Archive for December 4th, 2011

XL Video UK supplied specialist LED and IMAG projection screens plus control to the 2011 MTV European Music Awards, staged at Belfast Odyssey Arena, Northern Ireland, and broadcast live to 45 countries worldwide.

The UK’s leading live music video production specialist has been involved with the glamour and buzz of this high profile event for several years, and XL’s Chris Saunders was project managing for the third year running.
The show included a dynamic, star studded line up of artists performing live, including Lady GaGa, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Jesse J, Justin Bieber, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Selina Gomez, who was also hosting.
Technical challenges included fitting an ambitious and visually spectacular stage set designed by Es Devlin – complete with integrated screens – into the venue. Also the XL team had to be flexible enough to accommodate specific requests from some artists late on as their individual performances evolved during the rehearsal period in the preceding week.
Saunders worked closely with Devlin, production manager Margaret Mouzakitis, TV director Russell Thomas and media creators Hello Charlie, who produced all the show’s bespoke video content and graphics.
The large (16 tiles wide, 15 high) LED screen at the back of the main stage was made up from XL’s Pixled F15 modules. Flanking the stage left and right were two IMAG screens of Pixled F11, both 26 tiles wide and 14 high, configured in slightly different shapes to add quirkiness.
In the ‘Glamour Pit’ presentation area at the opposite end of the arena to the stage, there were a further 14 x 8 modules of F15 mounted behind the presenters. These were used for providing generic block colours and funky ambient footage as well as for winner looks, logo sequences, etc.
All the screens were managed on site by Klass Eecloo from XL Ghent, Belgium.
Flown from the roof at the back of the arena were two delay projection screens, each fed by a single Barco FLM machine with another running as hot backup. These were fed with the same IMAG images as the two screens either side of stage.
XL supplied a Barco Encore screen management system, which was run by Jonathon Bond with a separate output to each screen. The XL crew received a sub-cut of the broadcast TX, and Chris Saunders co-ordinated outputting this onto the four IMAG screens and sending the assorted playback media to all six screens at the relevant times.
XL also supplied Lady GaGa with a Barco FLM 22K for projecting content onto her moon set piece, which had to be arranged at the last minute, together with a Catalyst media server on which to store her moon surface content, which looked highly effective.
The XL team was on site for a week during the build. Chris Saunders comments, “It was great to be involved with another MTV EMAs. Each year the show evolves and grows and the technical production standards are consistently high. Es’s set was inventive and interesting as always, and our long term experience of how the event develops as a live show concept and what’s required helps all things flow in a tight timescale”.

For more press info on XL Video UK, please contact Louise Stickland on +44 (0)1865 202679 or +44 (0)7831 329888 or Email ‘louise@loosplat.com’. To contact XL Video UK direct, call +44 (0)1442 849400 or check www.xlvideo.tv

London, UK based creative lighting and event design practice Renegade designed all the technical production and co-ordinated equipment supply – including lighting, video and visuals, set and scenic elements plus sound – for the high profile SHINE 2011 Benefit Dinner.

This was staged at Old Billingsgate Market, one of London’s premium event venues. The evening featured a gala dinner for 500 guests, complete with charity auction, rounded off by an amazing performance by 1970’s African/American disco/rhythm/R&B superstars Chic – headed by guitarist Nile Rogers (also a highly acclaimed music producer). They romped through their greatest hits including ‘Le Freak’, ‘Good Times’ and other anthems with great panache!
The event raised money for the charity, which supports additional educational initiatives encouraging children and young people to raise their achievement levels.
Renegade has worked closely with SHINE for the last 8 years, producing all their live events. Each year for this special event, Renegade’s Nick Gray comes up with a fresh and inventive visual theme for the evening.
The 2011 SHINE Benefit Dinner was project managed for Renegade by Mike Fidler working with Nick Gray and Andy Cobb from Sculptivate who collaborated with Gray on the overall concept and co-ordinated the set and stage build.
The venue was divided into a two room format. Gray’s lighting design for the dinner section on the west side, created a cozy and intimate feel within the proto industrial chic of the space. Renegade brought in drapes specialists Blackout to clad the walls, but leaving the impressive arches running down the sides of the room exposed and ripe for architectural highlighting.
To ensure the dinner setting had a real vibe and atmosphere, Gray suspended five pre-wired vintage lightbulbs – of varying large sizes and wattages – over each table, all with striking filaments, distinctive copper fabric cables and individual control. This brought a really magical illuminative touch to the room.
A 6mm high resolution LED wall was built in the middle of the dining room to show constantly updated results of the progress of the auction.
Six trusses were installed above the dining room, rigged with VARI*LITE V*L2500 Wash and Martin Professional MAC 700 Profile moving lights, which were used to skim the walls, floor and tables. The room columns and arches were up-lit with battery powered wireless LED units.
The band stage room (on the east side) also doubled as the reception for when guests arrived – transformed from one to the other by the production team in lightening quick time as guests enjoyed their dinner.
Integral to Gray’s design were eight panels of white gauze hung above the stage, used for projection surfaces, fed with custom-created 1970’s disco-tasic visuals and animation material for the band – which went down a storm! The projections were fed – via a Catalyst media server – to two 20K machines positioned on balcony level, supplied by XL Video.
A series of staggered drop bars from the trusses flown above the stage were positioned between the scrims, populated with 12 Martin MAC Auras, six Atomic strobes and 12 x 2-lite Moles attached to their ends, giving the stage a quirky look. Above, on the trusses themselves were V*L 2500 Spots and Clay Paky Alpha Wash 700 moving lights.
An audience truss was rigged down the length of the room, and hung with Martin MAC 2Ks and Clay Paky Halo fixtures above the dancefloor area.
The two long corner bars in the room each had a line of vintage bulbs hung above, on barrels suspended below the trussing,and the room pillars were again picked out by LED up-lighters which were supplied by Shok London.
All the stage lighting was supplied by White Light and operated by Trent O’Connor using a grandMA light and a Chamsys MagicQ consoles. Renegade crew chief Chris Fyfe co-ordinated the 7 lighting crew over two days of get in and rehearsals.
Audio was supplied by Andrew Frengley of Matrix 9, and Blackout also supplied and did all the rigging.
The challenges, relates Gray, were making the space warm and comfortable for the dinner – in a supper club style – and also the tight get in schedule as all the production was brought in specifically for the occasion. He comments, “It was a real pleasure to work on this event again. We had a great team that worked fabulously together on all the creative and production elements, with SHINE putting a lot of trust in us to deliver a top class memorable event that was a hugely successful fundraiser”.

For more press information on Renegade, please call Louise Stickland on +44 7831 329888 or +44 1865 202679 or EMail : louise@loosplat.com. To contact Renegade direct, please call Nick Gray on +44 7795 095427 or check www.renegadedesign.co.uk.

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Ross Ashton and The Projection Studio’s ground-breaking “Crown of Light” projected artwork on Durham Cathedral in the UK – created for the 2009 Lumière – is back by popular demand for this year’s 4 day festival of light event, which is curated and produced by Artichoke for Durham City Council.

Lumière 2011 featured the work of dozens of artists, lighting designers and community groups in 35 installations, bringing a “sparkle of magic” to the beautiful medieval city.
Says Ashton, “It’s a real testament to the piece and very flattering to be asked back with the same show. It’s also extremely rare for the same creation to be requested again in its entirety, offering those who enjoyed the experience the first time around the chance to do so again, a new audience the opportunity to see it for the first time plus real value for the producers”.
“Crown of Light” covered the entire North fascia of the Cathedral including all sides of the three towers, and was the festival’s largest installation.
Durham Cathedral dates back to 1093 and is regarded as one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in the country. It is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site along with nearby Durham Castle which faces it across Palace Green.
Ashton created the projection show’s storyboard after an initial brief from Artichoke’s Helen Marriage and Nicky Webb. He took ideas related to its narrative and direction and then added and developed his own input.
The story captured the history of the Cathedral including the Lindisfarne Gospels, noted for their amazing accompanying imagery and spectacular Celtic calligraphy. These were originated by the Lindisfarne Monks and stored in Durham Cathedral for many years, along with the bones of St Cuthbert which still reside there. Ashton’s show also explored the building as an architectural space and its relationship with and historical significance to the City.
Ashton and Paul Chatfield evolved the PIGI projection images in collaboration with musical director Robert Ziegler, who compiled a soundscape for the 16 minute show. Ashton sourced images from the British Library and also conducted a photo shoot at the Cathedral to record all the architectural and structural elements he wanted to incorporate into the show.
The projection system comprised 7 x PIGI 6KW machines with double rotating scrollers, positioned at various distances around the Cathedral – the longest throw distance was 150 metres and the shortest just 20 metres. This was carefully calculated to eliminate any shadowing from the plethora of trees dotted around the Cathedral Gardens – and was also a primary creative and technical challenge of the project.
The seven projectors – supplied by White Light – were in six different locations, fitted with five different types of lens, ranging from a 10cm wide angle lens to an 85 cm long throw lens. Images from each individual machine enveloped a separate zone of the Cathedral’s architecture in colorful, bold, detailed imagery.
The PIGI film scrolls were about 15 metres in length, for which the PIGI artwork assembled and pre-corrected for perspective and keystoning in Photoshop.
The show was programmed into E/T/C’s PC-based OnlyCue controller and operated by Karen Monid. It featured some fabulously smooth movement dissolves, transitions and other subtleties for which the OnlyCue / PIGI combination is renowned. Monid is also an expert in optimising this control system.
Projection Studio’s Steve Larkins dealt with all the project logistics, with Cy Doddimead and Michael Barry tech’ing the projectors, which were all housed in custom weatherized hides for the duration.
This show ran eight times each night and proved another massive success, helping to draw over 100,000 into the city to enjoy this and all the other works.

For more press info on The Projection Studio, please contact Louise Stickland on +44 (0)1865 202679/+44 (0)7831 329888 or Email louise@loosplat.com. To contact The Projection Studio direct, please call +44 20 8293 4270.