You know what's cool? When someone from the DD crew work on something pretty spectacular, like Gary Oldknow (@deepvisual on Twitter) has just done.
If you didn't know, Gary is a visual designer who has worked with the band for many years. He is especially versed in moving image technology. While not the only band he works with, his Duran resume includes: The Latest and Greatest Tour, The Pop Trash Tour, The Astronaut Tour, the 2007 Broadway shows, the 'Diamond in the Mind' 2011-2012 world tour and the Paper Gods Tour. He also directed the now famous "Careless Memories" manga anime, and the "Dark Circles" video for The Devils.
If you were in London yesterday, you likely saw a great visual feast at Buckingham Palace. The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC) is creating a network of forest conservation initiatives across all 53 Commonwealth countries to mark Her Majesty's lifetime's service to the Commonwealth, while preserving natural habitat for future generations. As such, the Palace was lit up like a rain forest, courtesy of Gary.
"I’ve worked for a long time as one of the UKs leading outdoor projection specialists and over the years have projected onto almost every major building in London. This was the 2nd time I’ve projected on Buckingham palace for HMQ.
I was Projection Designer and lead projectionist on both last year and this year's Buckingham Palace projections for the events company EMF. Last year’s projection was commisioned by the Indian High Commision for UK-India Year of Culture 2017.
Images must be prepared in advance to be a tailor-made fit for the complex surface of the 250 year old palace. Usually it take a couple of days to do a projection this big but this time, because of all the state events going on, we had to set up and have everything ready in one day and running perfectly for 30 mins after sunset so it could make the 10pm local news. I did all the advanced projection calculations, designed all the line up images, helped set up the media server system and oversaw the installation of all the projection equipment. The images themselves were provided by Buckingham Palace.
Just like working with Duran Duran, on a job like this everything has to be right first time every time. Security was very high and all the equipment was subject to a fingertip search by the Royal Protection Unit of the Metropolitan Police. In the end it all looked wonderful and everyone was delighted."
