Friday, June 27, 2008

Hazard

I've mentioned that our town has a bunch of casino-hotels. The newest and most opulent is Lumiere Place. It's got a Four Seasons hotel in it. It's got a couple of preposterously expensive restaurants and some downscale ones for the masses. We ate at their pan-Asian restaurant for our annual Stupid Bowl dinner out his year. (creatively named Asia) Won't be returning. Oh, and the architecture is ugly. There will be a photo of that some time.

Their newest feature is a giant video advertising sign, the kind you see at American sports stadiums or along the Las Vegas Strip. It's smack on the main highway that runs from downtown to the airport and on to Kansay City, really in your face. This picture has stirred some controversy: an attractive young lady in a hotel bedroom, holding up a slinky negligee. The shopping bag on the bed is from L'ove [sic], the casino's, um, kinky boutique. (But as Tina Turner says, what's love for to do with it? BTW, Tina spent her adolescence here in STL.). See picture below. The display is said to be causing traffic problems on the highway.

I love the weird color effect of photos of the sign. The image is clear to the human eye but the colors are crazy and distorted in the click of a camera shutter. If anyone knows the technical reason for this, please tell us.

TOMORROW: special effects

2 comments:

Nathalie H.D. said...

Satin, leather, lace and everything intimate all in a huge billboard, mmm no wonder there was a bit of controversy !

Thanks for your visit in Avignon. The Avignon Film Festival tee-shirt is in English because that is its real name - it was initiated by an American and really is aimed at contacts with Americans. In fact at the opening evening you could hear more American spoken (I didn't say English!) than French.

If you visit NYC again in November, you might be able to make the Avignon/New York Film Festival there and then ?

Meeting Ming the Merciless should be great fun. Enjoy!

Gerald (SK14) said...

You are right about the camera not catching the video properly because of the way the video is constantly being refreshed.
The camera catches what is there for that split second which is never the whole picture but the human eye sees what was there an instant ago, merges it with the present and compensates.

I wouldn't like to try and explain it technically.

No wonder it is causing traffic chaos!