There ’s eternal Super Bowl ballyhoo hap in New York right now , what with the freehanded game just days aside . But you might pretermit one of the coolest if you do n’t look up : The projection - map specialistsMoment Factoryhave turned the grand Herald Square frontage of Macy ’s into an binge of light . It ’s unbelievable . Here ’s how they did it .
Moment Factory is a Montreal - based collective of picture , figure , and technology nerds . They ’re experts at turning building into invigoration , and they use their own propriety software to do it . In one recentrecent show , they projected glorious imagery onto La Sagrada Familia , Antoni Gaudí ’s chef-d’oeuvre cathedral in Barcelona . The Canadian company is no stranger to American football , either ; they helped contrive Madonna ’s half - meter show at the Super Bowl in 2012 .
This yr , Moment Factory is back in the NFL fray as part of Super Bowl Boulevard , a 10 - block entertainment spectacle that ’s been carved down one of New York ’s busiest thoroughfares . Their share is the Super Bowl Virtual Theater , a 3,390 square foot protrusion - mapped marvel .
Across Macy ’s Broadway facade , the installation plays an overwhelming eight - minute of arc barrage of swirling images : Cubist footballs , crazy confetti , and , confoundingly , licks of fire that melt down the side of the building like oozy Velveeta cheese . All this mental imagery is combined with existent footage of NFL gridiron , and backed by an epical mashup soundtrack of orchestral music , electronic beats , and the words of bark telly announcers calling football game game .
allot to Moment Factory ’s multimedia manager , Nelson de Robles , the theme was to show the fusion of the two innkeeper states — New York and New Jersey — as well as to exemplify the contrast “ between the heat of the secret plan and the cold outside . ” Indeed , when I was standing in Herald Square ascertain the projection , the temperature was hover in the low twenties .
De Robles says that designing the projection for the Macy ’s construction was hugely challenge . As a site for a major installation , the middle of New York City is just about the worst spot you could pick for logistics . On the other hand , if the required characteristic for a projection surface are iconic condition and a long horizontal human face that can be used as a canvass , Macy ’s Herald Square is sodding : It ’s far-famed , it ’s wide , and the space across the street is clear because it ’s a park . The construction is an architectural image , too , built over a hundred long time ago . Until recently , it was the single largest retail space in the public , and it remain the big in America .
But the project was a terrible challenge for another very simple rationality : The Macy ’s building on 34th street is just blocks from the capture - inducing faint pollution emanating from Times Square , not to mention the Empire State Building and load of skyscraper that are all exploding with light . And then there ’s the latent sound of Manhattan ’s crushing gridlock . The latter job was solved by convincing the city to let Moment Factory crank up the volume to 100 decibels rather than the normal 85 decibel limit . “ 85 decibel is basically the auditory sensation of the traffic , ” says de Robles .
beat the light pollution was more complicated . Since you ca n’t tell the gravid city to blur it down a little , the Moment Factory had to outgun the limelight with the most brawny hardware it could find . The images are blasted over Herald Square from 12 2K40Barco projectorsfrom the Courtyard Marriott on Sixth Avenue , where the NFL take out two floor of the building just for the production company . The projectors have 2 grand resolving power with lamp rat at 40,000 lumen . Originally , Moment Factory had hope to use the same 20,000 lumen Barco projectors that it used for La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona , but they proved too dinky for the project .
But no matter how much power was throw at the task , Moment Factory had to process within some unavoidable constraints , and in the death , the visual content had to be tailored for the web site . For exercise , the video contains very small disconfirming quad — everything had to be filled with a color , because you ’re never going to get a deep , cold lightlessness in the middle of New York City .
The Macy ’s building ’s blueprint posed another problem — because it does n’t have a totally flat window dressing , and the NFL require to project genuine football footage onto the building . Usually , jutting maps do n’t shy aside from the involution of a building ’s architecture . As de Robles manoeuvre out , La Sagrada Familia is one of the most complicated buildings in the world , and Moment Factory drive reward of all that weirdness to make a more interesting intro . But if you want to use real footage of real human beingness doing things , you need a flat surface — which gets screwed up by the Macy ’s construction ’s huge recessed windows .
The solvent was to overlook huge drape filmdom over each of the windows to make the surface a insipid canvas :
In the closing , though , everything fell into blank space — the theatre is a wild , vivid spectacle above one of the city ’s busiest squares . The Super Bowl Virtual Theater can be viewed from 5:30 to 10 pm , every 30 minutes , through Saturday at 34th and Broadway . If you ’re in New York , it ’s not to be missed . You ’ll never see a projection like this in the heart of Manhattan again .
Photos and Gifs by Nick Stango . Video by the Moment Factory .
Super Bowlurbanism
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , scientific discipline , and acculturation newsworthiness in your inbox day by day .
news program from the hereafter , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
