spie prism awards
Every year SPIE puts on the awards show for the entire laser and optics industry.
For 3 consecutive years NOVA Light Labs designed and fabricated the custom projection mapping stage for the SPIE PRISM Awards at Photonics West.
A society built on light wanted a stage that spoke its language. Not a plain gala, but a night as modern and charged as the field it celebrates.
experience
Each year, light and structure shifted with the night, from arrival to the final award.
The whole scene stayed color coordinated with ambient lighting, tuned for walk in, through dinner, and into the ceremony. Every phase of the night had its own look.
For one evening the rock star physicists, engineers, and entrepreneurs of the field let loose and reveled in the night. The production reflected their achievements back at them, as charged and precise as the work itself.
“Thank you for another great year. It was a good evening.
Loved your work!”
Pamela R.
Program Director
SPIE
the art
Timing, color coordination, and laser like visuals drove every frame of content.
An awards show for an optics society leaves no room for filler, so every custom visual earned its place through round after round of review. The content swelled into eye popping shimmers on the wins and pulled back, subdued and quiet, under the speeches.
For the main screen content, NOVA collaborated with Keep it Cinematic, matching the studio's stage visuals beat for beat.
system
Set design and projection mapping came together into one system, rebuilt from the ground up each year.
Every year ran an iterative pass on the stage design, working the signature CUBIX Cubes and TUBIX LED Bars into the strongest arrangement on the floor.
Once the layout locked, NOVA shared the full 3D model with every team, so lighting, video, and outside vendors all built against the same reference.
On site it went up clean, guided by a literal LEGO like map for assembly. A pixel perfect hoist then lifted 4 projectors, each at 20k lumens, over the stage.
