News in the Channel - issue #44

PANASONIC

of the projection surface. Pixel Sharp also advised the

projection and immersive productions. That familiarity was an important part of the decision. “We always use them. We love them,” says Sharpe. “They’re super easy to use, and we’re very accustomed to Panasonic projectors.” He highlights several factors that become particularly valuable when equipment must be installed quickly in challenging environments, including straightforward lens handling, familiar controls and a consistent operating approach across different generations of Panasonic products. For large-scale mapping applications involving multiple projectors, Sharpe also favours 3-Chip DLP technology because of the importance of maintaining consistent colour and image uniformity across the complete projected canvas. “If you’re doing a mapping job with multiple projectors, we’ll always choose 3-Chip DLP,” he says. “The colours are going to match, the adjustments are going to be better, and the uniformity throughout the image is going to be cleaner.” On the cliffs, the Pixel Sharp team had only a limited evening window in which to position the projectors, align and map the imagery, test the system and capture the result. The physical design of the projectors mattered as well. “For the power of that projector, three people can pick them up, put them on a desk and move them around,” Sharpe says. “Everything is quite straightforward.” For Pixel Sharp, this relationship between output and portability is increasingly important as projection moves into more unusual locations. “People always want smaller units,” says Sharpe. “It’s about more power in a smaller package.”

content team to prepare alternative arrangements, including versions with imagery and text positioned differently across the available canvas. The objective was not simply to create a design that looked good on a monitor, but one that remained legible and visually coherent once projected onto the cliffs. Remote site with no room for excess The physical location added another layer of complexity. The projection position was on land rather than a boat, but reaching it required travelling through terrain where transporting large quantities of equipment was impractical. There was also no local mains power available. That meant the entire projection system had to be planned around what could realistically be transported to the site, installed within the available timeframe and powered from portable batteries. For Sharpe, these considerations are fundamental to equipment selection. “When I choose technology, I’m always thinking about the logistics of installing it and how many people I’m going to need,” he says. A projector may offer impressive performance on paper, but if deploying it requires significantly larger vehicles, lifting equipment or additional crew, the practical cost of a project can increase rapidly. For the White Cliffs activation, equipment needed to be powerful enough to illuminate the large projection area while remaining manageable for a small production team working in a difficult-to-access location. Four Panasonic RQ35K 4K laser projectors were deployed in two double- stacked pairs, with the overall system operating from portable battery power.

“

For the White Cliffs activation, equipment needed to be powerful enough to illuminate the large projection area while remaining manageable for a small production team working in a difficult-to-access location. Four Panasonic RQ35K 4K laser projectors were deployed in two double-stacked pairs, with the overall system operating from portable battery power.

”

Working against the clock – and the weather

Familiar technology for an unfamiliar canvas

Once on site, the physical installation itself was comparatively familiar territory for Sharpe, who had previously worked

Sharpe and the wider Pixel Sharp network already had extensive experience working with Panasonic projectors on large-scale

CONTINUED