No sooner had I been back from Berlin (11th August) I was off away again to Spain for the install of Priscilla Queen of the desert in a theatre in Madrid. It was all VERY last minute, I hadn’t done the install for 2 years as my good frond Iain had been looking after it so we had literally one day for Iain to pass over all the info form the past 2 installs, lots on memory keys but also sobs very important notes in notepads!
I don’t actually live anywhere at the moment as I spend most of the time, not quite on the road but in various locations around the UK/Europe so when I’m in Newcastle which I call my base, my best mate James has a spare room for me and i generally buy the beer which works out well. Whilst packing for Madrid, one of James’s cats, Rosie decided to make a nest in my case and took quite a bit of persuading to get out!
I Landed in Madrid and finally got to the theatre midday on the 13th August and it was nice to see familiar friends whom many I hadn’t seen since Sochi. Most of us had installed this before which was useful because its a bit of a task with so many bits to put together mechanical and electrical.
Gethyn, Davide, Ian, Simon, Smithy
For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about there when I say Priscilla here is a basic explanation. Priscilla Queen of the desert the musical is made on the film of the same name about 3 drag queens who drive across Australia to Ayres Rock. Priscilla is the name of the bus they drive around in and for the stage show the bus is an incredibly complex piece of stage equipment. The bus can be remotely driven around the stage in any direction because of the 4 wheels can pivot independently an be turned in any 360 degree direction. Ontop of that the bus has 3 lifts inside which raise performers onto he roof and the entrée side of the bus opens like a massive garage door. Thats the mechanical part and now for the electrical! The bus is clad in 40,000 LED’s which can display low resolution video on all sides along with may theatrical lighting fixtures hidden inside the bus to light the performers when the garage door is open. This was a picture I sent to Iain with his nickname Waldo t let him know how we were getting on.
The bus is getting pretty old now and electronic spares are hard to come by as most of the components are custom produced, thus manufacturing more is quite expensive and people don’t want to spend the money for an overhaul. So because of this I had a box of electronics which i didn’t know what was working and what wasn’t. Luckily there was only one LED driver card which got damaged in transit so i managed to put together a new unit from working bits on several different non working bits!
The bus has done well considering the age of here and that she has done close to 2000 shows between London, Brazil, Sweden and now Spain. I think the next time it moves to a new place the people with the money are going to have to reach into their pockets for a major electronics and cosmetic overhaul. This was her on day 4 when we had almost everything together and it was just tweaking and tidying after that.
A day after i got back to the UK I went and helped out Nitelites with some content mapping for Shindig in Hoults yard. Because they were orienting the screens at 45degrees the pixel processor doesn’t allow for this adjustment, so using Mad Mapper and syphon so the VJ could still use his preferred software Resolume i set up the system so the content fitted the screens correctly.
The following week I was back at the hangar at Stage One and that friday one of my good mates Si Bye was leaving the sweat house for good, this meant one thing, leaving drinks. There wasn’t just a few drinks there were many which almost broke me. This is Simon Me and Bully in the Boot and Shoe at a civilised part of the evening!
Visiting My parents house the following weekend I was sorting through some stuff which had been at the back of a cupboard and I was quite surprised to find this poster. This was part of a series of gigs that my mate Andy Magee and myself put on in 2002, we did all the promotion and also provided the sound equipment, we were essentially making work for ourselves. It was great fun and i can’t believe its over 12 years ago now!!
Currently, August 2014 I’m working on a project for Stage one where we are designing a high power RGBW led pixel to be installed in an architectural structure. Im not sure how much I can say about it apart from that were looking to produce about 3000 high power pixels which will run very low resolution video across, this was a printout of the PCB design to make sure the components would fit. Once we had the layout correct the designer changed his mind about some visual elements which meant we had to redesign the PCB, turns out that after much head scratching of how we were going to do it, it should be better wight he new layout.
This week just gone i was down London working on a gig called The Dinnerparty Revisited with Ash Green. I didn’t know much about it until getting down on the sunday evening when Ash talked me through it.Its the brainchild of Katherine Araniello who is a disabled performance artist. The gig was split across 2 venues each containging 6 tv screens which played back characters at a dinner party prerecorded with Katherine acting in them. When Katherine went over a sensor in her wheelchair at the south bank centre the associated TV at the Purcell rooms, south bank centre and at arts Admin would play the video. Both venues had actresses playing Katherins butler and her personal assistant, and because theres only one Katherin, we had a inflatable effigy with a live feed of Katherines face from the Purcell rooms projected onto it. There was also a live feed of both venues sent to each other and vision mixed onto a big screen upstage. The show was bonkers and as part of the show the actors drank Prosecco as part of the show and gave it out to the audience. In the venue where I was looking after the tech we had Laura and Katie who were superb, incredibly funny and kept the audience when sometimes it was quite difficult to understand because of the inherent delay of video feeds between he venues. It was a crazy bizarre show but everyone seemed happy when they left, i think the champagne helped too 🙂
Whilst in london I was staying in a flat in Balfron tower, one of the last bits of undeveloped Poplar. Most of the tenants have been moved out the grade 2 listed building in preparation for it to be developed into expensive flats but currently there is a guardian scene where people can live quite cheaply although they may have to move out within a week or a month’s notice. Theres no real guarantee that you will have somewhere to live for anymore than a week/month thus the low rent. We were the because our producer Andrew Mitchelson has something to do wight he tenanting and we had an amazing view from the 24th floor, top digs!
On the wednesday I was off straight to Taunton to Karls workshop where we were assembling and testing the first prototype of LED i mentioned earlier. Whilst there i want for a run around Cotford StLuke’s where I was staying, it was quite nice to be in the country direct from busy busy london! I wasn’t sure what do do when crossing the railway line as the sign said don’t, so i did!
Last of all, a face to finish, this was in the flat at Balfron tower, an old TV ariel socket making a pretty good skeleton face! Booooom!!!
