Twitter
Facebook
By Liese Gardner
Note: This article was just published in the April/May issue of Event Solutions magazine along with more photos of show coverage. This post also includes the list of projection equipment used by BARTKRESA Design.
There was a moment during the production of the 2012 Event Solutions Spotlight Awards / ICA CATIE Awards when Creative Director Bart Kresa, mused, “This medium – video projection – is technical, but at the same time it can be warm and dreamlike. We don’t have to be governed by traditional narrative.”
And so Kresa’s design theme, based around the subtitle, What Dreams May Come, began to percolate and then come to a boil as the entire team(see March 13 post for information on the entire team) raced to pack months of work into one month. After Kresa chose and created the graphic images that would be projected across the 100-foot-long screen at Caesars Palace on February 28.
The look began with the Art Nouveau styling of the screen frames Kresa chose. From that small detail, his imagination turned to France in the twenties to Jules Verne and journeys under the sea, into space and through our own, modern world of city skylines. …
The entire show look was then loosely unified by that classic awards show motif – chandeliers.
Kresa has been at the forefront of digital art installations, working in large-scale projection environments for years. As the technology develops, artists like him move with it, using the latest, brightest projectors, finding ways to take the process of projection to new uses such as architectural 3D mapping to even mapping moving people which Kresa did for a live show in Japan.
“Why this is so different from an LED,” Kresa explains, “Is that when you use that medium, all you see is an LED wall with an image on it. With large-scale projection art, you see only the effect, not the medium. When done correctly it transforms a space by making the technology invisible.”
While this technology and its terms are becoming somewhat more common at events, it is important to note that it is still a very specialized art form that takes a team of experts to produce and run it. Yet, like technology that has come before, digital experts predict that the day will soon come when this medium is also more widespread and affordable for one-time events.
As the Spotlight Award’s Executive Producer Beth Stephenson of Extraordinary Events observed, “Technology updates so much quicker than we are able to process. We are still human and trick ourselves into thinking we can keep up with and understand technological change. Even though we are all talking about video mapping, it is still a highly specialized technique that requires a lot of time on the front end and a team of experts both in production and on site to make it really come together and work.”
As the final kaleidoscope image was projected and the virtual red curtain came down, the audience at this year’s Spotlights had journeyed through a digital dream. Yet, unlike a dream, no one’s eyes were closed. They were now wide open to the possibilities of this technology.
From BARTKRESA Design:
EQUIPMENT LIST FOR PROJECTION SYSTEM
OF THE 2012 SPOTLIGHT AWARDS
FROM VER
4 Christie Roadster HD18K Projector
4 Christie 3.0kw Xenon Lamp (HD18K/S+20K)
4 Roadster Heat Shield
4 Remote Christie HD 18K/20K/30K/35K (Dual Frequency)
4 Case Christie HD 18K Projector (47x31x29)
4 Christie Dual SD/HD SDI Module 38-804656
4 Christie Twist (Warp) Manual
4 Manual Christie HD18K Projector
4 20’ Stereo Mini Cable
16 Christie HD 18K/S+20K Clamp
4 Christie 2.0-2.8SX/1.8-2.6 HD Lens (HD 18K/S+20K)
4 Case Christie 1.8-2.6 Lens (18K/20K) (21x12x12)
1 (4) L2130 (4) L630 Camlock Pass-Through Distro (Red Band) (CFT720-L2130-Z)
4 50’ L630 AC Extension Cable
4 100’ L630 AC Extension Cable
4 100m DVI (m-m) Fiber Optic Cable
4 DVI Fiber Power Supply
FROM CHRISTIE DIGITAL
1 Spyder X20
FROM BARTKRESA DESIGN
6 primary Watchout Video servers
4 backup Watchout video servers
2 control Watchout video servers
2 Ethernet hubs + Ethernet cables
6 HD monitors+ DVI cables
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments