Here we are, another couple of months between posts and currently sat in my hotel room in Macau determined to complete this post/rundown in maybe the next hour. Last time I posted I was Moscow working on the world cup for Whitelight. Now I’m working on a new show going in to Studio city, Macau, touted as the most electrifying stunt show ever. I cant say much about that because I’m under NDA which seems to be the case with most of the jobs I’m looking after these days.
Right now I’m scanning through my calendar and photos to put together this post listening to max cooper whom I’ve been listening to quite allot recently. Here’s a link below, get your ears around this, it’s lovely.
So, here’s a breakdown of busyness since last posting in June.
- Starlight express d3 project setup
- D35 Disney on ice with TheHive
- CT Projection mapping for Electric Audi Launch
- Paris motor-show with Pixway
- Got the keys to my new flat
- Projection Mapping the Empress Ballroom
- Pixway Open-day
- Projection mapping the Louvre Abu Dhabi
I think it was around April when i first got the email form Duncan asking if i could do the d3 project setup for a big project he was doing in Bochum, Germany. This was for a refurb of starlight express & the project setup spec involved taking the dirty meshed scan data and reconstructing it with sensible UV’s and streamline it for disguise.
It was a pretty in depth setup and allot of cleaning up was required, above is a later version of my cinema project much tidier than the first iteration and below is an early render I sent to the team to make sure we were all on the same page with what was to be projected on.
The bridge aspect started out to what i thought was a simple prop, but as the project evolved I made updates requested by Emily to ass functionality into the virtual bridge so it was rigged and parented like the actual moving all singing dancing bridge onsite. This meant that the all of the physical moves could be matched in the virtual world to allow tracking projection on the set
A more detailed overview is on the disguise website here: Starlight Express Bochum
Shortly after getting back from the Moscow job i was on a plane with Rich working for The Hive to Orlando to help put together the video for D35 which was the internal name for the Feld Disney on ice show : Mickeys Search Party
On the show we were projecting on to the ice floor and the scenic rear wall with 12 beamers all together Rich was in charge of programming and I was there to assist putting together Notch blocks and conform the real-time effects to work with the incoming Blacktrax tracking data. I think there were 50 performers altogether each tracked with BT and Sam was using the tracking data to light each performer with lighting specials. In the d3 side of things we were only taking tracking data for individual performers and other scenic elements such as projecting water ripples behind the boat as it came onstage.
Below is a basic breakdown of the process in creating projected bubbles which eminated and grew from Sebastian the lobster in the Little Mermaid scene. In cinema i created a double skinned sphere, textured it and lit it to give a shiny bubble effect. I then took it into Photoshop and tidied it up and gave it alpha. I then brought it into Notch and made a basic particle system turning the amount of particles right down to 64 and tweak the emission rate. I had a pre-made bin with the correct parameters exposed for a camera in the scene and control handles for the particles which I added for control to the particle system. Further bringing this into d3 I hooked up the correct BT beacons and with some parameters exposed like brightens, contrast, emission rate etc for the bubble we had projected bubbles emitting , growing and popping behind Sebastian as he skated around the stage.
Rich was incredibly busy on the job, we initially though tit was going to be a gentle first week starting and getting things ready for the intense rehearsals but from the first day we were busy. Rich did an outstanding job conforming and cutting together much original Disney content for most of the scenes with constant updates and changes required form the director. Even though it was mega busy with programmignand updates we still managed to find fun by flying our AcroBee micro drone around the arena after we got all our tasks ticked off the list.
Another really nice Notch moment in the show was the finale where we were tracking the performer who was playing Elsa out of Frozen and I created a Notch effect so we could generate a “ice flourish” on cue at various parts though out the performance.
This was a challenging brief and after a few days work making good use of the spline emitter and doing fine adjustments of the particle parameters w had a really nice looking effect/
This is just a snippet of many effects and hard work that went in to the show, we were working closely with Sam who is LD for the show, and what a genuinely lovely chap. During the day before we left the rehearsal venue and went to see the show go into Orlando, Sam took us out in his Cessna to StPetersberg for lunch which was so fun.
It was such an incredible view flying out on Bradenton and across the sea to StPetersberg, what an awesome day.
I arrived back in the UK and eventually Newcastle on the 9th September where there was allot of catch up to do with friends. After sorting out all my washing and crap and visiting my parents on the Sunday I went out for a few beers with James on the Monday night and then Dan joined us later on in Tilleys. I think it was around 21:00 when i got a message from Manuel from Pixway to ask if i was available for a job in Sanfran for CT flying out in the morning. Within the course of 15 minutes i had had an email conversation with Matt from CT and a brief chat and i was booked on the 10:40 flight Newcastle to London then London to San Francisco.
It was a very last minute call for me as the original operator became sick and had to go to hospital. I didn’t think i would know anyone else on the job but when I was waiting outside the hotel for Ben from CT I turned around and saw Thomas, a good friend and operator which was nice surprise.
We split up and i was looking after lineup overnight with the projection team, it was the first time I met any of the CT Vegas guys and everyone was super friendly, it was a really nice team to work with. We had 2 nights for lineup which consisted of 36 30K projectors covering 2 sides of an old Ford assembly plant on the shore of Berkley, ironically of the launch of the new Audi e-tron.
It was also nice to finally meet JT from Silent Partner Studios on this gig, we had chatted over email before but never met so i t was a nice surprise to be working on the same job.
Below is a video of the show, the excellent drone show and projection part is from the start to 3 minutes in.
I was not long back from San Francisco and i was travelling again, this far by train and only down the road to Paris to help Pixway on the Paris motor-show.
Previous to the Paris show we had done Geneva and Beijing with Pixway for Renault. This by far was the biggest with a 19k wide LED screen and d3 controlling hundreds of lighting fixtures and LED tape.
I in the roof of the exhibition stand we were controlling the pixel batons on over 150 robot arms and we were synced to time-code from Kuesi’s Medialon which was also controlling sound and lighting. It was a massive system, I programmed the press launch and the public loops, it was a seam less show and we were pushing a lot of Animation content, the whole thing looked so crisp.
It was pretty cosy in the control room when there was more than 3 of us at video control. Below is a iPhone panorama of the gig, the stand was so big it was impossible to fit the whole thing in a standard picture.
Returning from Paris i was in London for a few days getting training on Omnical, disguised new camera based projection calibration system which has been working pretty well after optimising the system on this current job. I was also attending the disguise come together annual event where people form the disguise community get together and basically get drunk. It was nice to see people I haven’t seen in quite a while, but also see people away from work. Look at these drunkards :).
After 5 years of not living anywhere as I am working away in different places, and also being eternally grateful to friends who have let me stay at their houses when i haven’t been working for a few days I finally bought a flat. I started the process in June and finally 4 months later I got the keys, its nice to have a space again and a pad to invite friends and family around to for food/drinks.
Also, its so cool to walk down the street and be right on the Newcastle Quayside, no matter how many times I see the Gateshead millennium bridge tilt its always impressive to see the engineering in action.
So after being in the flat for only a few days I was out off again on another job this time working with Dan, Dave, Harry, and Mike. We were projection mapping onto the roof and walls of the Empress ballroom in Blackpool as part of the Light Odyssey festival. There were various artists who had created projection work and we had some excellent students from Guildhall who were helping with the physical install and showcasing 2 pieces of animation. I had been teaching for a day at Guildhall the workflow of cinema 4d and d3, advanced projection mapping techniques and was impressed with the students there. Dan and Dave done an incredible job of the planning which made it a pretty smooth install and lineup. I’ve just came across this excellent video by one of the artists Ruth Taylor who contributed to the festival.
Following on from Blackpool i had a couple of days in Newcastle and I was flying to Berlin to help out withe the Pixway open house showcasing disguise, Notch, Stype, Blacktrax, Omnical, the new VX4 media server and video and entertainment geeky’ness
Its always really cool working with the Pixway guys, everyone works had and has lots of fun at the same time. Peter Jamie and Joe, were also over from d3 but some of the equipment wasn’t as it was stuck in customs. So for the Omnical demo Paul ent out to craft shop and brought back some stuff for us to projection map onto to demo the Omnical system. I modelled and UV’d the props and made some content and then Jame set to work bringing it together in d3 to make a pretty cool last minute Omnical demo, it looked really neat.
Not only did we have Omnical to demo but there was also the Blacktrax and Notch combination to generate real-time tracking content on led and projection.
After a busy few days and for i flew back to Newcastle, Paul took us to Fransico and myself to the highly recommended Princess Cheesecake shop in Berlin to put on a couple of pounds, it was delicious!
I landed back in Newcastle around 19:00 on the Friday and then the following morning around 11:00 I was off away again, this time to Abu Dhabi for PRG Gearhouse. This was a last minute job where we were projecting in the Louvre Abu Dhabi for the 15th Birthday of Etihad airways and also th elaunch of the new Etihad scarf
It was a super short job, basically one night of lineup overnight, and then the following day was show-day. It was nice to see Matthew again who i worked with last year in Turkmenistan and also great to meet some d3 operators from Asia, Malcolm and Laurence
The surfaces were straight just big flats, but a little challenging 2×2 & 3×1 projection layout. I marked the centre points of the surfaces tog give us a fighting chance and together with the projectionists we got a sweet lineup in a very short space of time.
And that is it, a pretty good roundup I think and I’ve tried my best to keep on top of my grammar and auto-correct though I think a few spellings may have slipped though the net. If your reading this and I’ve missed off crediting someone please drop me an email and let me know. In the meantime, here’s a face I found I the end of a LED light.
