Sub-Media

From the Washington Post: Sunday, August 31, 2003; Page A01
A Tunnel With a View -- and a Profit Metro Looks at New Technology for Ads to Boost Revenue By Lyndsey Layton

"Metro officials seeking ways to increase revenue are hoping there's a light in the middle of the tunnel. The transit system is considering selling advertising space inside subway tunnels, using a new technology that creates mini-movies that appear to float in the darkness outside the train windows. The technique relies on a series of illuminated panels that give the illusion of motion to a passenger on a train rushing past, much the way the images in a child's flip book appear to move. "

From Sub Media's website:The Submedia audience isn't just captured. It's locked in place. Voluntarily. And as anyone who's ever been on a subway car will testify, one of the greatest challenges is knowing what to do with your eyes. Most people look out the window. At nothing. That's where we do our stuff. Suddenly the blackness is broken by an illuminated, animated 20-second show. Your show. Your message. Alone in the space. It catches the eye. Then takes it for a ride....A Submedia installation is a static medium that's fully animated. It's the reverse of traditional movie projectors. With a movie, film moves past a shutter and is projected for a stationary audience. With our technology, the audience moves past stationary film and shutters.

The idea was hatched by an astrophysics PhD candidate at Columbia University back in the mid-1990s. It has grown to include a crack team of specialists. Kodak, the No. 1 supplier of backlit transparencies. Photobition, the world leader in large-format, photo-realistic digital printing. And Parsons Brinckerhoff, a world leader in transit engineering.

http://www.sub-media.com/