Widescreen: Think Outside the Box
It's not a 4:3—or even 16:9—world anymore. Video systems like Vista Spyder and Dataton Watchout allow blended projection on extremely wide screens. Suddenly, standard PowerPoint slide presentations and IMAG are looking very square indeed, and the world of event production is looking a little wider.Some of the challenges of working in widescreen are obvious:
- Designing for a 3:1 (or wider) ratio is different than designing for traditional broadcast ratios.
- Most presenter-supplied content will be 4:3 and end up in a window on the widescreen over wallpaper.
- Very specialized systems are required for display, and it's nearly impossible to accurately preview your work as it will appear on-screen until you actually get on-site.
Some of the challenges are less obvious, and require deep knowledge and experience to keep your content—and your show—on track:
- A little technical work up front will save you a lot of design re-work later. You need to know what your final display resolution will be before you begin work on the content. Because every widescreen show is a little different, doing the math to calculate the dimensions of your pixelspace and creating a template for it will save your hours of work in design and help you avoid hours of setup hassle on-site.
- With blended projection, you need to keep your eyes on the blend overlaps and design accordingly. An overlap area is where two projectors converge, fading the image together seamlessly—almost. Put the wrong content in an overlap, and the seam will show. For example, solid black in the blended area will show as a gray stripe on-screen.
- Big widescreen shows call for high resolution. Not only do you require high-res graphics or vector artwork, but also computer systems that can drive the high resolution displays. Add motion graphics or HD video into the mix, and the requirement to keep sync across the display units to create seamless backdrops, and the complexity of the system increases even more.
- Beta and DVD playback simply aren't good enough to go 80 feet wide. With your show relying on new, high-end technology, you need the expertise on-site to make it all run smoothly.
Multiscreen: Think In Many Boxes
Multiscreen shows often rely on the same technologies that drive widescreen shows. With more displays, multiscreen shows have bigger appetites for content than pure widescreen shows.Many widescreen shows are also really multiscreen; as you add windows on your widescreen, you need content to fill them, with designers to create it and operators to run it.
Widescreen Portfolio
