Mission, Nokia’s marketing agency, came to ML Studio to create a spectacular launch party for the new Nokia Lumia 920 based on the concept “Don’t be afraid of the dark”.

ML’s answer was to take a quiet London street and turn it into an immersive lighting, video and sound experience for the invited guests.

Basic Monkey are very proud to be brought in by ML to consult on the playback and control side of things, supplying James to ensure this unique project was delivered in the way in which it deserved.

Everything that could be lit, was lit. Flowers, window frames, bins and fences were all lit with colour changing LEDs, the parked-up mopeds had their headlights wired in and even the grit bins had 3k strobes inside!

ML used an innovative approach to drive the lighting and projection from Deadmau5′ 30 minute mix. Using music sequencing software to program the show allowed for much closer ties with the music, combined with a custom 3D visualiser which generated the video files.

The 4x projector stacks and all the 100s of lighting fixtures were controlled by a Catalyst media server, giving an incredibly slick show with exact flashes down to the beat.

Because of the tight angle that the projectors were aiming from and the need to line each of the building elements up exactly, down to windows, vents, doors and even graffiti, an innovative solution was required. James worked with Aislinn from ML to design a huge board of components based on photographs of the building that were then individually distorted and positioned over their real world counterparts.

For an extra live element, a Nokia app was created which showed a plan view of the street and all the lighting fixtures. By moving a finger around the screen, one could control the lighting in the square. This was achieved using a custom server designed by ML and some heavy pixel mapping by BM.

Watch the video (unfortunately lots of versions have been taken offline due to licensing issues):

http://youtu.be/IuwgEmwyBTc