All Stories Event Production On January 7, 2015 the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) selected Boston to represent the US as Host City for the 2014 Olympics. When the USOC visited Boston to experience the compelling presentation from the Boston 2024 Partnership, AVFX was directly involved. The Boston 2024 Partnership is a nonprofit organization formed to prepare Boston’s bid for the summer Olympics and Paralympic Games in 2024. AVFX Boston supplied audio, video, and lighting for the presentation under the direction of Annie Abbruzzese, Wonder Marketing. Boston was one of four American cities — along with Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington — vying to become the United States Olympic Committee’s (USOC) nominee to host the summer Olympics and Paralympic Games in 2024. The Boston 2024 committee hosted the USOC, at several meetings around the city in the fall of 2014 with the main presentation held at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the afternoon. The presentation featured a unique bit of projection mapping on the floor of the Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Pavilion which enabled the presenter to walk across maps of the city indicating the venues that could host the events. His ability to walk across the map subliminally reinforced one of Mayor Walsh’s points that Boston is a Walkable City. When the presenter stopped at a venue, a screen behind him presented the details to the USOC members. The motion graphics were developed by Neoscape. TECH TALK—The unique challenge of this presentation was that the speaker would be in the beam from the projectors above at all times. We wanted to be sure that he would not cast a shadow, so we minimized that by converging two Barco 8K projectors and sending the beam into two mirrors (one on each projector) and down onto the floor from the fourth balcony. The content was fed through our video mapping tower with the dual Matrox cards which enables two identical images to be projected onto a 17′ x 20′ screen on the floor. The shadow cast from one side was filled by the other projector on the opposite side. At the same time, we didn’t want the presenter to cast a shadow onto the screen behind him as he addressed the audience, so we mounted a Barco 12K projector and warped the image shot from a 45-degree angle on the side of the room. As usual, AVFX was invisible. We believe the technology is there to represent the various elements that deliver the message. And when done right, the audience only focuses on the message without even considering the technology behind it. Our reputation is for bringing the latest technologies, coupled with the highly trained, experienced technicians to every event we stage. That’s how AVFX does it. Special thanks to Boston 2024, The Boston Globe and Annie Abbruzzese for allowing AVFX to support this important presentation.
