IBIZA – When the Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel planned their opening party for the 2013 season, they brought in French production company High Scream to make the 12-hour party as memorable as possible. Here’s where a swimming pool and half a million ping pong balls came into play – as an opaque pool cover for video projections from XL Video.
More details from XL Video (www.xlvideo.com):
High Scream’s Romain Pissenem already had a strong relationship with XL Video, and from there, both Romain and XL’s Ian Woodall began to develop an idea for a projection mapped onto the hotel’s 30m x 20m swimming pool, which would become one of the largest projection screens in Ibiza.
To achieve a bright and visible projection, the team needed to make the pool opaque without adding a solid cover over the top. Half a million white ping pong balls were put to use – floating on the surface of the water – to create a suitable canvas for the projections.
XL Video’s team, under Ian Woodall, supplied four of their new Barco HDF-W26 projectors to create the vibrant images on the surface. The projectors were managed and controlled by XL’s Richie Jewell and Toby Evans.
Superbien supplied the content using a Resolume Arena system to allow for a flexible mapping solution.
The 6000-strong crowd partied long into the night, and the brightly colored pool was the focus of the event.
Ian Woodall commented, “It was a really interesting and challenging gig, with a great visual result – although I still wonder where you order 500,000 ping pong balls from!”
