British luxury fashion multi-retailer Flannels’ new flagship store is attracting customers with an ongoing series of projections onto its impressive façade with the help of a Hippotizer Nevis+ Media Server.
The 120,000 square-foot seven-story megastore, in the heart of Liverpool, opened in the summer with a curated projection show, highlighting the in-house brands and offering a sense of what visitors can expect inside. The success of the beamed video content led to the projections becoming a permanent installation, with an Epson 20K lumen projector positioned on the roof of a building opposite the Flannels store. Beneath the projector is a weather-proofed rack where the Nevis+ is rigged and constantly running.
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Motion Mapping was approached by the Flannels AV team to deliver the project, with Stuart Harris at the helm of the projection solution. He supplied a graphics template for the Flannels team, who then uploaded video, stills and branding content for Harris to process into a seamless video, using the Nevis+. To manipulate the visuals to be projected onto the curved façade of the building, Harris used Hippotizer’s SHAPE 3D Mapping tool, meaning he could arrive on-site and set up the projector with confidence in its alignment and focus.
“We had a short window of time to get this project delivered and set up with all of the content and projection right, including all alignment and blending with the framework of the intricate architecture of the building,” says Harris. “Our projector position is off-center, opposite the Flannels building. SHAPE made it simple to warp and blend the images so that they appeared correctly, while being beamed from the rooftop of another building. We even had to do some of this in real time, and the Nevis+ handled it with ease.”
Being a single-output job, the Nevis+ was the correct solution, offering one DisplayPort 1.2 output with EDID Management, along with its compact size and flexible mounting options.
“The special launch night for Flannels’ flagship UK store meant that we needed a reliable media server that I knew would just deliver the job,” added Harris. “Now that the project is a permanent installation, I’m confident that it can continue to deliver – despite its small size, the Nevis+ is a robust and consistent machine and it does the job perfectly. The software also makes my job far easier.”
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Harris and his team have installed a remote camera so that they can view the projector and Nevis+ from anywhere, and operate them remotely, which he does using ZooKeeper Control. He is also using Sync Manager in Hippotizer to manage when the projections start each evening, as sunset changes from summer launch to winter continuations. “This feature is really cool,” Harris continues. “I just enter the location of the Nevis+ and it automatically knows when to kickstart feeding the video data to the projector, when daylight comes to an end. And it also controls the projector on-off to save power and help the project last longer.”
Flannels is now one of Liverpool’s most experiential department stores, fusing retail and leisure under one roof with a blend of top brands, dining options, and in-house experiences.
