Rochelle Park Native Helps Bring Dio Hologram to Life

We recently spoke with Rochelle Park native Jeff Pezzuti, CEO of Eyellusion, the pioneering live music hologram company behind the Ronnie James Dio hologram. The company put a ton of painstaking hard work into crafting an incredible, true to life representation of the legendary singer and is the first to bring a hologram on a full tour. You can witness their amazing work firsthand when the Dio Returns hologram tour hits Asbury Park at the Paramount Theatre on Saturday, June 8. It was a true labor of love for Pezzuti, a longtime, hardcore Dio fan. He gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the Dio hologram.

What goes into the creative process of making a hologram?

We are music fans first and that’s why we started the company. So we approach every show from the perspective of ‘what would a fan want to see? What is the best show we can put together to give them the night of their lives and experience the music they love so much in an entirely new way, surrounded by thousands of fans singing along?’ We work closely with family members and estates of the artist to comb through photos and archival footage so that we can create a digital sculpture of the artist. Our creative team, led by Chad Finnerty, includes Hollywood special effects vets that bring a secret sauce to the equation to bring our holograms to life.

How long did it take from when you approached Wendy Dio about creating a Dio hologram until the first show. What factors inform the timeline?

I approached Wendy Dio about creating a hologram of Ronnie and that happened way back in 2015. It was about a year until we had one song ready to debut at the Wacken Open Air metal festival in Germany in Aug 2016, another 15 months until we were ready to launch a small tour through Europe in late 2017 and another 18 months before we were ready for a full-scale world tour in 2019. The major factors that informed this timeline is that we were pioneers and really trying to show the concert and music industry that this was a viable project. No one believed us and we had to do a lot of the hard work of jumping over hurdles ourselves. It was worth it in the end, because we finally brought our vision to life. I can’t wait for people to see what we’ve been working so hard on all these years.

Did the Dio hologram create any specific challenges?

From a creation standpoint, wow, hair is really hard to animate and Ronnie had a lot of it! I am a huge Ronnie James Dio fan and even wore a shirt of his in my sixth grade class picture. I knew early on exactly what I wanted to deliver as far as a fan experience. The challenges came from being a perfectionist in making sure we were doing right by Ronnie at every single turn. And again, because we were first, there was a lot we had to prove about the appetite for this show. We were the first company to ever tour a hologram performance like this and we proved there was an audience. Things grew fast from there once we were successful.

Was Dio the first music related hologram that you did?

Absolutely, Dio was the first and Wendy Dio, Ronnie’s wife and long-time manager, deserves major accolades for taking such a bold risk. She’s the keeper of Ronnie’s legacy and while we were always confident, this was not a slam-dunk by any means. But Wendy stayed committed, was a close partner at every turn and as a result, Dio fans around the world get to experience their favorite artist live again.