Once again it has been another incredibly busy hectic days since last posting my nonsense on here, so, from last monday…….
Another early start on monday travelling down to York for a couple of days work at SOCS, Jo bough a new which I borrowed, so now in the workshop we have Miami Vice, Edel Vice, Fried Vice, and the new addition below. The comedy doesn’t get much better than this…….
Jo’s New workshop paraphernalia “Rachel Vice”
After 3 days at SOCS part working on a multitude of projects and having a bit of a challenge with some electronics (still in the pipeline) it was time for the last Bluebeard show of the year. Thursday was the day of travel, and after a busy morning sorting stuff and a quick 5k Row (21.50mins) at the gym, I picked up Steve from the Sage and headed over to the airport to catch out flight to Dusseldorf, the journey was pretty painless, we met the rest of the Bluebeard team at the airport and then had a 2’ish hour bus journey to Dortmund, finally after checking in we all met up and headed out for some food at local food tavern bar kind of place. This was my first time in Germany (not just passing through) and liked the crispness of the air in November, it felt allot fresher than the UK. I cant remember the name of the place we ate at but it had the most bizarre decor, such as a freaky looking doll with a tiny “cock whistle” next to it right beside our table. This ment that the place was now placed much higher in our estimations!
What better decorations to have!
After some good food and a few drinkies we all headed back to the hotel ready to begin the setup for Bluebeard, we had an entire day to begin the setup, but the width of the stage was allot smaller and our projection angles were much more severe then before so there was allot of figuring out to be done. We got in the venue around 09.00 on the friday, checked out our positions angles and such and proceeded to get the kit in and ready. The venue was Dortmund Konzerthaus which is quite a pretty place with a VERY high tech box where we would spend most of our time!
This was our narrow stage with the acoustic reflectors in.
The local crew from the venue helped us get our heavy HD20 Barco projectors into the box as well as the multitude of cases containing video geekery! Because we had 4 projectors in such a small place the venue had installed extra air-conditioning which involved getting a crane to hoist an air con unit onto the roof of the venue to help dissipate the amount of heat the projectors generated. Outside on the roof of the tech box was actually quite nice during the day where we could pop out and get some fresh air on breaks!
Marina Laura & Nikin reliving titanic on the roof of the Konzerthaus
All of the working time on friday consisted of pre planning how to lineup the projectors and setting up the kit prior to the Deadline boys coming in and putting the set up, we knocked off around 16.00/17.00 to go back tot he hotel for an early night, Steve started work at 22.00 the same night and Nickin & myself started at 04.00 the following morning. I decided to try and film all of the days proceedings on my iphone starting right at, 2 things came of this, either (a) we mess around allot and are continually taking the piss out of each other, or (b) i am very good at capturing the silliest moments on camera, probably a bit of both. If you know the password you can view “Bluebeard Cake & Potato” on Vimeo, or below.
Some Possibly needed explanations…….
Bluebeard > The Show
Cake > I like cake and have a funny accent
Potato > Nikin’s Heritage
Barco (Holmes) Ninja > No comment needed, fun fun funny!
Richard > Was just tired
Nick > Reached cabin fever for a moment
Marina > Thank you for putting up with us & carrying Richards bags
http://vimeo.com/32236577
The day went like most other Bluebeard days in the way that somehow time seemed to get sucked up very quickly doing many small important tasks to make up the bigger technical picture. This lineup was damn hard, we had 2 pairs of side by side HD20 projectors, pointing from a crazy steep angle at a set which the Deadline guys did a great job of squeezing onto the narrow stage. This day brought up new challenges which were expected but difficult to fully prepare until we were thee with all the kit trying to make a projected image fit the surfaces. There was more redrawing of masks this time after discovering that the severe beam angle produced more distortion when rotating our masks to track the video to the set. With more keystone tweaking more projection lineups tweaks , fine tuning the sail moves and video tracking the over the period of the day we we on time with the last Bluebeard show of the year. With a chance to get out of the venue we grabbed some food, prior to this the floor was moving when standing still due to lack of food and sleep depravation, we were back in the venue within the hour and ready for the final show of the year. Everything seemed to go without a hitch, Laura, once again did a stirling job of show calling and before we knew it we were at the end of the piece with lots of applause and standing ovations from the audience. Once the audience had left we began to strip down all the kit to pack away, Nickin found a present from David our LD which pretty much sums up all our level of humour, se photo below.
Davids end of tour present to Nickin
Post gig, post packing down, post walking back to the hotel, we had some drinks, and then we had some green tea vodka, and then we had some more drinks, some of us go louder as we drank more, one of us may have shouted “Scarf”, “SCArfff”, ‘SCARF!!!!!” repeatedly across the bar to some youngster waring a scarf at a volume level not appropriate for that time of night . It was a great end, with long days & fun times with fun people, I’m pretty sure thats only Nicks finger in the photo below.
Sunday, 13 November 2011 02:24 Dortmund, Germany
L2R: Nickin(Potato) , Nick (Bagal) , Myself (Cake) , Steve (BarcoNinja)