The Judy's - "Land of Plenty" Laser Show

I recently picked up a new hobby - as if I needed another one. Since my teenage years, I've loved laser shows. Whether they're beam shows like you'd see in a club, or animations like you'd see in a planetarium, I love laser light shows of all kinds. About 6 months ago, I began making laser shows of my own. First, using Pangolin's Quickshow software, and within a few weeks going all-in and using Pangolin's Beyond laser software.

This is a sequence I put together for a 4th of July show. It's an edit of The Judy's "Land of Plenty". I hadn't thought much about it until I began looking for patriotic music for the show, but in my search I happened to realize this song is oddly patriotic. It's almost as if it was written for an elementary school patriotic musical. It's just so wholesome and sugary sweet, you need a shot of insulin after enjoying it.

There were a few spots in the song that either lyrically or musically dragged the visuals down a little, so I created this edit of the music to pace the laser sequences a little better. It's short and skips some of the yahoos, some musical interludes

This video is not a simulation. It's an actual video shot of the show being projected in my laser loft. It was shot using a Canon Rebel 3ti using the Magic Lantern firmware hack that allowed me to film the lasers at a shutter speed of 15fps to avoid banding and flicker as much as possible. There's still some blooming from the brightness of the lasers, so it's not as sharp as I would like, and the colors are a tad washed out because of their brightness indoors so it certainly could look better from a video standpoint. The sequence uses a total of 8 laser projectors. 3 of them are 40kpps, 2 are 50kpps, 1 is 25kpps, and 2 are 15kpps, although the 40's and 50's are mostly running at 30,000 points per second.

This was a lot of fun to put together. Laser enthusiasts will immediately recognize the cues I used from Pangolin's stock library, as well as a few I pulled from Pangolin Cloud, but there are also several that I made myself in a ham-fisted attempt to sharpen my skills as a laserist. I made this show when I was first starting out, and now, just a few months later, I like to think my skills have improved. A little. Maybe.

In any case, some Judy's fans might enjoy seeing this. I certainly enjoyed putting it together. The visuals are just as wholesome and sickeningly sweet as the music, which to me is a good thing.