Prime Focus Delivers Mumbai Opening Ceremony

Prime Focus' facility in Mumbai were called upon to provide the spellbinding visuals that were beamed onto the huge helium filled aerostat that floated above the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Around 9,000 performers took part in the extravaganza in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, showcasing 5,000 years of rich Indian culture through dance, drums, music, yoga and much more.
Iconic Indian images of Gandhi, the Taj Mahal and Buddha were supplied by prime Focus to be projected onto the aerostat to enhance the various themes running through the ceremony, which was split into six segments.
Prime Focus worked closely with the main creative team of the Commonwealth Games including Wizcraft Entertainment and creative consultants comprising of Bharat Bala of BharatBala Productions, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar and filmmaker Shyam Benegal, to deliver this visual extravaganza.
Having to project hi-res images onto the largest helium balloon in the world meant that the Prime Focus team had to work on the images in four parts to meet the enormous 15,000 x 960 pixels resolution that was needed.
There was also the challenge of the amount of light that would be around the aerostat at show time, so during the production process, the monitors had to be set to 50 per cent brightness to recreate the live conditions. The colours of the projections were experimented with to make them as vibrant as possible and to make sure that they came out as clearly as possible on the aerostat. In total, 32 projectors were used during the show.
Prime Focus also delivered the spectacular segment called the Tree of Knowledge, which saw the aerostat transform into a massive illusion of the Bodhi Tree in the centre of the stadium. The seasons of the tree changed with the change in each dance form on the ground, concluding with the moment of enlightenment which transformed the aerostat into a brightly glowing projection of Gautam Buddha in the centre. The challenge was to sync the seasons on the tree with the audio and the changing dance forms.
(KMcA)