Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Watch a Helicopter Project a Video onto an Enormous Banner Towed by Another Helicopter
gizmodo.com: To help promote its Video Music Awards that aired last night, last week MTV employed a novel approach to aerial advertising. Instead of having a plane pulling a large banner, it used a pair of helicopters to create a flying movie theater that the Guinness Book of World Records has confirmed as the world’s largest aerial projection screen.
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5 comments:
This is an impressive feat, both for the engineers and the pilots. It would be great to know how exactly the tracking worked, but I can understand why Branding By Air wouldn't want to share. From what I can tell, there is a tracking beacon on the bottom of the pole and two grey circles (one top and one bottom). Still, I would love to know if there was an automated mechanism inside the projecting helicopter to physically aim the projectors, or if the pilots were just that good. The only imperfection I was able to see is that when the screen ruffles due to the wind, the image/text gets blurry. It might be possible to solve this problem by doing a 3D scan of the screen and making mapping corrections in real-time, but I'm not sure if this technology exists yet. Even though this setup was used for advertising, it is a product of innovation in the field of projecting on unorthodox surfaces. That is something that is exciting and will have a profound impact on the future of theatre. Imagine being able to perfectly project on anything from any angle, even a twirling dancer wearing frilly fabric, without doing any manual mapping. Hopefully, this technology is something we'll be able to see on stage in the next ten years.
I think my favorite line of this video was when Ryan Osborne said "You’d have to assume that millions of people are going to see this…I’d put $10 on that”. You better assume that people are going to see this because you just put thousands of dollars into it. You have to pay for fuel for the helicopters, payment for the pilots, energy costs- tons of things. There are so many elements that need constant supervision in the process of flying equipment overhead. I fully support the future of technology in advertisement I just don’t think that this is it. Maybe this invention can be used as a stepping stone to promote new forms of media and projection mapping. This is an innovative idea and I can appreciate the work that went into this, but they are putting a lot of faith into those two helicopters always being on their A game. Personally I think that there are much better ways to- as they said- Make cool things in the sky.
This is one of those situations where people just have too much time on their hands. Why is this even something to record a world record for? It must have cost so much. The amount of money for designing and rigging the screen the money for the projector, the money for the planes, and the people necessary to hire. Then the time costs, who wants to dedicate any time, let alone months to a project like this that has no effect on anything really. I can admire it's an interesting way to use the technology, I believe it is not useful, or can become useful. The technology the create may lead to other innovations down the road, but I really hope the implementation of it can be more than just a big screen in the sky. I sincerely worry about the safety of continuing trying to build from this, there are some things that just are not ment to fly around in the sky and it is a waste of people's time and resources. So congrats for what you accomplished but really move on and do something different with it.
This is such overkill, but in the best way possible. I can't even imagine how hard and dangerous it would be to take off and then drag such a large piece of fabric. And it’s even more dangerous for the second helicopter pilot who has to make sure he doesn't get too close to the fabric that it gets pulled into his blades while also staying really close to the fabric so the projectors can stay in focus and make it to the screen. The software that keeps the projects lined up with the fluctuating, moving fabric that is constantly getting creases in it and changing shape is really a feat in itself. I never knew such a thing existed that could take in that many variables and project reliably. It makes me wonder how we can use that in theatre with automation and projection and what kind of craziness can come from it.
What a cool Idea to promote a music video…. It almost reminds me of the little Cessna airplanes that pull the advertisements when you are sitting on the beach. The ides of having video footage in the sky seems crazy. My first question would be how many lumens does something like that require?? Also do they require an external generator or does the helicopter provide enough? This is also very interesting to me because I am currently in the ground school portion of getting my helicopters license so in my head I am trying to figure out how they are able to drag a sheet of that size? Also, it seems like it would be very difficult to keep at the same pace and elevation as the other helicopter. I wonder if instead of dragging the sheet they made some sort of rigged frame that could be hung from the helicopter and used several short throw projectors eliminating the need for a second helicopter. I think this was a good first attempt but there is definitely many other methods that might have a better outcome.
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