At 9pm on Friday the 27th of July 2012 the London 2012 Olympic Games were officially opened with a spectacular Opening Ceremony which took place in the Olympic Stadium located at the London 2012 Olympic Park. Prior to the parade of more than 200 competing nations, visitors seated in the vast stadium, which has an 80,000 person capacity, along with millions of television viewers worldwide, were witnesses to ‘Isles of Wonder’. A spectacular show unfolded that reflected the key themes and priorities of the London 2012 Games, based on sport, inspiration, youth and urban transformation. ‘Isles of Wonder’ was a Ceremony ‘for everyone’ that celebrated the contributions the UK has made to the world through innovation and revolution, as well as the creativity and exuberance of British people.
The spectacular finale of the event saw the Olympic Cauldron, formed of 205 copper petals representing the competing nations, coming together in London for the Games, ignited by seven young Torchbearers nominated by Britain’s past and present Olympic and sporting greats. The show was backed up by a host of staging technologies using latest audio visual equipment. Panasonic as the Official Worldwide Audio Video Equipment Sponsor of the Olympic Games contributed the very latest ultra-bright projection technology to light up a chapter of the story that celebrated British music culture and heritage from past to present. For this typical British suburban residential houses where erected on the field of the Olympic Stadium within a very short time frame. In the next moments the houses’ facades came to life showing extracts from some of the most iconic movies and music videos performed by Britain’s best known artists and actors.
Those videos were projected onto the four sides of the building’s surface using the very latest Panasonic twenty thousand lumens[1] <#_ftn1> brightness PT-DZ21K <http://panasonic.net/avc/projector/products/dz21k/> Series projectors which were installed more than one hundred meters away on the stands and below the roof of the Olympic Stadium. In total 20 projectors shooting their images from eight different angles illuminated the outside fascias of the houses turning them into giant screens full of vibrancy and colour. This application with a very long projection throw distance and a large, complex shaped projection surface required a powerful projection system with high performance masking and 3D mapping capabilities. In keeping with the upright orientation of the projection surface the projectors where mounted and stacked in portrait mode position, using the high installation flexibility of the PT-DZ21K series[2] <#_ftn2> .
Incredible images with vivid colours and high resolution detail were projected from the PT-DZ21K series projectors to blend the video content of the portrayed clips into the excitement of the performance within the stadium, making links to the hundreds performers on the field and on the stages in their colourful costumes and building an unprecedented scenery of light, colour and music that captured everyone’s imagination and emotion.
Panasonic is proud to have contributed to the unique visual experience seen at this first truly global showcase of the new 21K projector at the Opening Ceremony and in doing so has accomplished a new benchmark for the industry with the smallest and lightest 20.000 Lumen projector available. Along with other Panasonic audio visual solutions ranging from IP surveillance equipment, which helped ensure a safe and enjoyable games, along with P2 broadcast camera equipment and large ultra-bright screens seen in the park and across the country, Panasonic has shown the scale dedication and innovation required to deliver one of the most impressive shows ever seen.
