JS/FOURSQUARE: REALTIME LIGHT CONTROL FROM VIDEO ANALYSIS

Our friends at JaegerSloan recently came looking for a way to dynamically light a greenscreen shoot using realtime color information from the background video. With a system like that, they figured, they could match lighting without having to do much in post. It was a good idea.

The content was a Foursquare spot, the foreground subject was a hand holding a smartphone, and the composited background was all stock footage. 

To make this happen, I whipped up a simple system allows the user to click points on the background video to define an arbitrary number of pixels from which to sample color. It then pipes that color information out to an arbitrary number of DMX lights.

Included in the interface is a preview of what's going out to each light as well as simple transport and looping controls for video playback. 

Shutterstock did a little writeup -- check the video see a peek of it in action below.

Pick some color points by clicking on a source video (top left), preview the resultant output to your lights (bottom right) ...

... you get realtime color control to any RGB DMX light.

One, two, cha-cha-cha, etc.

LYVE at CES 2014

LEDs rear their shiny heads again in this HUSH installation for the formerly stealth, now public Lyve Home data management device. 

The installation was a storytelling tool to be used as a part of private presentations in a suite space in the Venetian hotel, a space that came with a number of constraints to address. Nothing could be taller than 6', nor affixed to the walls or ceiling. Very limited power was available. Few things in the small room could be moved. Shipping drayage was charged by weight. Those and about 130 pages of other things you don't want to hear about. 

With all these (thoroughly-researched) constraints in mind, we helped the HUSH team come up with an immersive display that allowed a docent to control playback of video content coordinated with LED animations within translucent plinths. The animation shows personal content (images, videos, etc.) originating in one device, which then metaphorically (and visually) fragment and makes its way onto all of the synchronized devices, illustrated by the movement of color onscreen and through the plinths.