Behind the Scenes of the LeBron Witness MVP Laser Lights

We mentioned about Nike’s new mural at the Q last week. Now we want to get into the specifics. The Nike “We Are All Witnesses” billboard that is placed along the side of the Sherwin Williams building on Ontario Street had a not-so-little addition: gold, orange and white laser lights that scribed the letters MVP along the full length of the sign. And for the whole 24 hours it was quite a view for the Cleveland Cavaliers fans. The new photos come directly from Lightwave International, the company that produced the concept and executed it flawlessly from a nearby parking lot. Check out their different angles after the jump, including the set-up from where the lasers were projected.

Lightwave International uses 39W of full color lasers to honor NBA star LeBron James as MVP on a massive scale. With just 24 hours notice, Lightwave executed this spectacle for Nike on a 100’x 212′ black banner draping a building adjacent to the arena. When you think of a movie projection screen, you think of a white screen. Imagine, instead, that you go to see your favorite movie at the theatre and the screen is black. You would probably request a refund and leave early. Certainly, you would not be able to see any images on the screen. Lightwave visual designers faced a similar challenge here: the projection screen is black. Producing results as seen in these pictures would require massive laser power. In fact, it would take an assembly of the world’s largest full color lasers: four of them were on-site for this event.

The laser projectors were combined on the screen to increase brightness threefold, and elimate all flicker that is common with inproperly used lasers or slow scanning speeds. This technique produced a net scanning speed of nearly 100,000 points per second on-screen. This allowed viewers to photograph the presentation with point and shoot cameras, cellphone cameras, etc — and expose images identical to what they were seeing in real life. Thousands of visitors captured photographs, and many examples are visible on social netorking and media sharing sites such as: Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Network and news video cameras also found the images incredibly simple to capture as a result of this technique. Footage from the overhead blimp and from cameras on the surface received impressive airtime for our client on the major networks. To complete this piece of art, Lightwave visual designers also added a lighting package to properly illuminate LeBron’s image. The clever programming of lasers cut out behind LeBron and the dimension created by the lighting created a depth and realism to the project that could only be experienced by firsthand viewers.