livedesignonline.com: The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games saw the main stadium transformed into a huge array of LED video pixels, mapped to the space inhabited by the entire audience. Developed by Tait Technologies, the pixel tablet has become the latest product to emerge from the expanding range of Tait’s available rental systems. Producing over 70,500 pixel tablets for the entire stadium seating grid saw video emerge from its two dimensional world to become 3D; the audience members integrated into the show itself.
4 comments:
The pure scale that Tait was able to produce is just amazing. The degree of R&D that was done sounds extensive. I wonder after all of the R&D just how easy it will be for the stadium to use on a regular basis. The amazing abilities you would have at your finger tips for every sporting event or concert in that space is tremendous. It does sound like the creators at Tait thought through my small concerns to produce something that space will have for years to come.
It seems like a huge project to undertake, and it's impressive that only 10 crew members were able to install the system over 10 weeks. The article said a smaller scale version of the system was available. I would be curious to know not only the install time of that system, but also the strike time of that system. Is this technology something that will be used in the near future in our own venues and events or does the technology still have a way to go before it trickles down to our scale of events?
I was at Tait Towers (the US branch of the global Tait network) and was surprised to find similarities between theater and the large-scale million dollar projects that Tait deals with.
How often in the theater do we got to some technology or resource designed for different industries and use it for entertainment? The same thing is at work here. Tait gobbled-up an LED designed for billboard displays and skyscraper displays. Look at the PECO building in Philadelphia for a good example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=GILROGiNfvY
I'm interested to see when this technology creeps into the theater. We are embracing projections as the next big thing in theatre. Everyone seems to know it will be important to how stories will be told on stage and a lot of universities, CMU included, are investing a lot of time into projected media. However as universities seek to develop training programs rooted in this technology LED technology is becoming cheaper as demand for it increases in entertainment and other industries. LED technology is also becoming more approachable as the DIY and maker movements continue to look to technology to create art. Here's an example of an RGB matrix using the Arduino microcontroller. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xVfISvxKoU&feature=related
Maybe the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies are showing the future of media in the theater: the death of projected media.
I agree with Matt. And that is always good policy. Imagine this. . . we buy a large screen the size of a standard drop. Now excuse me for the none-technical sentences that are about to follow. This giant high resolution screen does not emit light. It merely manipulates digital color ink like a kindle. It has an anti-reflective coating. It looks like a painted drop. Well, no one uses painted drops anyway BUT how cool would it be able to light them and go from the act I to act II at the touch of a button? No need for a projection bay. No problems with over lighting your projected image. No need to higher scenics anymore. How long would it take for it to pay for itself? I saw Spiderman and they were using video legs. This step should not be too far off.
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