Post 40: The Test

  The only way to know just how many lumens we need was to do a test and see for myself. I have a 2500 lumens projector, and Alys Stephens Center has a 5000 lumens projector, so I picked a roughly 260 sq.ft area at the bottom of the building, onto which my projector would be appear roughly the equivalent of 40,000 lumens for the whole building, and their projector the equivalent of 80,000 lumens:

   I built 2X4 frames to fit in the niches on which I stretched 120" wide quilt backing muslin, one bleached, one natural:

 I made a short animated presentation animation with a variety of colors and brightnesses, and tested it last week:
      Alys Stephens Center Mini Test Show
 I seemed obvious we needed the bigger projector, which confirmed my estimation of about 80,000 lumens.

Post 39: The Logistics

  My Alys Spephens contacts Jessica and Adam came to my studio to talk about the projection, and view a projection of my Red Cross Show, and liked my proposal. The big question now was the cost of the project. I tried to get an estimate on equipment first from the guy that rented the projectors for the Red Cross PTTR, who told me he understood what I needed this time around, but in the end, he dragged on giving me a quote, I got tired of calling him back, and he still has not called me back. I guess it was out of his league, and he got scared...
   Adam suggested I call Holt Audiovisual, the oldest in the business in Birmingham, whom he had worked with before, and felt were very reliable. We had a meeting in front of the building to talk to them about the project , measure distances, look at possible projector locations, etc... They came back with an estimate of $42,500, which they found too high. So I got another estimate which was lower, but using only 30,000 lumens instead of 80,000lumens. I also contacted LG Systems in Texas and Obscura Digital in California, which are the big players in the US and have done major shows internationally. Only Lg Systems answered my enquiry, with an estimate that blew mw away: 200,000lumens(10 projector), and $469,000 for one night with 4 minutes of custom show with 15 minutes of "filler" images playing for about 6 hours in a loop. Plus $166,000 extra for a week, and $25,000 to $50,000 per minute of extra custom material...So a 20 minutes show for 4 days would be over a million dollars! No wonder we see so few Architectural Mapping Projections in the good old U.S.A...Only Coca Cola and the movie studios can afford them.
  So the other question was: do we need 30,000lumens, 80,000 lumens, or 200,000lumens? Quite a range for the same 4300 sq.ft of facade...
  My own guess would be about 80,000, 20 lumens per square foot being the average standard for a dark area.

Post 38: Some Rough Ideas

  We definitely start the show with a projection of the building as it normally is:

  Then the sign swings,falls off, bounces off the lower colonnade, and crashes to the ground with  a big noise:

  Strange things start happening to the brick facade, with the blocks sliding in and out with the beat of the music, flying off and turning in space,falling to the ground with a thump, flying up like balloons, etc...  At the same time, things can appear in the doors and windows, drive by, fly by,colors can change and flash, just about anything is possible...

We could as evening comes tear a hole in the facade, and show dancers performing inside:

Or we could open up a larger stage and have any kind of performance we please:

The whole building could become a stage with a red curtain:

  Or we could have crazy performances taking place in front of the building. Motorcycles are one of my passions, and I have already talked to Mary Foshee about possibly choreographing an acrobatic "Bad BiKer Dance" on top of my big Victory Vegas:

  Once we are over playing with the real building, we can make it into another building by stacking the colonnade, 

changing colors, etc... 

  We could burn it:

  We could have an antique set of tarot cards flip and rotate and fly around in the openings:

  We could make it into a 17th Century Spanish Vargueno, and have stuff jump in and out of the drawers as they open and close:

 Stay tuned. More ideas to follow later...

Post 37: A Trip to the "Festival of Lights" in Lyon, France next December

     I happen to have family in Lyon, and I remember the "8 Décembre" since my days as an engineering  student there from 1963 to 1967. It was not much back then, except candles in the windows and a few illuminations. I have not attended it since, but I will be there this December 8-11. It has become the premier Architectural Mapping Projection showcase in the world, with fabulous shows on all the main public buildings and churches all over town. It now last 4 nights, and is called the "Fête des Lumières". Architectural Projection is only part of it actually, there are many other types of light shows and luminous Art also, and I am expecting to learn a lot there. I have found a number of often low quality hand held amateur videos of previous years shows on the Internet, so it will be nice to shoot my own with a tripod this time.
Here are some examples of what I have found:
 Example 1      Example 2      Example 3
        Example 4      Example 5

Post 36: A Show for the Alys Stevens Center?

   I was contacted a month or so ago by the Events Coordinator at UAB's Alys Stevens Center for the Performing Arts about the possibility of doing an Architectural Projection on the facade either for the opening or the closing of the 2012 Season(September 2012 or April 2013). The idea is to reach out and try to get interest for the Arts and draw in a public from the community at large that would not normally come inside the building for shows, and hopefully make them new spectators for the rest of the season.
  Obviously, I am very interested in doing this, even though the building is a little underwhelming architecturally to create this kind of show. It is a big challenge, and that is what I live for... 
  There are a number of technical problems to deal with: the large expanse of plain red brick, the curve of the wall, the rather ugly sign, the asymmetrical design, the rotating sculpture in front of it, and the solid awning on the right side(that could cast a black shadow). Also, not so much can be done with the building itself in terms of "transformations". I could obviously not make it into a bronze clock, a pipe organ, a wooden cabinet of drawers, a curiosity cabinet with loaded shelves, or a church choir like I did for the Red Cross Show on a symmetrical columned Art Deco downtown building. But then I wouldn't want to repeat myself anyhow! I can come up with a different kind of show, invent more, go further afield...
  To get good varied clear and bright images, the brick would really have to be covered with some kind of light colored fabric. The main projection would have to be limited to the main facade, with possibly an extra sideways lower definition projector on the side building to the right for color effects. The main HI DEF 1920 x 1080 digital projector would have to be placed right at the foot of the sculpture with a wide angle lens capable of covering the main facade. I have a meeting lined up with my projector guy Mat next week to see about that:

  Ideally, the fabric "screen" should be stretched straight in front of the curved brick wall on some kind of frame, and the glass areas and brick recesses in the lower colonnade filled in with panels stretched on wooden frames as I did downtown back in April:

  
That would give us a projection area on which to both recreate the actual building, make it move, shake, open it up, tear it down and rebuild it, but also invent new buildings and make all kinds of things happen totally unrelated to the architecture of the building.

Post 35: The Lyric Theatre Project

   There is that old run down abandoned Vaudeville Theatre right across from the Alabama Theatre in downtown Birmingham called The Lyric. It was donated by the owners to the organization that restored and runs the Alabama, and they are trying to raise funds to bring it back to its former splendor. It is decayed, but not in real bad shape actually except where there was a leak in the roof. 
    It is a wonderfully atmospheric/surrealistic place, and I proposed to do an Architectural Projection Show on the stage area that would both " restore the curtain, proscenium and stage area, as well as bring back former performers on stage such as the Marx Brothers, Roy Rogers and Trigger, etc... The idea would be to use it for a fund raiser, may be have  a black tie dinner in the theatre, and cheaper public performances.
   The problem is that there is lead paint and asbestos in the old place that needs to be cleaned up before a public can be admitted, and although there is talk of some grants to do that, there is no time frame or guaranties it will be done, so I cannot very well invest 500hours or so in benefit show that might never happen. 
    I shot a series of HDR images of the place, and will make a short demo of possible effects and animations.
   My friend Randy and I have also been talking about a short surrealistic movie shot at the Lyric, recreating a crazy vaudeville show in front of a sparse "Felliniesque" audience scattered in the remaining seats, broken boxes and bleachers among the dust and cob webs. We are toying with the idea of bringing as "star spectators" in an aging Zelda, Tulluhla, Capote, etc...

Post 34: Better Late Than Never

Sorry it took me so long to post a small movie of the show, I tried repeatedly, but Facebook does not seem to process vertical format videos, and I kept getting an error message. I put it on my me.com Gallery, and you can hopefully download it from there if you are interested in seeing the show "sort of as it should have played" had I gotten the proper projector: