TDC lights up Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral
Published: WORSHIP
AUSTRALIA: The Technical Direction Company (TDC) has delivered large-scale 3D video projections to support several sites in Sydney with their Christmas festivities. One of these sites, St Mary’s Cathedral, is currently hosting what has been described as the ‘the largest light show in Australia’, as it hopes to draw increased visitor numbers over the 200,000 present for last year’s celebrations.
‘The massive surface of the 75m high by 33m wide sandstone Cathedral facade is transformed using the latest 3D video mapping and projections of still and animated content,’ explained Kain Jones, special projects manager at TDC. ‘Preparation and planning for video projection mapping is everything. Working with a 3D model of the facade, we pre-visualised the entire building and accurately mapped every pixel onto the architecture of the cathedral. This ensured the precision of our delivery.’
TDC partnered with AGB Events to provide the Lights of Christmas for the fourth year in a row, deploying over 20 Barco projectors with 3D media servers for the entire Christmas project. Working with AGB Events art director Giles Westley, 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 honey-bee,’ commented Mr Westly. ‘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 Peter's 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.’
Narratives and soundscapes that reinforce the visual message accompany the projections. The nightly spectacle is also features live choir performances from the steps of Sydney’s grand Roman Catholic Cathedral.