GILLETTE'S LIGHT AND WATER DISPLAY BY KLIP COLLECTIVE
Part science, part nature and part digital art: find out how Klip Collective created the hologram spectacle which lit up the night sky in Boston Harbor.
Video: Gillette “Light it up” by Proximity/BBDO, Canada and Klip Collective.
It's hard to believe that the Olympics are over. As millions of Americans watched the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 Olympic in July, Procter & Gamble and grooming brand Gillette staged an event dedicated to Team USA.
The show was a spectacle of light and technology featuring holograms of athletes that reached 60-feet in height. The projections included swimmer Ryan Lochte ‘diving’ into the historic Boston Harbor and sprinter Tyson Gay erupting from the blocks, racing toward victory.
As part of Gillette’s global “Get Started” campaign, the event was teased previously through a series of smaller projections on well-known Boston buildings, which featured glimpses of Lochte and Gay and culminated in the live-action lightshow set to the music of M83 "Steve McQueen".
The show was the result of a collaboration between , Philadelphia-based projection specialists Klip Collective, Ketchum and the highly specialised Proximity - which is BBDO Canada’s “Global digital, direct, and CRM network” agency.
Built with multiple projectors, the action was displayed on "screens" made up of particulate water vapour sprayed above the surface of the water adjacent to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.
Klip started with over 60 hours of rotoscoping footage of the athletes – an animation technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films. Part of the source material was shot at high speed using Alexa and Phantom -a film-style digital motion picture camera system.
Klip used ten 20k lumens projectors and two 35k projectors as well as chartering a 97-foot yacht for use as the production headquarters, allowing them to be on-site 24 hours a day during the entire job over a fortnight. The finished product took only slightly longer than Ryan Lochte took to swim his gold medal winning 400m final.
“This material provides a level of creative freedom for the client and a level of excitement for the viewer that other types of outdoor ads can’t come close to,” explains Klip Collective.
“The audience at this event responded to the show with silent awe as they raised their mobile phones in the air to document the spectacle.
“Weather is always a factor with outdoor projections, but we had a beautiful summer evening for this one.”
Klip Collective has previously worked with clients like Target, New Balance and Charter. In October 2011, they lent their services to Wieden + Kennedy, New York, and launched Nike’s Jordan Melo M8 basketball shoe.
A three-storey tall projection of basketball player Carmelo “Melo” Anthony appeared and dribbled, dunked and walked on New York City’s Hudson River. The creative team managed to pull it off despite 30-miles per hour winds and rain the night before the event.
The stunt involved building custom animations of the Pier 54 and water projections, as well as directing the live-action elements for the Melo hologram. Klip led the massive production in scouting and permitting two riverside piers, conducting environmental studies of fish and plant life, managing marine teams, and gaining multi-agency approval.
Image: A 97-foot yacht was used as production headquarters.
Video: Jordan Brand (Nike) “Jordan Melo Explosive Flight” by Wieden + Kennedy and Klip Collective. Winner of the Bronze Media Lion for Branded Entertainment at Cannes 2012.
