Professional Lighting & Production - Fall 2018 | Page 27

John Coniglio, the senior account represen-
tative with Westbury who oversaw the Old
Post Office project, says he initially entered
talks with city administrators about an auto-
mated architectural lighting system for the
building’s Water St. façade. As he got a better
sense of what the city was looking to achieve,
though, that morphed into a richer multime-
dia experience.
“They had an idea of what they wanted
to do, but didn’t know how to do it,” Coniglio
says. “They knew of some of the work that
Westbury had done with projection map-
ping, and so we started sharing ideas on how
we could develop something really special
that would be custom tailored to the build-
ing and its history.”
Interestingly, Coniglio had some first-
hand experience with some of that history,
and like the viewers of the show that he and
Westbury would eventually deliver, he also
had the opportunity to take a trip back in
time as it was coming together.
Though it had fallen into disrepair lead-
ing up to the city purchasing it for restoration
in 2012, the building originally constructed
as the post office for the regional municipali-
ty of Galt has taken on various uses through-
out the later decades of its history. In the
early ‘90s, it was a popular nightspot called
the Time Club, and Coniglio was one of its
regularly-featured DJs. He recalls passing
time on the building’s riverside patio on
summer evenings before taking to the DJ
booth after dusk.
Because the city wanted a turnkey
solution for the application, Coniglio took
a more active role in the development of
the show than he typically would. Where-
as Westbury will usually handle only the
technical infrastructure – the systems and
logistics needed to actually deliver the
show – this time, Coniglio was also tapped
to oversee the content development, and
basically bridge the gap between the
technical components and the visual and
musical content.
First things first, the group had to
ensure they had the necessary infrastruc-
ture for a projection-mapped show. To
use the Old Post Office façade as a canvas,
the projectors would need to be set up in
front of the building. In this case, the land
they would need to occupy was a parking
lot, and its owner was willing to sell it
to the city for the project. Once it was
confirmed that they’d be able to run the
necessary cabling beneath the surface of
the lot, things were underway.
“Being that I’ve done so many projects
where I was involved in the content
creation process, I have a bit of a knack
for it,” Coniglio shares. “It’s not my primary
job, but in this case, there were several
discussions with the city’s team about
what they wanted to see, what their vision
was for the system, and so we decided
that I’d take the lead in translating that
to the content developers, knowing what
both sides – the client and creators – need
and expect.”
Having grown up in the Tri-Cities and
now being a resident of nearby Guelph,
Coniglio boasts a network of local artists
and creators that he tapped into for
the project. For the Old Post Office, that
included a group of illustrators, animators,
and composers.
Coniglio and his contacts with the city
developed a loose storyboard of content
they wanted to see, which Coniglio then
relayed to the artists. The artists would
share proposed renderings or examples
and they’d go back and forth until the
visions matched.
“We weren’t producing a short film
here,” Coniglio clarifies. “It’s more visual ef-
fects and abstract images and animations
with a loose narrative that looks at the
history of the building and community.”
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