introduces a new narrative theme and visual direction, requiring fresh approaches to animation, projection design, and storytelling that respond to the scale, texture, and atmosphere of the forest.
2023: From the Deep
From the Deep transformed the forest into a glowing underwater world, following Solus — a central character — through bioluminescent depths, shifting ocean landscapes, and immersive soundscapes.
Our contribution
We animated multiple installations across the trail:
Trail Introduction
A series of LED screens embedded within the woodland introduced Solus to audiences at the start of their journey, setting the tone for the story ahead.
Loch Dunmore Showcase
Halfway along the trail, visitors gather at Loch Dunmore for the event's flagship audio-visual show. We created a six-minute animated sequence projected onto a water screen rising from the loch, synchronised with lighting design and an original musical score — experienced by tens of thousands of visitors across the run.
Final Installation
For the closing installation, we filmed dancer Jo Piere and transformed her performance into Biera, the winter spirit who appears at the end of the story — blending choreography and animation to bring the narrative journey to a close.
2024: Symphony of Nature
Exploring the harmony and beauty of nature.
Symphony of Nature was a sensory experience inspired by seasonal patterns and organic motion, where light, sound, and animation flowed in harmony with the rhythms of the natural world.
Our contribution
We returned to create the animated visuals for the water-screen showcase — a new sequence designed to respond to the musical composition and surrounding lighting design. The animation used flowing, organic motion and evolving patterns inspired by natural rhythms, transforming the loch into a living visual performance.
2025 -Luminara
Where nature and technology become one.
Luminara invited audiences deeper into the forest than ever before — a world where the landscape itself was animated, and the boundary between the natural and the digital dissolved entirely.
Our contribution
Our role expanded across two major installations.
Loch Showcase
We returned to create the animated content for the loch water-screen projection, continuing the evolving visual storytelling of the event.
Living Tapestry
We also created Living Tapestry, a large-scale landscape projection mapped onto the cliff face surrounding the loch.
The projection transformed the rock surface into a living, animated ecosystem, with light appearing to grow across the landscape and respond to the surrounding environment.
A growing creative partnership
Over three consecutive years, our work has helped shape some of the defining visual moments of the Enchanted Forest experience.
As the event continues to evolve, each year brings new stories, new challenges, and new opportunities to expand the creative possibilities of the forest.
Credits
Event Producers
Wavemakers Ltd
Creative Director
Karen Craig
Lighting Designer
Grand Anderson
Composers
Jon Beales & RJ McConnell
Animators
Bright Side Studios
Cristina Spiteri & Susanna Murphy
