BNP Paribas creates a spectacular visual universe based on Game of Thrones together with Christie and Europalco

Technological innovation and creativity marked the annual event of this banking entity. For the occasion, a spectacular 64-inch truss screen was designed.×12 metros, inspired by the anatomy of a dragon. The screening featured six Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors and two Pandoras Box servers..

a drug, Viserion y Rhaegal, the dragons from Game of Thrones, They are three essential characters in the series. The Portuguese branch of BNP Paribas, one of the main banks in Europe, was based on these three reptiles to theme the annual meeting with its employees, an event that brought together 3.800 people in the Altice Arena from Lisbon, the largest covered venue in Portugal.

The bank turned to the Portuguese solutions firm for events and shows Europalco, who in turn went to the studio specialized in the design of scenarios and the creation of content for mapping projections Grandpa’s Lab.

“BNP Paribas' goal was to create a spectacular moment for its employees at its annual meeting. They were looking for something big, a scenario with impact and a very dynamic emotional curve. How the event was inspired by Game of Thrones, “We create a story to take viewers through that visual universe.”, remembers Pedro de Castro, project manager and Grandpa's Lab.

The meeting represented an ideal occasion for technological innovation and digital artistic creativity of Europalco and Grandpa's Lab. The first designed a spectacular truss screen, covered in white lycra 64 meters wide by 12 meters high, inspired by the anatomy of a dragon. The side parts of this giant tapestry were the wings and, the center, chest and head. A shocking montage never before seen in the Portuguese professional live show sector.

To carry out the projection, Europalco drew a matrix based on six Christie Boxer 4K30 projectors with 3DLP technology, 30.000 center lumens and 4K resolution (4.096×2.160).

The teams were arranged in three groups of two projectors each.. A tandem took care of the left wing, another from the right wing and the third from the central part of the screen. They were at 12 meters high and at a projection distance of 50 metros.

Motion graphics content inspired by Game of Thrones created by Grandpa's Lab together with its partner Expanding Roots was projected. In addition to the audiovisual projection, there were also flamethrowers, actors and acrobats who completed the narrative, acting in some moments of the show.

The use of six identical Boxers played a key role in the success of the project, offering the projection a superior level of brightness that had a very high impact. One of the BNP Paribas employees present at the event tells us: “The three-dimensional effect made the dragons come out of the screen and fly over our heads. The image quality and sharpness were amazing.. And not to mention the light that came from the screen.”

The sum of the six Boxers produced 180.000 lumens. Highly sought after by the event and show rental industry since they were launched in 2015, The Boxer range projectors are seen as the reference equipment for large format projections due to their high performance, its compact design, light and resistant (message 68 kilos), and the omnidirectional installation possibilities of 360 degrees offered, allowing them to be used in any position.

From Christie Pandoras Box servers, famous for their power to create multimedia experiences of large scale and enormous force, managed the content launched from the projectors. “Pandoras Box is an easy-to-use system and, the most important thing, does not produce any error. The simplicity in the operation and programming of the entire show was only possible because something like the Widget Designer exists.”, Next, CEO of Europalco.

Pandoras Box Widget Designer is an intuitive software tool used to create custom show control applications, allowing you to easily connect all sources and displays with a single powerful interface. Widget Designer translates the different protocols to allow them to interact with each other, automatically or on demand, with single or multiple controls, like tracking system, industrial sensors, PC, tablets or even game controllers.

“Their mapping tools are very good. Allows you to create complex timelines, which helps a lot to build an event, either with a simple script or with a very complex one, without the need for third-party software”, praises Pedro de Castro.

One of the biggest challenges was fitting the images precisely to the irregular surface on which it was projected.. And the central part of the screen, which represented the chest of a dragon, It was full of discontinuous scales on which it was necessary to project. “Fitting the images on these scales was our nightmare”, remember Magalhães, “but in the end we were able to solve it thanks to the Pandoras Box warp plug-in. The images were projected perfectly, filling the different segments of the screen at all times and keeping the lighting strictly within its edges.".