Today was the second part of Standard Life's new "LifeLens" product launch produced by Jack Morton Worldwide.

Replicating last month's event, James installed and operated XL Video's equipment along with Alex Roberts.

For this event, Basic Monkey supplied one of the two Catalyst systems required along with 2x Matrox TripleHead2Go boxes to feed the multiple LCD and plasma displays.

Standard Life are in the process of launching their new employee financial planning service and today was the media preview event.

The event was held in London's Hospital Club and was produced by Jack Morton Worldwide.

XL Video were asked to supply LCD and plasma displays, each showing different content, to be integrated into a white fabric covered set panel. This wall matched the other walls in the gallery and looked like a permanent feature.

Catalyst was chosen as the source for these displays for its ability to send multiple files to multiple destinations, while easily scaling the content to match the wall apertures.

Behind the stage, a 103" Panasonic plasma display was integrated into another white covered set panel.

'Buzz' words were projected onto the other walls from pillars made to look part of the building structure.

James programmed the 2x Catalyst systems to accept wireless commands from his iPhone, meaning that the display wall could be pushed back against the wall. Adjustments were made to the scaling for each window using wireless remote desktop.

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Samsung today launched two new products, the Galaxy S2 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 at the Olympic park in Barcelona.

The event marks the start of the Mobile World Congress in the city and as such the media guests expect to be impressed. Jack Morton Worldwide certainly delivered on these expectations again.

Following on from last year's success with 360 degree projection, it was decided to use projection again but on to varied surfaces in both texture and depth.

The main screen was 17.5m wide and 6.25m high, rear projected using 4x Barco HD20s in a 2x way edge blend. Flanking this were two front projected 'media façades' which had blocks at differing depths. 2x Barco R22 machines on their sides were mounted on a tower at front of house to project onto these.

For the opening sequence a voile curtain was brought across the entire stage, backed by a black Kabuki drop. This was also projected from the front, using Barco HD20s.

As the guests walked in, the Samsung Unpacked logo looped on the voile, followed by two teaser videos. After a countdown intro the Kabuki drops and the cloudy sky parts slowly as the voile curtain opens with carefully matched speed. Tied in with this, the main screen reveals an image with the product name.

The main show was divided into 4x stories, each with an opening video and product presentation graphics matched to the presenter's words. These were cued from script and designed to flow seamlessly.

Driving all the projectors were 3x XL Video Catalyst machines and Basic Monkey's 'Gorilla' Catalyst system output the 8 channels of audio used for the orchestral opening sequence along with the stereo audio for the rest of the show.

All the media servers were fed into a DVI matrix and were all inter-changeable in the event of one failing.

The show was triggered by our Jands Vista S3 console, making use of the carefully adjustable timing and transitions.

James programmed the show using content provided by Sangwha and Remedia, working closely with them to ensure a faithful representation of their concepts.

A show for invited guests is tomorrow following the same format as today but with a few alterations.

We're all wondering what next year's show will entail...

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Tonight was the last in the 'LED arches' series of launch events for Thomson Reuters' Eikon product at the Tokyo International Forum.

After the success of the London and New York launch events, James was asked to attend the Tokyo launch to ensure that it shared the same result.

Using the same show programmed for New York on Jands' Vista lighting software, it was a case of simply adding video files in Japanese to the locally supplied Catalyst machines and repeating the flow of the previous shows. James brought a Vista M1 playback wing with him on the plane to make running the show easier.

This trip ends a hectic year working with XL Video and Jack Morton Worldwide for James in anticipation for more next year.

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Tonight was the 2010 Wella International Trend Vision Awards show at Halle Freyssinet, Paris which saw competitors and guests from all over the world show off and discuss the big new hairstyles and colours for the next 12 months. The event was produced by Jack Morton Worldwide who brought together a huge number of suppliers to create a very successful show.

The event was built in three 'acts', the first being a demonstration of Wella's big new trends of 2011, 'Passionista', 'Lumina', 'Glamazon' and 'Polaris'. The afternoon act consisted of two competitions, 'Young Talent' and 'Colour', both of which are very prestigious awards to receive and can lead to great things for the winners.

In the evening, the guests and competitors were treated to dinner and entertainment from Diversity, The Noisettes and Soul Symphony.

The day show catwalk area consisted of 4x HD side screens and one 16m x 7m edge blended main screen. The main screen at the back of the catwalk had a revolving box at it's lower centre to allow four different apertures for the models to emerge from, each matching the style of the trend. In the afternoon, this box was opened up to allow a DJ to perform for the competitions.

XL Video were brought in to realise the video requirements on site, including fixed, jib and mobile cameras, LED screen, projection and control systems.

The trend content was designed and created by Knifedge with additional stings and animated name straps created by Jamie at JSCGI, all managed by Adam from JMW London and Justine Catterall.

James was tasked to turn the mass of video files, images and audio tracks into a programmed live show using Catalyst. Part of this process was done at XL Video's office in Hemel Hempstead to save time on site, however due to the delivery schedule of the video content lots more had to be done in Paris meaning some long days and late nights. Being involved from an early stage in meetings at Jack Morton's office in London and a wealth of emails and conference calls meant that James could ensure content was delivered in a way to work smoothly in Catalyst and make best use of the projection media.

Basic Monkey supplied a Jands Vista S3 system to control the 4x XL Catalyst systems and also our own new 12 core Catalyst system for surround audio playback and video processing. The system involved signal routing which allowed country and studio names to be keyed onto the live webcast at the same time as flags were displayed on the main screen. Live camera feeds were fed into Catalyst to be output to the side screens when not used as part of the trend video intros.

The show involved heavy use of alpha channel transparency to allow builds rather than fades, this involved some creative programming which was made readily achievable thanks to the the Jands Vista software.

Next years show is in New York and despite being pretty tired after the week, James is hoping to be involved again next year.

Many thanks to Nina Dunn from Knifedge who took the photos during the show (I was busy pressing the button in video city!).

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Today was the "Go Live" launch of Thompson Reuters' Eikon Product in The Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal, New York.

After a year of planning and preparation the event went with true style and noticeably impressed the clients and potential clients present.

The core feature of the event was the innovative video concept by Jack Morton Worldwide, implemented by XL Video. 4x Barco MiTrix arches covered the audience space, leading up to a stage backed with a Hibino 4mm Chromatek LED screen, one of the most advanced and impressive on the market.

The whole system was fed using a Catalyst system sourced in the USA, programmed by James of Basic Monkey. Catalyst was used to play the arrival video loop, opening sequence, video excerpts and then some abstract graphics to amuse the guests after the show. For the main presentation, Keynote was used, this being fed into the Catalyst system.

At all times it was important to keep video sources native to the screens' resolutions, this was achieved with lots of maths, careful signal paths and video transcoding.

Using Final Cut Studio, James 're-crunched' the source video excerpts to match the native resolution of the main screen which always leads to better results than scaling on the fly.

The show was triggered using Basic Monkey's Jands Vista lighting software and M1 playback wing which is a very easy system to transport on the plane as hand luggage.

The next stop for James on the Eikon campaign is Tokyo where the arches concept will be replicated using different products.

Please check out the photos.

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This morning the "LED Room" part of the Thomson Reuters Eikon campaign went live at Grand Central Terminal, New York.

The room is part of the three stage campaign for their new financial services product which was introduced with the "Digital Forest" outside the New York Stock Exchange and it's opening precedes the live launch tomorrow.

Using 3x different LED products from Barco and PixLed, a different style of LED room was created from that in London. Since the passing public would be on one side of the room and generally closer to it than London, two main screens of 7mm F-led product were chosen.

These are complemented by an arch of Barco MiTrix over the entranceway to tie in with the 'Go Live' event in the same hall. At the back of the room are two O-lite tickers to match those in the digital forest. All this adds coherence to the campaign.

The room will be open to clients and potential clients over the next 10 days.

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After a huge amount of design, planning, pre-builds and testing, the "LED Room" part of Thomson Reuter's Eikon launch campaign has gone live at Canary Wharf.

The campaign has been designed by Jack Morton Worldwide to launch the product in three stages. The first was the "Digital Forest" which was to create intrigue, the second was "Go Live" to inform the clients and this, the third stage to let clients try out the product in an innovative environment.

The walls of the box are Lighthouse R7 outdoor LED screen, provided by XL Video and driven by Catalyst on a Mac Mini nicknamed the "Kitten".

After a day as a box with three video screens, the wall facing the exit from Canary Wharf Tube Station will have 10x panels of LED removed and a door and windows fitted in their place, turning the box into a room. Inside are stations where clients can use the Eikon product under guidance from Thomson Reuters trainers.

James has been involved from the first pre-build to ensure the smooth running of the Jack Morton designed video content and to program the "Kitten" on site. Basic Monkey provided the Catalyst system for the earlier stages of testing to allow more flexibility as the Mac Mini's graphics capabilities are more limited than the larger systems but perfect for running the final sequence.

As James will not be in the country for most of the time the box is live, the Catalyst system was linked to the internet to allow remote access worldwide to change content and make adjustments. The remote access system worked from Manchester, New York and even on the train using 3G. This became invaluable as the content was changed for the door installation and after a power outage.

The photos include some at the pre-build phase in York at the offices of Stage One who designed and constructed the structure.

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This morning, after a year of preparation and a successful launch in London, the Thomson Reuters Digital Forest campaign goes live in New York outside the famous stock exchange building.

Backed by a huge Thomson Reuters banner, replacing the usual stars and stripes, the 'trees' (which are in a different formation to London) continue the brand's colours and attract a lot of attention from the passing public and more importantly, the traders themselves. Designed as a teaser campaign, the trees convey text messages, show clips from the Eikon product screen advertising campaign and flash abstract graphics to grab attention.

James had been in New York for a week in preparation for this, and part two of the campaign in the coming weeks at Grand Central station.

When looking at a slight angle along the line of the trees, the broken television adverts appear as a solid image. This causes a lot of movement in the crowd to view the installation at various angles. As was hoped, camera phones were out in their numbers, hopefully spreading the word and making the exercise worth the effort.

James has been working with XL Video in the USA, who are supplying the Barco O-Lite modules to Jack Morton Worldwide, for support based on experiences in London and to program the Catalyst machine which would play the content back. Catalyst was chosen for it's flexibility and reliability when being left for long periods of time, and its ability to achieve pixel accuracy, a must at this low resolution.

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In NYC there will be two venues for the teaser campaign, these will be revealed very soon... can't give the game away can we?

James