In addition to being an internationally-recognized rock band for over 50 years, Pink Floyd has garnered a reputation for creating the largest, most intricate, and beautiful light shows in the world. They are probably one of the first bands to truly understand and harness the raw power of video projection during a live performance.
For VYV, being able to work on this project with founding member Roger Waters was a dream realized.
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With the help of Designer/Director Sean Evans and Video Technical Director Richard Turner, we brought Roger Waters’ vision to life: we recreated London’s infamous Battersea Power Station and plunked it in the middle of the Californian desert. The Battersea Power Station was made famous by being featured on Pink Floyd’s 1977 LP album Animals.
In the middle of the performance, four 13m inflatable Battersea smokestacks rose majestically atop an LED screen (66 x 12 m, resolution 8512 x 1280 px), and featured Algie the Pig hung between two of them, recreating the 1977 album cover.
Using 4K UHD live cameras (3840×[email protected]), we were able to use the cutting-edge power of Photon’s real-time compositing features to integrate live content seamlessly into the show. We included over 20 megapixels of uncompressed playback, and were able to layer heavy live compositing atop of it.
The Automatic Alignment feature for the cameras and projectors was key for this production to run smoothly. The smokestacks and Algie the Pig were auto-aligned, 3D tracked, and projected using 28 OptiTrack tracking cameras and 14 Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors; 3 projectors per smokestack and 2 projectors just for Algie. The inflatable smokestacks had well over 100 Copernic Duo emitters embedded.
The installation for this show had to be completed overnight and presented challenges that were both physical and environmental. The stage and the projectors were located far apart and the unforgiving windy, rainy weather hammered us until sunrise.
Despite these challenges, we were able to marvel at what we created by the morning light.
Client
641 Productions / Richard Turner
When
From the 20th of September to the 16th of October 2016
Where
Mexico City & Indio California