There, two Catalysts ran a series of specially-created animations, replacing the laser system which has formed the Christmas lightshow for the last few years. Creative Time, the New York arts association responsible for, amongst many other projects, the Tribute in Light (see L&SI May 2002), were approached by Grand Central Station to create a new entertainment for New York's most famous rail terminal. They approached New York AV specialists ScharffWeisberg for ideas. "We've worked with them in the past on outdoor projects, art projects - the fun projects," explains Peter Scharff. "In this case, our immediate thought was Catalyst."
With just six weeks until the show's start date, Creative Time then sent out requests for ideas; about 50 artists responded, and six were then asked to produce detailed concepts. "At this point, we brought them into our shop to show them the Catalyst - I don't think anyone really understands it until they see it. The artists - Builders Association, C404, Mumbleboy, Melanie Crean & Jordan Parnass, KDLAB and Leo Villareal - then created rough drafts of their work before returning to ScharffWeisberg to try it out. "They had an hour on a Friday, then an hour on a Monday, so they were all working over the weekend," Scharff recalls.
Further occupying the tight schedule was the artists' desire to interact with Grand Central's architecture, since the roof that was to be used as the projection surface includes painted starfields. The group creating Occulus, which uses one projector to open a hole in the roof of the station to a blue sky beyond, then has doves flying around the station then out into that sky, even spent time in the station working out flight paths. "They didn't just want a bird flapping around, so they took a laser pointer and videotaped someone moving that around the roof to get the timing, so they could animate the birds turning," Scharff recalls.
Two Catalysts are used for the show, with Christie S12 12000 lumen projectors; the projectors and control system are located together on a balcony at one end of the station hall, with controls in Catalyst dealing with sizing and keystoning issues across the two projectors even when they are being used at often radically different throws. The video for the shows was converted to QuickTime video files and then loaded into the Catalysts. The shows were then created on a Wholehog II programmed by Laura Franks. "She was great," says Scharff. "She'd never used Catalyst before, but we showed it to her and said 'play' - and within moments it was obvious that she got it!"
Once the six shows plus the scrolling Christmas text which runs between them were finalized, the data was captured on a Medialon Manager show control system, which then ran the entire event, striking and dousing the projectors and running the audio and lighting.
Watching the shows, it's interesting to see how different artists have chosen to use the twin projectors in different ways, some using one at a time to allow action to dissolve between different areas on the roof, others using the movement to try to trick the eye into thinking the overall image is bigger than it actually is (relatively narrow lenses were chosen to maximize the image brightness over the long throws), others using one to create a base image and the other to create a second effect responding to that image - those birds flying into the sky. The imagery also varies, from abstract animations of snow or stars to cartoons. The result is a series of lightshows a great deal more varied - and fun - than the laser show they replaced, with people often looking up, pausing, watching then staying for the next show rather
