Large format projection specialists E\T\C – fresh from its dramatic projections onto Buckingham Palace last week for the 60th and final MOD Commemorations of World War 2 – also beamed giant images onto Portsmouth Guildhall for “Portsmouth Remembers”. This was a one off evening of images, words and song staged in Guildhall Square to commemorate the ending of hostilities in 1945.
The magnificent Portsmouth Guildhall, located right in the heart of the city, and home to Portsmouth City Council, was opened in 1890. It was bombed to a shell in 1941, and reopened after extensive rebuilding in 1959. Measuring approximately 60 metres wide by 40 metres tall, E\T\C’s projections stretched across the entire front fascia of the white stone structure.
E\T\C was approached by Heather Todd from the Council’s Arts Services Department, who was aware of their work on Buckingham Palace. She thought that projection would be the ideal medium to produce a big WOW factor at the end of their commemorative show.
“On the first site visit it was immediately obvious that the Guildhall would make a perfect projection surface” says E\T\C’s Ross Ashton. This visit also established that they could locate the projectors on the top of the new council offices building opposite the Guildhall, which was also ideal. They performed a camera obscura survey to establish the exact masking and perspective correction needed to fit the imagery to the building.
The Council wanted a 12 minute moving projection show themed on World War 2 to produce different backdrop ‘looks’ for the final 6 songs of the show happening onstage on the steps of the building.
E\T\C supplied four PIGI 6Kw projectors, all fitted with double rotating scrollers, which filled the building nicely. Three were used to cover the length and one for the 20 metre tower.
Ashton asked Paul Chatfield to design and create the images, which he sourced from Portsmouth Council, Portsmouth Museum archives, and the National Archive. He montaged over 300 images to make the final scrolling artwork
Chatfield developed six different 2-minute scrolling themed backdrops, deliberately choosing more abstract imagery from the War era, as opposed to newsreel and graphical footage. Much of it was ‘home front’ images and artwork of the time, and the grand finale – accompanied by a hearty rendition of “Rule Britannia” from the singers onstage – featured scenes of Britannia and a specially shaped Union Jack washing across the building to great effect.
The show was programmed by E\T\C’s Sam McLaren using a PIGI OnlyCue system, and the control position was on the 5th floor offices of the council buildings opposite.
The projectors ran off a 63 amp 3-phase supply, fed from a generator in the car park at the back of the office building, with cable feeds up to the roof.
‘The images and the music complimented each other perfectly.’ said Ashton. ‘The bright colours set an upbeat mood for the end of the show.’
Heather Todd commented: “I think people were taken aback as to how stunning the images were; it was a surprise just how fabulous they looked. One of our local MPs wondered if the projections could be a permanent fixture! This just goes to show how great a canvas the Guildhall is and it was a fantastic way to end the day – it was quite evocative and some people were in tears”. | Click on the pictures for the large version |
