Tiffany & Co. Window Displays
Tiffany & Co. is world-famous for its enchanting and imaginative window displays — a tradition started by its founder in 1837 and maintained across decades as what many regard as “public galleries,” designed to surprise and delight passersby. By integrating Gantom’s flexible, high-quality lighting fixtures into their display setups, Tiffany ensures that each window — whether seasonal, thematic, or holiday — is illuminated with precision, enhancing jewelry, props, and visual details without overpowering them. This collaboration quietly supports Tiffany’s legacy of refined presentation, helping every display achieve the subtle balance of elegance, drama, and invitation that draws onlookers in.
Give Kids The World Village, Kissimmee, FL
Give Kids The World Village’s new Mayor Clayton’s WonderLab is an inspiring STEAM-focused space where children and families can explore creativity and technology through hands-on activities such as robotics, 3-D printing, and animatronics. To support the welcoming and imaginative atmosphere in the main hall, the WonderLab incorporates Gantom’s compact lighting fixtures, which are well-suited for precise, low-profile illumination in interactive environments. This collaboration highlights a thoughtful use of lighting to enhance the experience for visiting families while honoring the mission of the Village.
Smallfoot Village—Recreating the Luminous World of an Animated Movie in Real Life
Smallfoot Village was a large-scale, pop-up installation atm the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood, California that was constructed to advertise the movie Smallfoot, which opened on September 28, 2018. This free event allowed visitors to enter the world of the feature film via a 40-minute, immersive journey through a two-level Yeti village. Part of the village was up above the clouds, and guests could roam the clouds, enter a snow room, and move through other environments found in the movie. They then descended through the clouds on a slide into the Smallfoot town, where they could sing karaoke in a tavern, create their own art in the Yeti Museum, and play in the Yeti or Not Arcade. Gantom Lighting & Controls provided some of the lighting for this unique and highly effective marketing project. THE CHALLENGE Sohail Najafi of Stories Illuminated was tasked with recre- ating the vibrant, visual, dynamic scenes within the film andhelping the production team bring them to life in the real world. No Visible Production—No Fixtures, No Wiring “I was challenged with lighting a live karaoke stage while still creating a beautiful image that was true to the scenerepresentation in the movie—that is, no visible production, no fixtures, no wiring. We had to achieve this invisibility throughout Smallfoot Village,” Najani explained. “Having the Gantom products was the only way we could have possibly done this because I was able to use Gantom floods and IQXs to create beautiful texture, and people didn’t even see where this is coming from. When I pointed it out to them, and they looked up, they were almost in disbelief. They’d say, ‘That little thing is doing this?’” “Producers, creative directors, and creative designers often decide to remove an effect if it can’t be done inconspicuous ly. They don’t want to break the immersion in the scene,” the explained. Creating the Seamless, Luminous Lighting of Animation in a Real Environment “In the Karaoke Bar, I had a legitimate, to-scale, intimate environment and I needed to provide key light for the stage and texture and highlight around the room while not breaking the immersion of people walking into the same bar that appears in the movie. In real life, there’s often theatrical lighting in a bar, but, because this one was scaled down, I couldn’t use traditional fixtures. It would feel like we were on a set rather than in a scene in a movie. In the movie, the stage is lit beautifully, but, of course, you don’t see any lights because it’s animation. The pure, rich environmentsm in animation is one of the reasons animation has become such a staple in the industry,” he pointed out. “You can do whatever you want with the lighting. In the real world, how- ever, if want to create that type of richness and you’re not in a big studio, you don’t have the physical space to put the logistics in to get those effects. With the Gantom products, I didn’t have to make any comprises. In the karaoke bar, there was a stage that’s a four-by-eight platform, and I had key light, highside texture, back light, and color fill, and there were no cabling or fixtures. The production designer walked in, looked at the light, said it looked great, and walked out.” In the arts and crafts room, there was a low ceiling and objects on the walls that Najani wanted to highlight. “I was able to hide the fixtures on the backs of rafters and supports. I was able to hit objects on the wall from two sides with a textured key light, making it ten times richer than if I just hit it with a flood.” Gantom Fixtures Used in Smallfoot Gantom DMX Precision DMXGantom iQx Pro Cable G8 Distribution Box Programming the Gantom Fixtures Vincent Sanchez, the Associate Designer at Stories Illuminated, talked about the process of programming the Gantom products. “To recreate the world of Smallfoot, the movie, which is dynamic, bright, and colorful, we knew we needed lots of LEDs to give us that fine control of colors and ability to layer lights. It took us about two weeks to do all the fabrication. There was quite a bit of construction on site, such as the rafters and supports. We had to design DMX universes based on where everything was going. We had three trusses in the air, and each one had its own universe. We had fixtures on the ground and in the tunnel that were ground-mounted. Outside there was façade lighting, which was all one universe,” he explained. Programming Challenges We asked Sanchez to talk about his biggest challenge in programming the lighting. “The biggest challenge was having everything in its own building—the Karaoke Bar, the Arts and Crafts room, and so on. I had to preprogram things with spaces assigned but not assign the fixtures. When we were on site, we updated groups and spaces so I could assign the channels,” he explained. Technology that Drives the Art and is Driven by the Art In closing, Najani commented, “My passion for design started in technology, so when I’m given tools that I can employ to create art, that’s where I get my inspiration. The partnership with Gantom has been great, because there’s a true passion for the technology to drive the art, to be driven by the art, and to work in tandem with the art. It makes things you traditionally couldn’t do possible. As a result, you’re able to open up your mind and create things that either haven’t been created before or haven’t been created in that manner. It’s a wonderful feeling.”
David Gappa’s “Introspection” at The University of Texas Dallas’ Center for BrainHealth
In April 2017, world-renowned glass artist David Gappa’s glass-and-steel installation, “Introspection,” was unveiled at The University of Texas at Dallas’ Center for BrainHealth. The work makes visible a hidden process that occurs in the body: the communication between nerve cells to capture the essence of thought as it pulsates through a field of synapses. “Introspection” is an intricate, ceiling-installed sculpture that’s fifty feet wide, forty feet long, and weighs 5,300 pounds. It comprises one hundred and seven- ty-five LED-illuminated glass spires and 1,050 hand-blown glass spheres. Each individually illuminated spire averages six feet in length and pulsates an array of colors across the entire piece, like the electric impulses passed from one nerve cell to another. Gantom Lighting & Controls provided the lights for this installation, MP Custom Fabrication provided the steel fabrication, and Gemini Lighting programmed all the lights and coordinated between Gappa, MP Custom Fabrication, and Gantom on how best to fit the Gantom light sources into the steel fixture units. THE CHALLENGES One of the biggest challenges in creating this installation was lighting the fixtures to imitate the process of synapses firing. An external light shined on the fixture wouldn’t come close to simulating the biochemical processes taking place within synapses. Small, Programmable, Internal, Full-color-spectrum Lighting “Early on, much of our time was spent trying to find small, low-profile lights that were powerful enough to illuminate a six-foot-long, handblown glass spire internally and have the full-color spectrum available to us,” Gappa explained. “I was working with MP Custom Fabrication on this project, and we met with countless lighting designers and LED vendors in search of the ideal product, but we kept running into sub-par lighting options. Gantom was the only one that even came remotely close to offering the lumens we needed in a small, programmable product,” he stated. Finding a Lighting Vendor Who Could Design and Configure the Programming “Our biggest frustration was finding a lighting vendor that not only knew how to spec a lightsource but also could also design and configure the programming to achieve the col- or-changing movement I desired,” stated Gappa. “Gemini proved that they had the technical knowledge to implement, design, and install the lighting in a project of this size.” Getting the Lighting into the Sculpture “The final challenge was getting the lighting into the sculpture and function ing at the power and color spectrum I had in mind,” said Gappa. “When we met the team at Gemini Lighting, they showed us your product’s illumination power within our blown-glass vessel. After we saw this, we were sold. Besides finding a way to incorporate the lighting into the sculpture, there needed to be data capability that allowed the lights to receive and respond to signaling and programming. Also, these lights needed to be professional grade because they’d be part of a permanent installation. As a further challenge, the lights needed to be small and low-power yet bright.” The solution was to blow the glass compo nents of the sculpture around the lights and then program them. Watch the Video: https://bit.ly/2NuklhN Bringing the Artist’s Vision to Light “The success we achieved with the help of Gantom’s products and Gemini’s assistance can be seen in the reaction of everyone that sees “Introspection” especially at night with its full spectrum of color-changing light,” he said. “I feel great peace in my mind and spirit knowing that I not only chose the right product but also chose the right team to implement such an incredible installation. Thank you, Gantom, MP Custom Fabrication, Gemini, and—finally—my amazing team of glassblowers!”
SAMURAI! MUSEUM OF FINE ART BOSTON
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts produced a mobile exhibit to showcase Samurai armor and weaponry. Precision Z Spotlights and Precision Z Floodlights in warm white were chosen to be installed inside the top of each display case. The ease of install, low power usage, and consistent output of the Precision Z fixtures were some of the key features sought out by the exhibit builder. The warm white fixtures were able to highlight the fine textures of the various materials used in this exhibit. The Boston MFA also uses various custom built warm white fixtures for permanent art displays in sections of their gallery where track infrastructure is not installed.
TROPHY ROOM
Over 120 Gantom DMX RGBW and DW fixtures were chosen by Spire Lighting Design to provide dynamic lighting for a high-end trophy room in a private hunting museum. The client wanted a full environment including regionally accurate audio and realistic lighting and audio changes reflecting time of day shifts, including a simulated thunderstorm. The Gantom DMX fixtures were chosen due to their compactness, clean optics, and smooth color mixing which aided in the slow transitions of color in the time of day simulation.
LOTTE WORLD
CITY MUSEUM ST. LOUIS, MO, USA
There’s no way to easily describe the The City Museum (St. Louis) other than “an adult size gerbil maze made of recycled material that covers a 10 story building”. The City Museum caters to over 700,000 visitors each year that climb, crawl, and squeeze through its vast network of tunnels, caves, and hidden rooms. Gantom Precision Z fixtures are embedded into the rock work of the entire cave section to enhance the atmosphere as well as provide path lighting. Our fixtures were chosen because anything that is installed at the City Museum will likely be in direct contact with the customer as they explore the facility. Therefore a safe and rugged fixture had to be chosen. The Precision Z fixtures replaced the many MR16 lamps that were previously installed as a safer, longer lasting, and more efficient alternative.
DESPICABLE ME PARADE UNIVERSAL ORLANDO
Universal Orlando has some of the best use cases of Gantom fixtures as they strive to integrate each fixture directly into the application. The parade floats feature several embedded Precision Z fixtures used as thrusters, uplights, and indicators. Universal also incorporates a large number of Gantom fixtures into their Halloween Horror Nights events during each Halloween season. The fixtures are often hidden inside, under, or behind objects to provide natural scenic lighting without being directly visible.
FRIGHT NIGHT WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE
The Winchester Mystery House was one of the first major haunted attractions to put our products to the test. A mix of Precision Z spotlights in various colors and DarkBox Flickers were used to bring life to the scenery.