1993 ILDA Awards
Presented at the 1993 ILDA
meeting in Orlando, Florida
Hosted by Audio Visual Imagineering Inc. (AVI)
From The Laserist magazine, Summer 1994 issue
Laser display professionals from around the world gathered in Orlando, Florida in November 1993 to see, celebrate and experience ILDA's seventh annual competition for Outstanding Laser Display. The awards honored creativity and artistry in displays ranging from corporate trade exhibits to laser shows for the visually impaired.
The biggest winner of the competition was the new firm of Lightspeed Design, Inc. Founded in 1992 by former employees of Laser Fantasy International, Lightspeed won first place in three out of the eight artistic categories being judged.
The Bellevue, Washington company also won a second-place prize and three honorable mentions. The ILDA Awards Banquet, which included laser projections of the winning entries, culminated with Robert Mueller, Lightspeed's Art Director, taking home ILDA's Career Achievement Award.
In the Special Award category, ILDA honored a university planetarium and a private display company for their efforts at producing laser shows that allow the visually impaired to see laser-projected text and graphics.
The project began at the Mueller Planetarium in the University of Nebraska's Lincoln campus. Planetarium Director Jack Dunn, working with the local affiliate of the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness, discovered that visually impaired people could see the bright, high-contrast images created by a laser projector.
Dunn has since developed a soundtrack and custom images for a laser light show geared specifically to the needs of the visually impaired, which he makes available to ILDA members free of charge. Sharing the first place award with Mueller Planetarium was Laser Images, Inc. which designed a planetarium laser show featuring sky constellations. The show enabled many RP sufferers, who typically have little or no night vision, to see "stars" for the first time since they were afflicted with the disease.
Other highlights of the awards ceremony included the first ILDA award presented to a Canadian company. Laser F/X International, based in Burlington, Ontario, received third place in the Graphic Animation category for "Fashion Show," a hand-drawn, 296-frame character animation. A German firm, tarm Show Production, won first place in the Mixed Application category for a display that combined water fountains, pyrotechnics and audience scanned beam effects in a six-and-a-half minute production.
The 153 applications submitted for consideration were evaluated by a three-member panel:
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Cicely McMurtrie, a musical consultant and laser choreographer for Sea World of Ohio and Florida
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Don Mihelic, a computer programmer for Universal Studios
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Joe Tucciarone, an internationally recognized artist whose recent artwork includes a two-page fold-out in the January 1994 issue of National Geographic.
In a break from past years, ILDA's Technical Committee handled the judging of the technical awards, which included a first place award to William Benner Jr. and Lighting Systems Design, Inc. of Orlando, Fla. for the development of a new scanner amplifier that significantly boosted the performance of low-cost open-loop galvos.
1993 ARTISTIC AWARDS
Graphic Showpiece
1st: "Lightspeed Demonstration", Lightspeed Design
2nd: "Kung Fu Chickens", Audio Visual Imagineering
3rd: "Father and Son", tarm Show Production
Honorable Mention: "Wizardz", Laser Media
Abstract
1st: "Eclipse", Laser Fantasy
2nd: "Night in Tunisia", Laser Fantasy
3rd: "I Will Always Love You", Audio Visual Imagineering
Honorable Mention: "Higher Ground", Laser Images
Mixed Application
1st: "Music", tarm Show Production
2nd: "Nintendo 3D Laser Dome", Lightspeed Design and Laser Fantasy
Beam/Atmospheric Display
1st (tie): "Rain Man", tarm Show Production
1st (tie): "NCCC Beams", Laser Artistry
Static Composition
1st: "Sea Beauty", Lightspeed Design
2nd: "Pool Party", Lightspeed Design
3rd: "New Years", Laser Images
Honorable Mention: "Take the Leap to Lightspeed", Lightspeed Design
Animation
1st: "Juggling Clown", Lightspeed Design
2nd: "Crazy Guitarist", Laser Images
3rd: "Fashion Show", Laser F/X International
Honorable Mention: "Farmer Dance", Laser F/X International
Honorable Mention: "Mermaid", Lightspeed Design
Advertisement/Corporate Theatre
1st: "BMG Closing", Audio Visual Imagineering
2nd: "Nintendo Laser Dome", Lightspeed Design
1990 TECHNICAL AWARDS
New Technology
1st: "Accelerator 124 Scanner Amplifier", William Benner, Jr. and Lighting Systems Design Inc. (LSDI)
2nd: "Volumetric Laser Display Device Featuring a Laser-Addressed Multi-planar Display Apparatus", Rob Batchko and Allen Crabtree
3rd: "Full Dome Projection System", Audio Visual Imagineering
Honorable Mention: "Volumetric Laser Display Device Featuring a Monitor-Style Virtual Projector", Allen Crabtree and Rob Batchko
Special
1st (tie): "Lighting Up The Night", Mueller Planetarium
1st (tie): "Retinitis Pigmentosa Show", Laser Images
Honorable Mention: "Legends in Light", Lightspeed Design
Robert Mueller
Award-winning artist and producer at Lightspeed Design, Inc.Robert Mueller, executive vice president and art director of Lightspeed Design, received ILDA's fifth Career Achievement Award in recognition of his thirteen years of contributions to the industry.
Mueller literally worked his way up from the bottom of the laser display field, starting as a ticket-taker for a laser show in St. Paul, Minn., in 1980. Under the employ of Floyd Rollefstad, the founder of Laser Fantasy International and the 1991 recipient of ILDA's Career Achievement Award, Mueller switched paths from studying architecture at the University of Minnesota to become a top artist, programmer and art director.
In addition to his artistic achievements, Mueller helped define display software developed by Aura Technologies and Laser Fantasy. He also pursued techniques needed to create digital and analog polarized 3D stereoscopic projections. After working at Laser Fantasy since 1980, Mueller became one of the founding members of Lightspeed Design in 1992.
Under Mueller's direction, Lightspeed's artistic team recently won a string of awards in the 1993 competition for Outstanding Laser Displays. A winning trade show installation for Nintendo (hardware by Laser Fantasy) included seven scanner pairs that provided 360-degree coverage of a 50-foot dome. Another Nintendo production included 3D laser graphics visible with polarized glasses and laser-projected video imagery. Mueller's "Juggling Clown" was also honored with first-place in the Graphic Animation category. The piece featured precomputed morphing animations on spline-interpolated real-time paths.
"I was spellbound and mesmerized the first time I saw a laser," said Mueller, recalling when he saw a laser at the age of 13 in a science museum. "I believe there is something in all of us that is attracted to light. Perhaps there is an exponentially greater attraction to laser light."
In regard to his work, Mueller says he is never satisfied with a business-as-usual attitude. "I have an innate desire to take things to the next level. If I have an idea and I don't implement it, I don't feel I've accomplished what I've wanted to do." In addition to enthusiasm and dedication, Mueller believes the next essential ingredient for a laser show producer is the ability to surprise the public. "Audiences need to see something new, something that takes them by surprise. That's our goal; to create something so intrinsically interesting it gets people's attention."
