Here we are the third month into 2024 and it feels like this weeks have passed by so quickly, I was going to start updating this in January but as so often these I’m not so sure where the time has gone so here we are at March 15th.
For the past 2 years I’ve assisted OgleHog/Chris Saunders with a big event in the middle east called the Joy Awards which is basically the middle east’s Film and TV awards show hosted in Riyadh.
Below is a breakdown of the first one we did back in 2022, produced by Done and Dusted with set design by Stufish
Stage screens breakdown in c4d
Tubes projection analysing with my c4d projector plugin
Tech’ing onsite
Its evolved in the past 3 years since January 2022 where we were a team of 4 of us, Dan Gray, Toby Vogel myself and supported by Creative Technology’s Carlos Aguilar. That first show was a bit “wild west” there was so much going on with many led surfaces and also projection, there was so may cues to program and the show running order and content was changing constantly. We all worked hard for our money on that gig, it was great teamwork and we pulled of a totally clean show.
2022 show opening shot with projection on gauze & tubes plus loads of led
Fast forward to November 2023 and Chris called to see if I was up for doing it again and begin the video programming planning stages. There were much fewer LED surfaces this time but exponentially more projection gags with projection for almost every act and basically wherever else it could be squeezed in.
Below is a screengrab from my cinema working, showing the extent of the set which was beign built to augment the auditorium.
Thus years design incorporated more auditorium dressing than previous years which all was to be projected on. Over the next few weeks based on the Rhino3d from Stufish I came up with a projection design for the auditorium with some great input form Dan as he was ultimately lining this thing up onsite.
Mapping Matter early projection study
The other projection elements were very much influx with in the whole run up so prior to the equipment shipping date we decided to spec a few more projectors than we needed and some extra lens options. This meant we had enough kit to make stuff work on the constantly changing landscape of the Joy Awards 2024. Doing something like this in the UK would be much more straight forward as if you were short of kit, then its relatively easy to get extra kit sent to the gig, this is totally not the case in Riyadh at the moment.
Chris Harry & Ben pondering the days events
On the 7th January a team of us flew out to Riyadh for the setup at Riyadh BLVD (Boulevard) which is a bit of a cross between a theme park and a shopping mall, its pretty much the only theatre space I know in Riyadh. Pete Tilling was out a few days earlier to receive the kit and get the projectors the basic locations and was nice to see his smiling face when we arrived.
Just before getting told off for siting on the sculpture
The following few days went really quickly with the guys from QED getting the signal in, rigging and pointing the projectors. Dan and Harry did a lovely job of the server cabin which was a super tidy install. In there programming cabin there was 4 of us on the buttons, Dan Gray, Ed Joynson, Adam Power and myself. Ed and Dan eventually ended up on the late shift lining up the projection in that lovely time of evening when there is no-one else there.
The “fins” being installed
Dan Ed & Pete
Dan lining up and sorting blends
This year, I brought my laser scanner out after a bit of trouble last year where the physical set was vastly different from the 3d design, which meant Dan spent a lot of time moving 3d elements and warping in d3 to make it fit. So first thing this year once the auditorium set resting was in and complete, Dan took the Faro s70 and scanned it to create an as built point cloud, and then use that to modify the existing model to the real world setup.
With the advantage of the scan data we managed to get the map the roof pretty accurately with some sever projection angles too, it actually looked better than I was expecting with the focal distances we were covering.
This was my programming setup, Dan Hall did some fantastic companion work patching my Stream Deck Plus to the Behringer rack mixer so I could switch timecode from local source to program source and also control the incoming program audio feed with simple button pushes.
It was great to have a bigger team this year with all of the onsite challenges we had to deal with, everyone was so capable and a Joy (excuse the pun)to work with.
I was looking for images of the actual event but I didn’t take any of it complete. The final show went well and was also super long (almost 5 hours) and it was another fun challenge following along as 98% of the show was in Arabic.
Lets see if were back together for another adventure next year.
THE TEAM
Lead Progammer : Me
Programmer : Adam Power
Programmer/Lineup : Dan Gray
Programmer/Lineup : Ed Joynson
Technical glue for video : Pete Tilling
Screens Production : Chris Saunders
QED Team :
Harry Ricardo
Dan hall
Paul Morland
Ben Shepard
Toby McManus
Alex Peggington
Steve Hardcastle
Parting our ways returning home at LHR