Play Nicely are one of 14 local studios contributing designs for a series of giant projections throughout Bristol city centre this December

Fourteen creatives, seven projectors and two tonnes of snow will combine to Light Up Bristol this December.

Another from Play Nicely

Projection image from Fixel

Leading digital and creative studios from the South-West have contributed to the five-day event, which boasts seven of the world’s most powerful projectors, 400ft animations and moving images plus "a huge hourly snow blizzard which will transform the city centre into a winter wonderland" we are promised.

The event has been put together by Bristol Media, the city’s creative networking and support organisation, and the West of England Design Forum, who have invited a team of 14 of the city’s leading creatives from companies including Aardman Animations, E3, Beef, Oakwood DC, Thirteen and MCcann Erickson to work alongside each other on the project.

Greenlit Media

McFaul

“Designers tend to spend our lives working on a 19 inch monitor, so to be asked to produce 400ft animations and visuals that are going to be thrown all over the city, hell yes, we all jumped at the chance," says Dan Efergan, Digital Creative Director of Aardman Animations. "The opportunity to use major Bristol landmarks such as the Council House and Cathedral as a massive canvas and bring the city to life with moving image, animation, colour and textures, well opportunities like that don’t come around that often.”

From last year's event. For more, see here

“We staged a smaller event last year which was a huge success, so we plan to make this one much bigger by using the animations and projectors as the centre piece to a week long city winter festival,"explains Bristol Media chair, Mike Bennett. "What’s totally unique about all of this is that it’s been instigated, developed and will be managed and coordinated by the creative and media sectors of Bristol. We’ve commissioned music to go alongside all the animations and we’ve hired in several state of the art snow machines used at Pinewood Studios that will blitz the city on an hourly basis with a huge snow blizzard. They were used in the film The Day After Tomorrow, where New York disappeared under 300ft of snow and ice. We just had to get them to Bristol. We’re in danger of bringing the whole city to a stand still, but we haven’t told the council that bit…”

Light Up Bristol will run from 17 to 21 December