Big on Ceremony
The stakes are extremely high and generally organisers of big-ticket opening and closing ceremonies hire in proven international talent – after all they can’t afford anything to go wrong… and if anything does fall flat, well, “we hired the best”.
14 October 2014
China’s homegrown events production skills were on show for the world to see in August during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Youth Olympic Games. As you’ll see from images the events were visually stunning.
Leading the charge was lighting designer Sha Xiao Lan, who rose to prominence for the work done on the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Held at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre and televised around the globe, again Sha Xiao Lan created a number of spectacular looks including one in which he placed 20 Platinum BX units in a huge scenic astronomical telescope, which illuminated the night sky and became an event highlight, and in another using 112 x 26,000-lumen Barco HDF-series projectors to turn the entire field of play into a projection-mapped canvas.
PROJECTION MAPPED TO THE MAX
Barco and High End Systems (a Barco company), were selected as the projection and video processing provider. In order to meet the director’s design requirements and realise the world’s most sophisticated projection mapping, the team had to take a whole host of factors into consideration, such as large-scale geometric correction, stitching and blending, multi-layer superposition, multi-point correction, and more. Barco used its SIMCAD virtual stage design software to pinpoint each location. The projection area was divided into 14 sections with 2×7 stitching and blending, and in each section, the same picture was projected by eight projectors. Fibreoptic cable linked the 112 projectors to 56 sets of media servers, creating a projection on a scale rarely seen before in global application practices. The projection area covered more than 10,140sqm at a projection distance greater than 120 metres.
LIGHTING UNDER THE TELESCOPE
China’s own Elation Professional was the supplier of the luminaires, launching some new technology in the process. The new high-powered Platinum BX beam and hybrid Platinum SBX moving heads debuted in a big way (some 400 fixtures in all). The new Platinum SBX were positioned throughout the stadium and used to light the huge performance area. It’s a 3-in-1 luminaire that powers out 20,000 lumens and has versatile use as a beam, spot, or wash fixture – combining hard-edge, mid-air effects and a wash field in one luminaire allow it to play multiple roles.
Meanwhile, the Platinum BX combines new lamp technology from a Philips MSD Platinum 17RA 350W lamp with a new optical system to power out over 15,000 lumens along a tight 2.5 degree beam. The dense, long throw beam makes for a spectacular mid-air look. Put 20 of them together in a ‘giant telescope’ and the result – as Sha Xiao Lan displayed – is out of this world.
The opening ceremony involved extraordinarily complicated image processing. The same image was projected by eight projectors. For this superposition to work over a distance greater than 100m required precise control. The Barco Athena processors built into the HDF-series projectors rapidly produced a set of multi-point geometry corrections, ensuring high image quality.
Lighting designer Sha Xiao Lan created a number of spectacular looks including one in which he placed 20 Platinum BX units in a huge scenic astronomical telescope, which illuminated the night sky and became an iconic element that stood out as one of the main highlights of the event.
Lighting Designer: Sha Xiao Lan
Audio Designer: He Biao
Audio Director: Wang Ruixiang
Production Company: Beijing Fengshang Shiji Culture Art
Barco: www.barco.com
Elation Professional: www.elationprofessional.com
High End Systems: www.highend.com
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