Awards
The Pearls exhibit was presented with an Honor Award in Interpretive Design from the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) 2003 Design Awards. Click here for more information.
Articles
DV Magazine
Click
here to read the entire article (PDF format - 500 KB)
The March
2002 edition of DV magazine features an article that details how we handled the challenges
of this shoot. Click
here to read the article (in PDF format)
For media inquiries or additional information, please contact us at:
info@24fpsproductions.com
Genre
Corporate | Industrial: Museum Exhibition
Episodes | Running Time
1 X 5
DEscription
This project involved creating a video experience to be projected at the entrance of the Pearls exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. The video helped to set a surreal and meditative mood for the exhibit and abstract the stereotype of pearl divers, which the remainder of the exhibit disproved.
The video shows pearl divers peacefully descending and ascending through the water - but from a slightly different perspective. The point of view is as if the visitor is immersed in the water, with the divers.
Challenge
This project presented a series of challenges whose solution were aided by our experience in previous trials and tests for the Museum. The projection requirements for the project were quite specific. Two large rectangular and translucent scrims will be hung from the ceiling, separated in-line from each other by about 18 ft. Projectors in the ceiling will then play the looped videos onto the scrims.
And to achieve the effect of the divers swimming down the water column against the darkly lit scrim, the background would need to be keyed-out to black. To create this effect, we needed to shoot the video in a deep pool. We decided to use the pool in Montreal's Olympic Stadium, which allowed us the proper distance and depth to create the effect.
Production Design
To facilitate the planning, we used Nemetschek's VectorWorks MiniCad for the production design. This allowed a precise picture of the setup to emerge well before the shoot. VectorWorks was also used to create a monitor overlay which enabled us to correctly position the camera for the two scales needed.
Chromakeying
We contracted Bob Kertesz of BlueScreen LLC to handle the keying for the shoot. He brought the key material, a giant 30 X 20 ft. sheet of Digital Green® green screen from Composite Components Company. For on-site confidence, Bob also brought an Ultimatte system that allowed us to pull a live key and see the final effect of the keying - right on-site. This aided us greatly in the positioning of the lights.
These solutions, together, amounted to what would be the first-ever application of underwater high definition chromakeying.
For more details about the Pearls exhibit, click here.
For more information about the American Museum of Natural History, visit their web site here.
Additional Information
For additional information, contact us at:
info@24fpsproductions.com