NEW YORK, NY — A tightly woven interplay of projection mapped video and LED lighting effects transformed the façade of Saks Fifth Avenue with a repeating 10-minute show, titled An Enchanted Experience, from Nov. 24, 2014 through Jan. 4, 2015. Integrated Visions Productions and DWP Live teamed with American Christmas Inc. on the project, which relied upon projection and control gear from Barco, coolux and Pharos. Radio City Music Hall’s Rockettes and Grucci fireworks accompanying the seasonal display’s kickoff presentation on Nov. 24.
More details from Integrated Visions Productions (www.integratedvisions.net):
To produce the 2014 edition of the Saks Fifth Avenue holiday architectural display, iconic holiday decorators American Christmas Inc. teamed up with projection mapping innovators Integrated Visions Productions to create a dramatic show that featured the seamless integration of LED and traditional lighting fixtures directly into an architectural projection mapping show on the world-famous façade of Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.
The projections, designed by Integrated Visions Productions, were inspired but the Art-Deco style and the iconic elements of New York City. An array of 1,800 LED nodes from Philips Color Kinetics as well as strobes, up-lights, and lit garlands installed by American Christmas are used not just as an accent to the projection show, but interact with projected elements across the same structural details, blending with and augmenting the projected image to produce stunning results.
To illuminate the façade, live projection experts DWP Live, who provided the projection equipment and support for the production, used Barco 26,000 lumen HD projectors driven by the coolux Pandora’s Box Media Server. In addition to driving the high-powered projectors, the Pandora’s Box units were also used to send an SMPTE timecode sync signal to the rest of the control architecture, with backup triggering available from the media server via Art-Net.
To synchronize and control all other elements based on the media server’s SMPTE output, Integrated Visions used the Pharos Controls Lighting Playback Controllers (LPC). Three Pharos LPC4 units with 12 collective universes of control, 6,144 channels total, utilized DMX, KiNet, and MIDI to control all lighting elements as well as trigger all other control components in complete frame-locked synchronization with the video show, including a digital audio workstation providing playback of the various frame-synced audio tracks.
Above and beyond triggering and control synchronization, however, the ease of creating pixel matrices in the Pharos Designer software enabled many lighting elements to be designed directly as video layers during media production, integrating video and lighting on a much tighter level.
On the opening night of November 24th, 2014 the projection and lighting show played for the first time behind the world-famous Radio City Rockettes dancing in the street on 5th Ave., followed by an elaborate pyrotechnics display on the rooftop by famed Grucci Fireworks. An estimated 5 million people watched the live stream of the opening performance.
Saks Fifth Avenue’s An Enchanted Experience is a milestone production for Integrated Visions and a unique presentation of projection and hard lighting layered on the same surface into one show. The presentation played every ten minutes daily from November 24th thru January 4th with an expected audience of 25 million people viewing the holiday windows at Saks throughout the 2014 season.
“This year differed in several ways from previous years,” noted Robert (Bob) Payne, who collaborated on the lighting design with Bryan Dodson, Michelle Dodson and American Christmas Inc. Payne cited “more projection power” along with the “integration of LED nodes, strobes, and other hard lighting directly into the projection surface” as key advances for the 2014/2015 projection. Along with the new control architecture, he cited “more elegant media focused less on cartoon-style narratives and more on fashion-oriented and artistic themes and classic NYC imagery.”
To see a video, go to http://vimeo.com/113345675.
Saks Fifth Avenue’s An Enchanted Experience Holiday Projection
Nov. 24, 2014 through Jan. 4, 2015
Production Credits:
- Architectural Projection and Lighting Show designed and produced by American Christmas, Inc. and Integrated Visions Productions.
- Lighting and Garland Installation by American Christmas Inc.
- Projection Mapping by Integrated Visions Productions
- Technical Direction by Bryan Dodson, Robert Payne and American Christmas Inc.
- Integrated Show Control by Integrated Visions Productions and DWP Live
- Lighting and show control integration powered by Pharos Architectural Controls
- Projection Installation and Support by DWP Live
- Producer: Kent Fritzel (American Christmas, Inc.)
- Executive Producer: Fred Schwam (American Christmas, Inc.)
- Animation by Integrated Visions Productions
- Animation Directed by Michelle Dodson and Bryan Dodson
- Art Direction by Michelle Dodson
- Assistant Art Directors: Bryan Dodson and John Ensor Parker
- Creative Advisors: Kent Fritzel (ACI), Fred Schwam (ACI), Kristen Henrickson (ACI) and Robert Payne
- Lighting Design by Bryan Dodson, Robert Payne, Michelle Dodson, and American Christmas Inc.
- Lighting and show control integration powered by Pharos Controls
- 3D Workflow by Dandelion and Burdock
- Animation Support by Reel Mind Studios and Pixel Rain Digital
- Green screen shoot produced by Tim Daust (Reelmind Studios)
- DWP Live team is Danny Whetstone (President),
- Ben Ryle (Lead Programmer), Justin Carlson (Lead Projectionist)
- On-site Audio support by Richard Chychota
- Audio Score by Irving Berlin
- Special Thanks to Dewayne Walters, DB Design
