Christie's projectors drive an extraordinary day with action heroes’ by Elizabeth Streb

The audiovisual production company QED used 20 Christie Roadster HD18K projectors to project on the facade of the Shell Mex building in London (United Kingdom) images from the 'extreme action' show’ by Elizabeth Streb's dance company held within the framework of the London International Festival of Theater (LIFT).

Within the framework of the London International Festival of Theater (LIFT), Londoners were treated to a series of surprise events held at or around some of the capital's most iconic landmarks or structures.. Brooklyn choreographer Elizabeth Streb and her troupe of action heroes’ put together a stunning display of extraordinary audacity and beauty that culminated in a stunning finale at the London Eye, con 32 interpreters occupying one of every two cabins of the great ferris wheel.

In order to allow as many Londoners as possible to enjoy the wonderful experience, LIFT turned to the services of the audiovisual company QED Productions to project live camera footage of the performance onto the neighboring Shell Building. At its location on the Victoria Embankment, the cameras mixed the viewing on site, then transmitting the images across the Thames via an HD microwave video connection, to the projection point on the Southbank, where 20 of the Christie QED's HD18K Roadster projected live action onto the iconic building 107 meters high. HD series offers a lighter image, with lower energy consumption and a 10% Brighter than any other on the market. The Roadster HD18K itself contains 3-chip DLP technology resolution, with full resolution 1920 x 1080 and xenon lighting, High-quality optics and image processing 10 bits.

An extraordinary projection on an extraordinary day

The projectors were combined horizontally and vertically in an array of 2 x 5, which was then doubled for extra shine and back-up from the live. With the camera lenses requiring 172x magnification and a single tracking gun to illuminate the performers against the background of the night sky, It was not going to be easy to generate images of sufficient brightness and high quality for projection. Besides, there was no possibility of rehearsals since it was necessary to maintain secrecy. But as soon as the event began and the first images began to be projected, Its impressive technical quality and the extraordinary spectacle that was offered to Londoners was immediately clear..

The Paul Wigfields, QED Director, “with ten projectors to duplicate it was demonstrated, one more time, that the power of Christie's Twist software and network control were essential to the success of the projection deployment, allowing you to set up everything in just one night”.

Paul Simmons, QED Production Director, was in charge of the technical production of the event, con Richard Porter, Head of Digital Media, managing projection mapping and changes between the live camera feed and the rest of the graphic content. Four d3 media servers were used for building mapping, with a custom-designed distribution structure by QED, which was supplying all the signals and remote control for all the projectors as well as individualized monitoring of the output of each fiber channel.