There’s little more to add to this saga, but i couldn’t just end these posts two days before the show! Basically, the Video crew did us proud and with two days to go all the projector were up in the air and well lined up. There was plenty of tweeking done to attain the level quality we finally got on the night but with two days to go there was more than enough time for that.
I on the other hand, programmed my elbows off and by 30 minutes to curtain up all was smooth and shiney. For show photos have a look at this flickrset. Just time for one comedy one however.
Fergus has no problems making friends with the backstage entertainment.
So all in all the show went really well. Take a wander over here to see the L&SI review.
Finally, i should review myself. It’s a real shame its taken me so long to get the stories and photos out, but ultimately i’m really glad that i have and didn’t just give up on the project like i have on other blog series in the past (retropect anyone ?) Hat’s off to the guys involved with Eurovision and the Spectra blog which inspired me to give this a go. My collection of posts have been pale in comparison to their offering and i have no doubt i’ll be a regular reader there when it comes round again. Pulling a 24 projector/16 server show out of the air in less than 2 weeks is a phenomenally tall order and thank goodness we had the crew that we did! I think maybe if we’d had a bigger lead time there would have been a lot less late nights and i’d have had more chances to knock some posts out, but still life goes on – you had to listen to enough moaning from me in my excuses posts so we’ll leave it at that.
Finally a big thanks to Phil for taking over the photography while i was behind the desk. We wouldn’t have had nearly as many decent photos if it was just left up to me. Secondly thanks to Steve at adequately-average.com for the mirror. I’ve had a fair few more readers coming in from there so to anybody new hope you enjoyed the posts!
The programming onslaught rolled steadily on throughout the week. By now the producing system had been wheeled out front and the FOH snake had been laid. The hours of dance rehearsals were not helping concentration at all!
Our crack team of projectionists did themselves proud and all FOH projectors were well hung and sorted. Even the IMAG screens were starting to shape up.
Prossarch projection was beginning to fall into line very nicely
By Thursday everything has swung into action, Rehearsals are going on full tilt. At this point i’ve sold my soul to the operating position and sleep, eating, laughing all became optional extras. Kudos go out to the crew for providing all three at regular intervals oh and LOTS of tea!
Phil our Projectionist takes over the camera duties for the rest of the event whilst i crunch media. For the full Rehearsal Flickr Set have a wander over here.
By the time Monday had wandered by the FOH projector rig was well on its way to being rigged. Back in server land playback city had been assembled.
5 Doremi’s, a betacam player, a 16 way matrix and stacks of monitoring.
Tuesday was more of the same old hard work. By midnight we’d got a couple of our onstage doubles lined up.
So excuses over and done with, let’s pick up from where we left off. I was in the latter part of my pre-programming week. Having spent a very late night recovering our master computer from the virus all went well.
By the weekend our first crew members arrived along with the second shipload of equipment from the French office.
Here are the mandatory photos of stacks of prepped kit :
By Sunday Evening the crew roll onto site. The main thing we achieved before bedtime was the construction of the backstage server farm. Complete with shiny new dexion racking. I know i’m a geek, you know i’m a geek, but there’s something about such a large number of screens that makes me smile.
The “fort” had been tidied up!
If you’re a regular reader (yep, all 20 of you: i check the stats) you’ll realise that its now Sunday 27th April and the “this is how we roll” show is now over. Despite my best intentions, the days were very long and most importantly there was no internet at the venue. Therefore i’ve not been able to give you the step by step lowdown on the show as it progressed.
I did however take the photos ready to make the post’s and will endevor to give you the inside scoop on the Zee TV Cine Awards 2008 (for Zee TV, think the English version of the BBC).
Unfortunately i couldn’t make a post on the project yesterday, and in 41 minutes today would have flown past without an update if it wasn’t for this intervention.
I’ve had a crazy 48 hours, a content drive was brought in by a (well meaning) member of the production team that had a very aggressive window s virus embedded. In many way’s i feel partly responsible for this setback as it should be policy to scan all new hard drives before introducing them to our system. Unfortunately tight schedules and heavy loads on the servers means that scanning every gigabyte of data brought through our doors would increase programming time by a third at least.
Anyway, i’ve been forced to spend excessive amount of overtime cleaning, checking and reconfiguring the system after this set back and by around lunch time today i finally pulled us back on track. the first (clean) bits of media finally wandered their way onto our system this afternoon and i have to say the show is going to look stunning. Unfortunately do to frantic programming there have been no photos today, but i promise more tomorrow!
20 Projectors and most of our signal distro and processing will arrive tomorrow on a truck from Paris. Also the first members of our onsite team will be in prepping the show. Should be a fun day!
It concerns me how little was done today towards the show. With now only 4 days left before load-in there is still no show content loaded onto the servers. A typical 4 server award show (yes this is an award show) would take me approximately a week to program. With four times the work to be done and time ticking away tensions could well be running high. They could well be, but for some reason everyone is strangely calm.
Here’s today in photos:
Yesterday’s scribbles on paper have been turned into photoshop templates. Thank goodness no mistakes were made!
With the 8 extra servers over from Paris, the system is up and running and fully addressed.
Running a media server based on the Windows platform has it’s shortfalls. Our first casualty of the project fell by the wayside today.
Those of you who are regular readers will know that I’m and avid mac user. As the Windows/Mac debate is waged by the fanboys (i run both systems, I have an Intel Mac) I still wonder if anyone will develop a stable multi screen system for Mac. Catalyst and to an extent ArKaos both run happily on a Macs and supply some pretty powerful functions for a small number of outputs. There still isn’t (to the best of my knowledge) a mac based server that can do 16 or more independent, fully warped and mapped outputs on the market. So despite my dislike for all things Windows i have to be thankful that we’re operating one of the most powerful systems on the market at the moment.
With 19 computers all running full tilt, despite the mediocre weather we’ve been having today i wasn’t cold in shorts and a t-shirt. That was with the AC running constantly at it’s lowest setting!
And that was the day in photos! I’m hoping now that i manage to get my hands on some content by the end of tomorrow and we can begin the programming for real.
A big thanks to Steve from adequately-average.com for the mirror on his blog. To those who are reading this there, Welcome to the chaos!
More news from the big show: the producers were in today finalising the artwork. Which left me time to finalise the template for the show. In order to construct a multi-screen event like this there’s a certain amount of maths involved. If you map the the pixels properly when you start out then everything should fall into place when you’re on site distorting it in to fit the set.
The contents of my brain smeared across paper.
Later this afternoon the remaining servers turned up on the truck from Paris so it was time to set them up, prep them and configure all the in and outs. Typical ETC shows are 4 servers which is what our programming suite is set up for. With 16 screens i’ve had to be creative with monitor placement.
When that socially inept friend asks if you want to ‘make a fort’ say no.
I’m hoping the programming may begin tomorrow!
Inspired by the very brilliant Eurovision blog (sorry can’t find a link at the moment) I’m going to start a series of posts on a project that I’ll be taking on this week. Over the course of the next 13 days I will be joining a large team of designers, technicians, programmers and managers putting on a very large scale event. For political reasons i won’t be divulging the event to begin with but as the show rolls on it will become more acceptable to give out more details.
The ETC offering will be 22 Christie Roadster S+ 20k projectors, nearly a kilometer and a half of DVI Fibre signal distribution and an unpresidented 16 Onlyview Servers (the previous biggest show used 8). These will compliment a large pile of O-Lite, an 18 camera shoot and an impressive pile of staging and lighting (sorry guys, they’re not technologies i understand)
I’ll be telling the story as it unfolds from our end.
8 Servers set up for the onstage projection. Another 2 still to be configured for the LED and 6 for the offstage projection.
The 8 Servers in all their glory, 10 more will get delivered tomorrow!
I’ll be heading up the programming on this event, and it’s going to be a whirlwind of a couple of weeks but i will endevor to keep this updated with the progress and the photos!