Seal @ Moscow, Russia
Tonight's show was in the smart, new, purpose built theatre at Crokus City on the outskirts on Moscow.
The traffic in Moscow is of epic proportions, with even the artist himself falling foul of the jams.
With a full house of energetic fans, the show was one of the best yet.
James
Views from a Train
Of all the train trips I thought I'd take in my life, St. Petersburg to Moscow wasn't one of them.
The view from the window on the trip was such a vastly varied one. Leaving St. Petersburg with it's many stonework buildings, the view quickly turning into builders' yards and sheds ending up with vast forests and fields with a scattering of wooden shacks.
On the route we crossed over quite a few large rivers and passed some vast lakes, all surrounded by huge expanses of trees.
You could see the variations in wealth as the train passed through the regions, some dwellings appear as if they are near collapse while some obviously belonging to the more affluent.
As we neared Moscow, very quickly the yards and sheds appeared, followed by huge swathes of tower blocks, often with little space between them.
Moscow is certainly a world away from St. Petersburg, the area around the train station being very commercial and industrial, with little of the stonework architecture previously seen.
Unfortunately on this trip I wont get to see Red Square, only the traffic jam ridden roads to our venue and accommodation.
Here's looking forward to a good show!
James
Seal @ St. Petersburg, Russia
Basic Monkey is back in St. Petersburg after a year of absence, this time indoors at the city's arena with Seal.
After a lively night in the hotel, serenaded by Markus, Ben and Holly from the band and a night of little sleep due to the 24 hour daylight, we loaded into the ice arena to interface with local suppliers.
The show went smoothly as ever and a last minute influx filled the arena nicely.
James
Thomson Reuters Eikon, Tokyo
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.
Hello from Tokyo!
After a hugely successful and hectic week in Paris, I've arrived in Tokyo for my last involvement with the Thomson Reuters Eikon launch campaign this year.
Sunday was a long day, starting at the Halle Freyssinet to pack up video city, followed by two trains and a bus to get to Charles de Gaulle airport. Short flight to London Heathrow (I was asleep before we left the stand) and then across to T3 to enjoy the BA lounge. The flight was with JAL with fantastic service, although I couldn't seem to get to sleep for the life of me on the 12 hour flight. After finishing off a TV series and a few bottles of white wine and a brandy, I had a 30 minute doze just as we landed.
The hotel is very smart, with cleverly designed rooms that make best use of their small size. Oh and the standard computerised toilet! The photo above is the view from my full height window.
I'm off to site in an hour or so to see the LED arches go up and start looking at content.
James
Thomson Reuters Eikon “Go Live”, New York
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.
Thomson Reuters Eikon LED Room, New York
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.
Reuters Digital Forest Goes Live in New York
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.
Visit to XL Video’s LED Boutique, New York
Today I had the pleasure of visiting XL Video's very smart and comprehensive "LED LAB" in New York.
The purpose of the operation is to show event and concert designers what technology is available to them in the world of creative video.
In the showroom, which is high up in an office building in midtown New York is a huge variety of LED displays from all the big players including Barco, Hibino and Pixled, and also some emerging brands.
It was great to see what was out there, a fair few of the products I had never seen before. These included the magnetic screen which can be fixed to any suitably prepared steel surface, and can even curve in one axis!
The whole room is run via a d3 media server so that all products are showing a continuous image over varying resolutions, very impressive in itself.
Leaving the showroom I can feel the effect it has, I want some of those toys on my next event...
James
New York Arrival
So, just arrived in New York to prepare for the USA leg of the Tompson Reuters Eikon launch.
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