Projection Mapping: Gold In Goa
11 April 2014
Thought the British had its ‘commonwealth’ games to itself? Well, you’d be wrong. The Portuguese are in on the act. It’s called the Lusofonia Games, bringing together Portuguese speaking countries for a big sports carnival. India is an ‘associate’ member for obvious reasons (only a southern portion has Portuguese colonial heritage) but played host to the 2014 games.
No games worth its salt is without a glamorous opening ceremony. And so it was at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Thousands of performers clad in elaborately-designed costumes – gloriously illuminated by rays of light from multiple projectors positioned strategically around the stadium – would go on to enthral the throng of 22,000.
The show relied heavily on projection mapping with projection designer Bart Kresa and his team along with Christie’s local partners, Audio Design & Video Design, leading the creative and technical charge.
A total of 40 projectors comprising Christie Roadster S+20K, Roadster S+22K-J and Roadster HD20K-J 3-chip DLP projectors were deployed to ensure maximum projection coverage. They were positioned on specially-built platforms above the spectator stands at six points around the stadium – four stacks of eight projectors each for the flow projections onto the ground, as well as two stacks of four projectors each for projections on the stage.
The projectors couldn’t be mounted in the grandstand roof, as it wasn’t load bearing. So it was more of a challenge to produce the images from comparatively oblique angles from as high in the spectator stands as could be achieved: “Christie’s alignment software Twist was a lot of help us in getting the alignments right,” noted Vijay Sabhlok, managing partner, Video Design.
“This 40-projector setup for the opening ceremony of the Lusofonia Games is the biggest projection event ever staged in India. This beats our very own best of 30 projectors used previously for the Umaid Bhawan projection mapping project,” added Sabhlok. “Our decision to use Christie projectors is really a no-brainer. The motor of the Roadster HD20K-J is the most rugged, and it works really well in all sorts of conditions.”
Sharing the same sentiments, Bansi Kaul, creative director and show director for the event’s opening ceremony said: “What I really like about the Christie projectors is that they do not distort the colours. This is very important because we are portraying nature and we want the seasons and monsoons to be shown in the best possible way during the performance.”
A quick look at the medal tally reveals that India and Portugal dominated proceedings with East Timor scraping in with a single bronze. And the mascot was, predictably, a Nando’s-style chicken called JoJo.
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