http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/27/breakin-through/
By Steve Kanigher
Saturday, March 27, 2010
In a city of visual sensory overload, the challenge is to take
everything higher, and nowhere is that more important than on Fremont
Street, Las Vegas' stepchild to the Strip.
Enter Mr. Mojo Risin', aka The Lizard King all 180 feet of him.
The new show on the Fremont Street Experience canopy over the foyer
to downtown's 10 aging casinos uses fractal geometry to make images
appear to be double the height of the 90-foot screen, with more vivid
colors and detail.
The show's stars and their music are larger than life, too: Jim
Morrison and his psychedelic 1960s rock band. "The Doors Strange
Days in Vegas," a 7 1/2-minute blast of video and audio, debuted with
no fanfare last week. The official hoopla about the show will roll
out next month when a documentary about the band is released in
select U.S. cities.
The Fremont Street Experience's latest rock-themed show is expected
to run nightly for the next three years. Mammoth Sound & Vision of
Burbank, Calif., previously delivered the likes of Kiss, George
Thorogood and Queen to the 12.5 million computer-controlled
light-emitting diodes on the experience's 1,500-foot-long screen. But
with the Doors, the company is pushing the visual envelope.
Using complex math formulas, the company discovered a way to make
images on the canopy appear to stretch into the sky above the screen.
"This is a version of forced perspective," says George Johnsen,
Mammoth's co-founder and managing director. "To make a curved screen
appear to be other than curved, you have to trust the math a lot.
Everything I learned in high school I finally got to use."
He also got to use some of the music a lot of people listened to in
high school.
"We used 'People Are Strange' because everyone who sees Fremont
Street is a little strange," Johnsen says with a wink. " 'Roadhouse
Blues' is the Doors' take on travel and the wonders of the world, and
'Break on Through' is what the band is all about."
As the straight-ahead rocker "Roadhouse Blues" cranks up through
Fremont Street's full-bodied sound system, viewers are treated to
brief introductions by band members and a montage of still and video
clips taken from the documentary. The inclusion of signs that read
"War Is Hell" and "Make Love Not War" provide a reminder of the
Vietnam War protests. The psychedelic bursts offer a hint of what is to come.
When the presentation begins to play tricks on the eye is with
"People Are Strange," taken from the album "Strange Days," which
features an assortment of circus performers on its cover. Viewers are
treated to a swinging trapeze that appears to be far higher off the
ground than it is. There is also dazzling detail in a juggler on a
unicycle, a dancing jester and an assortment of other creatures
prancing about the screen.
But it isn't until "Break on Through" that the psychedelic colors
come at the audience full throttle, similar to fireworks shows'
typical shoot-everything-into-the-sky finales.
The Fremont Street Experience, which has used billboards to advertise
its Queen show and last year celebrated the 40th anniversary of
Woodstock, clearly is banking on visitors who appreciate classic rock 'n' roll.
"We're trying to look for songs that are rock anthems and have broad
appeal," says Jeff Victor, Fremont Street Experience president.
With the Doors show, though, Viva Vision is "dancing around in ways
that it hasn't danced before," he adds.
Employing 30 animators, illustrators and computer programmers,
Mammoth spent five months fine-tuning a visual experiment that
marries math with science and art. The idea was to capture the spirit
of musicians who were schooled in classical jazz and world music and
led by a wildly unpredictable frontman with who drove fans and
police crazy.
In January 1968, three years before he died, Morrison brought his
disdain for the establishment to Las Vegas. He was arrested for
vagrancy outside the Pussycat A Go Go nightclub on the Strip after
"pretending" to smoke a joint. His "performance" drew the attention
of a bouncer who struck him in the head with a billy club and drew blood.
Forty-two years later, Wynn Las Vegas sits on the site of the
Pussycat, and Morrison and his band mates are bigger than ever on
Fremont Street.
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