T-minus one minute to launch. The rocket
just disappeared from the Washington Monument. I suspect it's going to come back soon.
The sound here is incredible and especially that there's like 70,000
people between me and the Washington Monument all watching this right now.
And another 70,000 back there. It's pretty amazing.
OK, I'm in one of the operations trailers for the locus of what made that
incredible projection happen on the Washington Monument. I have so many
questions we could probably fill like six hours of video.
I have procedural questions, I have aesthetic questions but like just at the
very beginning, how did you get something so outlandish done? Where did the
germ of this begin? How long ago did you start working on this? 18 months.
We were sitting around the office one day and kind of puzzling over what we
could do for the fiftieth anniversary that would be different and really
captured the scope and complexity and it's supposed to be hard right it would
be Apollo if it was easy so you thought big right it Richard you have a career
in which were repeatedly given completely unique canvasses to be on
yeah it's pretty amazing is that how you think of it yeah it's completely like we
don't ever make anything for a normal screen shape so they're always working
in kind of weird that's what ratios whatever else on this we've you know
mapped buildings like Sydney Opera House and then climbing to Bilbao this is kind
of simple in some levels because it's just a big square but also it's like
huge and it's a monumental as the end of a national like Parkin how do you tell a
story on that it's kinda hard things do and these guys funny I'm saying we've
got this building inspired to speak truly glad to do a thing being quite
cool about what that thing was having be kind of words it out there's only one
500 football playing and easy another question I have is how do you know it's
gonna work when you can't test it until everything's already in place
yeah well that's why we're in this little trailer at least guys down here
have been actually making the show over the last seven days over who's made a
lot of it and came just like with it but the detail of it and the finessing of it
has been over the last series of night shifts so really we've been working five
to five every day between midnight and 5:00 we've been trying things out the
really great thing about these projection shows us that because you can
only work at night we can see it at night from you know little things going
on between the morning we don't hear it we're here in the daytime so the first
time that anybody hears it and sees it together is show number one I like what
til nine clear that again tonight we haven't ever seen them herded together
out loud well it's also awesome because you can keep these narrative pieces
apart exact thing that obviously arrives all happens at once yeah oh my gosh I'm
so the logistic of this how many projectors how many speakers it's to
show for a hundred thousand people yeah it's twenty four thirty thousand luma
projectors at the base of the monument another eight thirty case pretty
complicated media server big sound rig huge LED wall clock and then I think
it's something like 15,000 feet of fiber across this site keeping everything
together at in time and and then amazing crew and seeing people like around the
space or driving is running golf buggies and then trying to keep us working 100
degree heat out there which has been part of a challenge this week but thank
you imagine it you were also talking as we came up in the dark to say hello you
meet you for the first time that there was stuff about shake like you're still
refining this program yeah we would be with the the rocket launch sequence nick
is the designer of a hey was was was working up until about 5:00 this morning
on just the detail of how much could you we wanted to give that sense of energy
and with the obviously we're not the projection is not ever actually leaving
the monument so how do you get the sense of it being this little ball of energy
there's a couple of things we did at the camp our clock switches quickly to
heightened feet so this is number spinning superfast is seeing us as well
yeah and then music but that's how that we got very human and then
so the launch itself was remarkable for that the feeling of restraint being
pulled against until the rocket takes off and then you do all this incredible
storytelling about about the entire Apollo program and then there's that
splash zone image which for me felt like one of the more remarkable bits of
stagecraft because at the point in which I'm
looking at the command module coming through the edge of our atmosphere and
the flames shooting off of it that's when I forgot that I was in the middle
of the mall looking at the monument I was just watching something fall out of
the sky and it wasn't even the fact that it wasn't changing to my orientation
didn't matter I watched that sort of thing on television all the time I'm
curious about what might have been the thing that surprised you the most of how
well it worked once you got to see it up on the mud I mean the texture of the
moon was pretty astonishing we hoped it would work as well as it did there's
always a risk when you're projecting a building but it's relatively flat in
color you put a big whiteboard what color it looks just like a big white
block and it disappears reviewable and so something with that money detailing
we wanted to make sure we've gone and got the super details we've refined
shadows and the texture of the moon and don't believe in the bricks so it's a
real sort of finessing of it really to make it work but out there that pull
back from the moon where we start the boots pull all the way back and then see
the CSF swooshing fastest
I'm curious what it was like to watch it for the first time after all the
planning and logistics and I'm sure behind-the-scenes negotiations that are
probably way weirder than we'll ever know what was it like to finally see I
mean I think sir Rio doesn't begin to describe it it was just kind of crazy
but if we I mean Nick and I share this incredible moment where we just watched
the rocket on monument for about five minutes in silence which is probably the
most we've ever sent out together before so that was that was awesome but what
I've been most impressed by Richard when we started this you said black is really
hard to project is you know did I even tell you how you did it but you got the
blocks well there's so much more to go over but it's like it's literally one of
the morning you guys are trying to pick up I'm really appreciating the dependent
on of us it is such an incredible achievement you guys think it was so
moving and oh my god thank you thank you