Tonight, you may have witnessed one of the greatest Super Bowl matches in history between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons. For the first time, we saw two teams take the epic battle into overtime and ultimately watched the Patriots take their fifth championship. We witnessed yet another incredible performance from Lady Gaga, in which she used 300 drones to coordinate a light show behind her during the game. This is how it was done.
We have seen drones advance over the last few years and to see them used on such a massive scale on one of the biggest stages was quite impressive. Though, was it really live? As my TV said "LIVE" in the corner of the airing tonight, it turns out the taping of Lady Gaga singing at the top of the stadium with the drones colored in red, white, and blue in the background was taped on an earlier night. That would explain the lack of regulations and red tape involved in coordinating something like this with the FAA.
The scene of her at the top of the stadium was seamless as she jumped likely onto a mat and then it cut straight to her in the stadium, hanging and coming to the stage from wires. Check out the image below.
The video of the Super Bowl 51 Halftime Show will show you the full effect of the outstanding performance as well as give you a glimpse at the future of drones in massive flight.
According to a few sources, including Wired, this is not a new trick. Disney has been testing this same technology from Intel for their night light shows for the winter season, and it's run by a single person via a single computer system. Each drone is about one foot long, weigh just over 8 ounces, and sports a built-in LED to bring various color combinations. The big game created the American flag along with the Pepsi logo, the main sponsor for the show, in red, white, and blue. What is even more impressive is when one of these drones loses flight or runs low on battery, another one takes it place in flight within seconds.
To see a closer look at the drones used by Intel check out the link here.
Needless to say, the show was the best I've seen in a while and one I won't soon forget, but it asks an interesting question about drone flight. How far can we push these unmanned aircrafts for entertainment purposes? Does it create more danger with that many in the air at the same time? Or could this have easily been done digitally since it was already prerecorded? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
https://www.facebook.com/droneworksstudios/ this is the company that operated the drones
Interesting read, I have read about swarm AI technology for drones but this was obviously pre-programmed... Should allow for some interesting displays in the future.
** I think a spoiler alert for those not able to watch the game would be nice. Thankfully I had just watched it (having recorded it due to living in the UK). I have been actively avoiding all info about it and the last place i would have expected it was fstoppers.
One of the comments on the YouTube video says "it's laser lights off black netting. My husband does it in our back yard". Whilst we know it was actually super cool and costly drone swarm technology, I wonder what the point is when it does look like a back yard job?
One could say, they could have done all of it digitally in post, and produced a faked show. But then, IBM couldn't brag on their drones they'd very much like to sell, so they filmed it live one evening, later to insert it into the halftime show, producing- a faked show.
So when you really think about it, would have been far far cheaper and easier to just hologram in Gaga and the entire show so they can be completely honest about the fakery. ;)