Christmas Light-up

SYDNEY - For Christmas 2014, video services provider TDC (Technical Direction Company) is delivering breathtaking, high-brightness, large-format 3D video projections and support to several sites in Sydney during the Christmas festive period.

TDC's world-class expertise and impressive technology inventory ensures the delivery of high-resolution video technology used for immersive and engaging visual storytelling in large-scale projects in front of thousands of people.

TDC is the video projection team behind the multi-award winning Vivid Sydney, Royal Australian International Navy Fleet Review Spectacular and Sydney's New Year's Eve celebrations, so they have plenty of experience at lighting up and transforming Australia's most famous landmarks.

For Christmas 2014, TDC is utilizing over 20 of the very latest high-brightness Barco projectors along with advanced 3D media servers for the following Christmas spectaculars:

High-Tech Lights of Christmas, St Mary's Cathedral

Presented by PAYCE, the 2014 edition of Lights of Christmas is expanded across 17 nights until December 25, 2014. TDC is partnering with AGB Events for the fourth consecutive year to ensure that this magical show is brought to Sydney and the wider public online. The largest light show in Australia during the spectacular festive season, Lights of Christmas drew an audience of 200,000 visitors in 2013 and was Internet streamed live across the world.

The massive surface of the 75-meter high by 33-meter wide sandstone Cathedral fa ade is transformed using the latest video 3D video mapping and projection of still, animated and video content, said Kain Jones, special projects manager at TDC. Preparation and planning for video projection mapping is everything. Working with a 3D model of the fa ade, we previsualize the entire building and accurately map every pixel onto the architecture of the cathedral. This ensures the precision of our delivery.

It's always a great challenge to tell a story that is not only visually spectacular but also compelling, said Anthony Bastic, creative director at AGB Events. Working with Giles Westley, art director at AGB Events, the content was created specifically for this event.

Lights of Christmas 2014 is broken up into three segments , telling the story of giving and service. It symbolically follows the visual and metaphorical journey of a honeybee. The Joy of Giving starts off our light show , emerging from behind the Church altar - combined with visuals of the symbolic gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The visual use of an altar draws a parallel with St . Peters in the Vatican, Italy. The Twelve Days of Christmas treats visitors to a fun and specially designed animation of the traditional melody in vivid and moving imagery. The Madonna and Child includes images of some of the world's greatest artists.

Video projections are accompanied by commissioned soundscape and narrative that resonates with the ideals of the Christmas season of peace, joy and goodwill. Lights of Christmas brings joy to hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders , who each year come together in front of the Cathedral to celebrate the season. The nightly spectacle is heralded by live choir performances from the steps of Sydney's grand Roman Catholic Cathedral.

Love and fun on the Merry Go Round, MLC Centre, Martin Place

Offering a brand-new focal point of Sydney's Christmas celebrations, TDC delivers high-resolution projection mapping for the curved facade of the Commercial Travellers Association Building at MLC Center in Martin Place, Sydney. Merry Go Round by Ample Projects completely transforms the building into a magical mechanical toy carousel, complete with playful robots, animals and space inhabitants.

The show pushes the transformational possibilities of architectural video projection to its limits, said Nicholas Tory, creative director at Ample Projects. For this project, we required ultra-high-resolution projectors and design for the cylindrical architecture of the CTA building. We turned to TDC to provide state-of-the-art equipment and on-site show programming. The result is spectacular!

This is the first Christmas projection on the compelling fa ade of the CTA building, and this structure provides us with a really great perspective for mapped projections on a curved structure. We interpreted the design by way of creating a 3D map of the building and public space. Using the latest media server technology, the intricate layering of the graphics can be mapped to the building with razor-sharp accuracy. We expect Merry Go Round to receive a wonderful response from Sydneysiders , said Michael Hassett, managing director at TDC.

A must-see family experience, the event runs every evening through Christmas. The event coincides with Christmas trading hours at MLC.

This is the second time that TDC has worked with Ample Projects on the CTA building. Their previous collaboration was multi-award-winning spectacle Urban Tree Project at Vivid Sydney 2014. To date, Urban Tree Project has won awards for live events design at the 2014 AEAF Awards and the 2014 Australian Production Design Guild Awards (APDG). The project was also a nominated finalist in the 2014 Australian Event Awards, and awarded a highly commended place for Concept Design and Illustration at the 2014 Australian Production Design Guild Awards (APDG).

Photos by Rodney Campbell.

LINK:	http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/In-Focus/2014/Christmas-Light-up.aspx...
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