Creamfields 2010
The last of the festivals this summer for Basic Monkey and it turned out to be a tough one for all involved.
XL Video had a lot of LED at Creamfields. Even by Steve G's (Project Manager) own admission, he'd never seen or heard of so many LED techs on site!
James was principally based with Chris Isaacson in the Chibuku/Swedish House Mafia arena building, altering and repairing the Stealth screen there, although everyone pitched in site wide.
For the first night, the Stealth was rigged in a semicircle for Plastikman's performance, behind which he played making use of the transparent properties of the screen. After the show we had to wait until the other DJs finished at 4am, then for the ground support with all the lighting on to come down and go back up again. Come 8am we were finished, time to move on to main stage.
The overnight efforts were to re-rig the Stealth screen at the back of the stage for the Swedish House Mafia's set.
After an hour to rest in the tour bus or in hotel (for the lucky ones) staring at the walls, it was back to work for all to switch on and look after the screens for day 2.
On return to the Chibuku tent, the incoming production required a screen to cover the DJ decks table. So with heavy eyes, Duncan from BPM SFX rigged a makeshift truss rig and James, Chris and Ian built the remaining Stealth panels across the front using some cable ties, looked the part though!
The load-out went quicker than expected which was a saving grace, seeing the last XL presence leave site at 6:30am.
Thomson Reuters Eikon Launch Preparations pt2
So, we still can't give too much away at this stage, but for the past 2 days James has been in York again to build part 2 of the Eikon launch.
This will be a feat of engineering on Stage One's part and a tidy bit of video work from XL Video!
Basic Monkey are providing the Catalyst system and control gear for this pre build.
Promise to give you more when we can...
The Doves @ Green Man Festival
Following on from the success in Edinburgh, The Doves asked Basic Monkey to provide a Catalyst media server for their show at The Green Man Festival in South Wales.
Arriving on site to find 'video world' in a pop-up tent by stage was a humorous start to the day although a little nerve racking when the rains hit hard! The character of the festival is impossible to fault, through heavy rain the guests were still out in force, from all walks of life and parts of the UK.
We were asked to feed the main stage's side screens with the show content, intermixed with camera shots using the festivals cameras and vision mixer. The show went without a hitch and had a great reaction from the crowd.
James Undergone d3 Training with UVA
This week James is down in London to learn the ins and outs of United Visual Artists d3 media server.
d3 stands out for its impressive handling of 3d environments using CAD modelling and clever processing. There are clear differences between Catalyst and d3, with the latter being very geared around it's beat accurate 'quantized' timeline and ability to map and scale to a variety of outputs using CAD models.
Used on U2's tour to make use of the 360 degree LED screen which broke up into pieces using motion control. Once the 3D models are in the system, all scaling and distortion is done on the fly without any user involvement.
We're very impressed with the system and hope to use it in the future.
Goodwood Vintage Festival 2010
James has just spent the night re-building a F-30 LED screen at the Goodwood Festival of Vintage following a power issue.
The phone rang yesterday afternoon in the hunt for an LED/power technician to get to Goodwood to rebuild the screen while they day crew got some rest. James arrived on site to find the cause of the problem, one of XL's touring distros, designed for use in the USA and in Europe had it's voltage selector in the wrong position when it should be locked! This meant that 400 volts went across just over half the screen (luckily the rest wasn't plugged in). A series of pops and bangs were heard and promptly a new screen was despatched from Belgium.
Come 7am, James and Gareth from XL had replaced 36 panels, some hung on motored trusses, the rest on vertical truss towers which had to be accessed using cherry picker (a very frustrating task).
A couple of hours rest were had at the Bognor Regis Best Western and then the 300 mile return journey.
Lesson learned about use of a multi-meter for those on site!
The Doves @ The Edinburgh Picture House
Tonight saw James in Edinburgh at very late notice to provide the Doves with our Catalyst media server for their show.
Mark Wynne-Edwards is the Doves lighting designer, using his own Jands Vista T2 console which works easily with Catalyst.
Once the content was uploaded to our server, it was simply a case of testing a few cues in Mark's pre programmed show and all was ready. The output was a Sanyo 10k projector onto a white drape behind the band. This allowed images to cast over the band members and kit.
Check out the photos!
Thomson Reuters Eikon Launch Preparations pt1
For the past two days James has been in York at Stage One to build one part of the exciting launch for Thompson Reuters' new 'Eikon' product.
We'd love to show you some cool photos and tell you all about it, but you're just going to have to wait...
Global Gathering 2010
For the past few days, James has been at Global Gathering in Stratford-upon-Avon working for XL Video who are providing video kit and support across the site.
XL provided a variety of screens and projection across the site; F-30 for main stage, Bedrock and Random arenas, Martin LC for Global Arena and 4x Barco R22+ projectors for the Godskitchen tent.
James was tasked to rig and maintain the Martin LC 2140 panels in the Global Arena, which anyone who has worked with this screen before would know is no simple task. Being the older version meant that the whole rig had to be driven with DVI which meant short cables and lots of distribution. Thanks to the keen support of the local crew, the task was made much easier. The panels were positioned on a 'virtual screen' to give an abstract spaced image across the stage, lighting poles were placed between the panels to provide an effective mix of video and lighting.
Also within James' remit was the Godskitchen Arena which was to use the 'Boombox' design that the promoters are currently touring. This involved using 4x Barco R22+ projectors onto a scaffold box with white gauze across each divide, leaving a gap for the DJ in the middle. The graphics were provided by Exyzt, who first showed this principle as Etienne De Crecy's touring rig of 2 years ago. Their software was custom written for the task by the François Wunschel who used custom visuals and live video fed over microwave link by Pier Schneider.
Their show was something to behold, with live video sampling using a PlayStation controller to create incredibly well timed video loops to match the music, all matched with their infamous geometric patterns which create a real optical illusion.
