I started writing this blog post about 4 weeks ago, at that point i had found a load of images, uploaded them and was ready to put some text to the images. Now its 4 weeks later, possibly 5 and I’m finally putting words down. Its pretty interesting looking back at the images as since most of these jobs have gone live theres a whole new story on things.
Below is a En-Net14 kit manufactured by Karl after chat with Luke Halls earlier this year, basically I was working with Luke and he wanted an elegant way to get encoder data into d3 to track screen and scenery for projecting on. I then had a chat with Karl who said that he could produce such a thing, and here we are its a product which takes an SSI encoder signal and converts it to a 32bit artnet packet for mechanically tracking screens in d3.
For testing and playing with the unit i tested it also with vvvv, creating a small patch to visualise the movement and display the count, with a 34 bit art-net packet you get a range of 4billion counts which is more than enough for most applications! The packet comes in as 4 art-net channels and is converted to an integer. for a value of Zero this is how the packet would look Ch1 000, Ch2 000, Ch3 000, Ch4 000, easy. for a value of 255 this is how it would look. Ch1 000, Ch2 000, Ch3 000, Ch4 255, and for a value of 256 it would look like this: Ch1 000, Ch2 000, Ch3 001, Ch4 000, get it? In d3 it has an inbuilt function to convert it to an interior so you don’t really need to understand but its useful to know.
Currently we have a couple of these units in Copenhagen on an opera tracking some huge pieces of set which are projected onto.
So above is a Kef speaker in a box, a 12v amplifier and a Brightsign media player, this was for a job at Stage one for and install for Channel. The brief changed quite allot during the time we were trying to put together and build what was expected, in the end quite bit of this was cut.
These are my trusty Bose headphones, sie2i to be exact, i really like a good listening experience and these are excellent, so you can imagine my shock when I couldn’t find them, only to discover i had left them in my jacket pocket when I put it in the wising machine! I was gutted and convinced that they wouldn’t work, BUT THEY DID, and the sound was still the same, I COULD NTO BELIEVE IT!! All i can thing is that all the components are plastic coated and sealed, I love them even more.
In early September i did a little gig with Impact Production Services. I knew there we some rigging of LED screen required and I had to be at wembley the evening before and meet Matt in the foyer of the hotel at 04:00 in the morning. Apart from that i didnf know much more, Turns out we had to put a load of LED screen up in a tunnel for a 10k run in which the runners ran through a section and it displayed the “Run to the beat” logo, pulsing through. It was a pretty straight forward gig, long hours but nice to be working with Matt and meet some more of the impact guys,
So, the weekend of working at wembley was a bit of a crazy schedule, on the Saturday i got the 16:30 train to London and was at wembley Ibis for arround 20:30. I had some food, done some work for Durham Lumiare and was in bed for around 23:00. I was then up again at 03:30 to meet Matt in the lobby for 04:00. We went to the van and then drove to site and set up the LED. We had to be on standby and then stripped it out and there finished by 14:00. I then went and found a hirer which was dropped off for me and proceed to drive to southampton where i was to help with the automation install for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I got to southampton at 17:00 and was in the theatre for 18:00. We installed the kit and got it tested and were done by 22:30, after a couple of beers I went to bed. The following day, we spent half a day in the theatre, testing and making sure the kit worked and then I was driving back north to Newcastle. I dropped the car with Europe car Newcastle and then the following day i was driving back to stage one in my own car this time! It was a crazy but productive few days.
What you see here is a 72″ tv mounted in a steel-deck size frame with the idea that this will be a circular screen set into he floor. This was another Channel R&D idea which we realised. It actually looked really effective but unfortunately it was cut, we did have some fun making a digital fishpond in the workshop which kept Jam entertained for a short while.
Jam fish whispering and casually hanging out with Neville the Gnome.
When I first put these photos on the blog I couldn’t really say what they were but n that so much time has passed and the project is live i can tell you exactly what it is! Above is the inside of a prototype automated perfume tank, again, for the same never ending Channel job. We had to figure a way to automate these prop perfume tanks so that the lids open and closed along with triggering smoke to simulate steam and trigger a sound file locally in the tank. Wh had very little space to put the electronic control so there was a lot of trial and error fitting of stuff and quite a bit gaff tape!
Im not sure how long the current link to the site will exist for but for anyone who’s interested if you google “mademoiselle prive” that will at-least show some of the gig.
In the middle of all of this Ive been in many email conversations with my work colleague and good friend Nick about this now happening gig. Above is a d3 screenshot of my setup for figuring screen and projector positions for this current gig. We’ve been through so many different screen configurations and projector positions and d3 has been such a great too for working these out quickly. I did have to create an accurate 3d model of Saddlers Wells from the cad plans which was a good exercise.
Finally, meet David Bowie!!