Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Carpet One and the JumboTron

Jul

Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Carpet One and the JumboTron

This last week has been a whirlwind, and the wind is only going to whirl harder (I head to OshKosh and Airventure 2015 next). The first part of the week, I spent at the Nashville BioDome, better known as the Nashville Gaylord Hotel, for an old client, AGA. That was a great greenscreen photo booth event! At the midpoint, though, I left most-capable Matthew in charge and flew to the Dallas Texan Biodome, better known as the Gaylord Texan.

There, I shot a convention for Carpet One. And while the event was totally cool, it was the cap off party that made my head spin.

I’ve seen parties with the stops pulled out, but this event redefined those words. And, what I loved? Front and center, literally, were our photos. How front and center? 160′ wide by 72′ high front and center. Kinda hard to miss.

Meet and greet and candid photos were streamed live during the party, right up to the massive Jumbotron.

THE JUMBOTRON.

This 2.4 million pound screen dominates the center of the
stadium, showing fans on game day the Cowboys and their opponents battle it out in 1080p
HDTV.

And, here is how the convention participants reacted when they entered the field, seeing their image on the JumboTron:

In the middle of the Carpet One gala, the world famous Dallas Cowboy
Cheerleaders entered the field. After a
brief performance, they hosted a wildly popular meet and greet. The photos we captured of fans with the cheerleaders? They were immediately, in real time,
projected live on the massive screen. (Did I mention live?)

But that wasn’t the whole story. The candid photos we took, streamed live from our system, (did I mention live?) were also uploaded in real time to the Jumbotron. (As the event’s producer put it, “How many cheerleader photos can you look at?” One participant answered for him: “as many as possible!” before I could formulate my own answer.) The photos below are
those candid images. Straight from our
camera. Just as they appeared for
the participants at that off-the-hook convention event. No Photoshop. No touch up. No safety net.

Reaction? Even the
cheerleaders froze and stared at their live images on the screen.

(I really want to insert a blonde joke here, but I can’t. See the pic? Hello, they were brunettes.) One of the managers? They asked if we could just follow them
around on tour. Because, as he put it, “this
is the coolest thing ever.”

Those of you who know me probably realize there is even more to this. Participants kept asking, “how can I get these photos?”

They expected me to hand them a card, or give them instructions to a web site, or maybe simply shrug and say, “what? can’t hear you!” Instead I said, “they are on your conference ap.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Now!?”

“Now.”

‘Cause you know what? Now is better than later. And live is better than not live. Not live? That’s just a polite way of saying dead.

Besides, if you can stream to a JumboTron, you sure as hell can stream to a convention application.

Carpet One’s band, The Shags. The weird sizing was to fit the image without cropping to the JumboTron.

Notice the wide aspect ratio? Again, to fit to the JumboTron. We resized each photo before upload to fit the right aspect ratio — automatically, of course.