Since our grandson Tristen is thinking of making a career in Audio-Visual Arts, and since Reg's cousin Sakchin Bessette is a co-founder, Partner and Creative Director at Moment Factory, we drove over to Atlantic City last night to see their Boardwalk Hall show. We left in plenty of time (rush hour around here is 12 hours long) and the excellent highway system got us there in 2 1/2 hours.
Atlantic City (current motto: DO AC) was hit very hard by Hurricane Sandy two years ago and the world-famous boardwalk was heavily damaged. Some minor repairs were still underway near the Trump Tower (though they might have been routine maintenance) but the section of the herring-boned patterned 2X4 boardwalk that we were on was in good shape and teeming with strollers. The sea is out of sight behind some dunes, but can be heard and smelled just fine.
We found a parking spot in front of the Hall and strolled through a pedestrian tunnel to the boardwalk to find an open-air concert going on. A 60's - 70's cover band was thumping away on a grandstand in front of the Hall, much to the delight of the assembled crowd of a few hundred. Seventy-year old grannies and their seven-year old granddaughters gyrated to the music while a projected countdown displayed the time to the first show which started at 9 PM.
The band stopped with a few minutes to spare, the crowd found places to sit on the boardwalk and enthusiastically roared out the last few seconds of the countdown and the show got underway.
We were treated to a wonderful phantasmagoria of sight and sound for a full ten minutes. Precision-aligned visual overlays were projected onto the front of the building, taking completely into account the numerous columns and arches and weaving dancers in and around them. Corinthian column caps were so precisely registered that illuminated column caps were thrown over them and turned off and on at will. Remember, this is an outdoor show with the projectors exposed to the elements on Hurricane Coast. A technical tour-de-force. The show was entertaining and informative and made one almost forget that it was being projected on a building and not a movie screen. Bravo Moment Factory!
Go here for more info: http://www.atlanticcitynj.com/events/details.aspx?id=3400
Happy boardwalkers
Path over the dunes to the beach
Band entertaining the masses
Pair of Moment Factory projectors
Seafront facade of the Boardwalk Hall
View of the facade during a show.
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