This busy period had been approaching since mid last year when Rich told me that the Philhamonia/Rite digital and multiple bookings for various projects practically back to back in a very short period of time. The projects are Universe of sound and re-rite, 2 of the Philharmoinas sucessful video instalations consiting of many projectors and LED tv screens playing back synchronised recorded footage of the orchestra so visitors to the installation can find themselves inside the orchestra via the medium of sound and video. Both projects Universe of sound and Re-rite are similar on the surface but both required their own set of planning and logistics for each one of the venues they were touring to. In addition to this, there were two concurrent bookings for Re-Rite which meant a second entire system needed to be built to fulfil this! The diary went something like this..
Canterbury Christ church install of universe of sound.
Steve, John, Rich, Bob, Graham, Bea, Greg, Ash, Adam, Matt & Myself
Halfway through the install Bob, Graham, Steve, Bea, Ash go to Salzberg to begin the install of re-rite. The rest of us stay on and completer the install and open onetime on press night.
Rich flys to Salzberg to oversee the install and Myself/Iain/Richard fly to Hamburg to begin the install of Re-rite hamburg. After 1 day in Hamburg marking up the site Bob and Graham join us to carry on the install and then later we wee joined by Dicky and John.
Rich fly out to Hamburg just before opening to oversee things and then we have 2 press nights.
At this point there are 3 of the Philharmonias video installations up and running in Canterbury/Salzberg & Hamburg. After a short break of a few days Steve, Rich go to Canterbury and meet Amy, Greg, John and the others to take out the instalation of UOS Canterbury. A couple of days later we (Rich, Steve, John, Bea, Bob, Graham and myself) are all back together in Birmingham to begin the install of Universe of Sound Birmingham! Currently where are well ontrack with the install and all is looking really good, at this point Bob, Graham and Ash are taking out the install of Re-Rite Salzberg and the past month feels like quite an amazing blur of activity. Re-rite Salzber/Hamburg, & UOS received a great reception and I’m hoping the people of Birmingham like it just as much when we open to the public on Saturday. Were installing it in Birmingham’s old municipal bank building which has remained closed for the past 15 years and is quite a cool building. Heres a quick photo recap of the past month!
Rigger Rich at work beginning on the truss work at Canterbury Christ church.
The lifting of the Dome at UOS Canterbury
A Sharpie birthday message to Marina in the office from us after enjoying some very nice Belgium beer in Canterbury!
Just one of the MANY marketing posters for Re-rite Hamburg, no pressure! In the background is the Elbphilharmonie building in where we were installing the gig.
Men not at work the bridge to work was up to let boats through so we were just a little late!
The beginnings of partitioning the car park where we were installing the projections, lots and lots of acro-props.
Beginning the projection lineup in “The Helix” we were mapping the spiral ramp which the cars climb to access the various levels of the car-park. With some tricky rigging and projector positioning we managed to hit all surfaces with the projection raster.
Using catalyst to visualise the mapping and draw the mask areas and render templates.
A little bit of self promotion for people on site visits to the Elbphilharmonie!
Mapping the orchestra onto the windscreen of a pretty expensive BMW!
The start of UOS Birmingham with John taking the lead with the clipboard!
Utilising the old post room to store kit, there was lots of random old stuff left in the building, apart from the army men, they came from Canterbury
Later in the week after getting ahead of the game with the install we soft edge blended 3 of the projectors on the UOS dome using Catalyst and had a movie night, watching Run Lola Run. Watching a bank robary whilst sat inside a bank was quite fun!
Updates to follow soon!