Mexico. Every Friday, at nine o'clock at night, plaza Valladolid, located in the Historic Center of Morelia, comes alive to be transformed into a gigantic canvas, which, through a video-mapping show, shows the traditions, history, crafts, gastronomy, architecture, music and colors that the public can find, both in the capital, and in the rest of the State of Michoacán.
For this, Panasonic projector technology and software are used with which spectacular images are displayed on the pink quarry façade of the Temple and Ex-Franciscan Convent of San Buenaventura, the main building of the public square.
A video-mapping show consists of a projection of monumental size in which a large surface, such as the façade of a building, is used as a screen. To cover the huge space of the "screen" individual images are displayed through several very bright Panasonic projectors, which are joined as if they were pieces of a puzzle thanks to the use of specialized software.
This video-mapping is an initiative of the City of Morelia and the Municipal Tourism Secretariat that has a double purpose, the rescue of the public spaces of the city for the benefit of its inhabitants and businesses; and the tourist promotion of the Historic Center of Morelia, listed as Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Divided into six thematic seasons that are presented throughout the year, the audiovisual video-mapping show lasts 15 to 20 minutes, in which productions focused on important dates such as the arrival of spring, Fiestas Patrias or the celebration of the Day of the Dead are displayed.
The production of the show
The company Entornos Didácticos Siglo XXI S.C., a Mexican company dedicated to the audiovisual production of cultural and educational projects, is responsible for the project, from the design and integration of the solution, to the production of the contents and the weekly projection.
To participate in the tender for the production of the mapping show in Morelia, Entornos Didácticos Siglo XXI worked on a proposal based on two fundamental pillars. The first, the offer of content production, operation design and coordination of the projections for a whole year, areas in which it has vast experience. And the second, the reliable technology of Panasonic's DLP projectors and the local support offered by the experts of the Panasonic Integral Solutions Group of Mexico.
Once it won the tender, the company divided its work team into three groups:
A technical group in charge of the set-up of the projectors, their fixed installation at the other end of Plaza Valladolid, on Vasco de Quiroga Avenue, and the integration of lighting, energy and urban furniture services.
A second creative production group, based in Guadalajara, which carries out all the historical and cultural research, content development, video production, illustration, animation, script writing, musicalization and audio production.
Finally, a third group, made up of local Morelian staff, responsible for the weekly operation of the screening.
For the deployment of the video-mapping, which is done on the gigantic façade of the Franciscan Temple and Ex-Convent of San Buenaventura, five Panasonic projectors are used, model PT-DZ21K2 with DLP technology, which offer up to 20,000 lumens of brilliance, all of them controlled from a computer equipped with software for the adjustment of blending (Panasonic) andmapping.
Thanks to the WUXGA resolution (1,920 x 1,200) and contrast of 10,000 to 1, a reproduction of sharp images is obtained, with vibrant colors of great realism, despite the fact that the surface of the temple, which serves as a screen, is built with pink quarry, which represents a challenge to show the colors in their correct tone.
Each projector has a system of four lamps with which its uninterrupted operation is ensured, since, if a lamp fails, the system is automatically adjusted so that the projection continues.
"The use of Panasonic technology in the audiovisual show of Morelia allows us to show the performance and quality of our projectors in large productions like this. It is an excellent example of the scope of the video-mapping technique, both in its creative content and in its social impact," said Ken Tsutsumi, director of the Integral Solutions Group of Panasonic de México. "We are glad that Panasonic projectors have been chosen for the Morelia show and are ready to work on similar productions in any other Mexican city," added Ken Tsutsumi.
New uses in mind
For the authorities of Morelia, this project means an important step towards the goals of recovering public spaces and disseminating the city as a tourist destination, so they want to take advantage of the space and technology with new activities.
"The mapping show in Plaza Valladolid is an example of the fusion of technology, history and the attractions of the city. We have many ideas to take advantage of this resource, we can use it to show different expressions of art or present fashion events, for example, "concludes the head of the Municipal Tourism Secretariat, Thelma Aquique Arrieta.
The video-mapping show that is projected in the Plaza Valladolid in Morelia is at the artistic height of those that have been presented in other historical sites such as the Colosseum in Rome or the Red Square in Moscow, and with the same visual quality as those shown during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. In all these cases, the technology of Panasonic's DLP projectors has been used as a fundamental tool for the deployment of large format images.
