ELS Brings Bourne Ultimatum To Light

The 2,000 guests at the post-screening gala celebrating the release of The Bourne Ultimatum motion picture felt as though they were being pursued when they stepped into the spy-thriller-themed party recently at Hollywood's Palladium Theatre.

Entertainment Lighting Services (ELS) tapped Angel City Designs to provide the scenic design and décor and assemble and coordinate the video footage, which ELS projected on screens throughout the venue. "Angel City Designs really came through with a creative theme that mimicked the movie and put partygoers right into Jason Bourne's world," says ELS project lead Mary Pat Cantrell.

The design relied heavily on video to create the sense of high-tech surveillance and pursuit. Attendees were presented with dynamic, asymmetrical images bouncing on six 15-foot by 6-foot projection surfaces and 12 large plasma screens. These dramatic "surveillance tapes" were compiled by Angel City using graphics from the movie, satellite images, scenes from subway cameras, and other footage that played on the movie's “cat-and-mouse” theme.

At the center of it all was a plasma TV bar consisting of a truss rig 40 feet long, 22 feet deep, and 16 feet high and surrounded by custom cocktail tables with seating. Four DL.2 digital projection lighting fixtures from High End Systems provided additional graphics and video projection capability.

"The DL.2 fixtures’ ability to keystone images to properly fit the convex surfaces onto which they were projected added another dramatic effect to the party scene," according to ELS technical director and master electrician Andy Wise.

ELS took another important technological step to enhance the traditional party environment by deploying a new generation of buffet lighting equipment. This unique approach, engineered and built by ELS, integrates a central pillar of LED lighting elements with completely programmable color changing and color mixing capability. The central vertical core also supports the down lighting needed to illuminate the buffet table with the added capability of color temperature control.

"The complete system gives the party designer a tool that combines lighting and décor, marrying the needed utility of buffet table lighting with expression of theme and color palette," Wise adds.

Going even further to incorporate new technology, the LED elements that surround the central pillar of the system are controllable with video signal as well as conventional show control. At The Bourne Ultimatum party, the designer was able to carry out the video theme of the evening while emphasizing the feeling of “being part of the chase.”

A third component, the VIP Lounge sponsored by Volkswagen, followed through with the high-tech theme featuring sleek, modern sectional seating and tables internally lit with color-changing and color-mixing devices.

"The high-tech elements of the design and décor helped to recreate the mood of the movie perfectly and leave guests one final memory of Jason Bourne's thrilling quest to reclaim his past in The Bourne Ultimatum," notes Cantrell.