For over 33 years, Matthews Studio Equipment has served the international motion picture, television, photography and theatrical production industries with specialized hardware and lighting modification devices: the company supplied production equipment to over 53 countries in 2002. Matthews' grip equipment has won two Academy Awards for Technical Achievement and a 2001 NAB Superior Technology Award.
(Lee Baldock)
The programme, a collaboration between website specialist Bomb and television production company Ricochet Digital, mixes virtual (VR) and actual reality (AR) characters and locations in an entertaining mix of gladiatorial contest and digital imagination.
Although the television series part of the project is being developed at BBC Television Centre Studio 1 in Wood Lane, West London, the concept spans three multi-media elements. The first is a website that selects contestants for the show. Aspirants can construct their own virtual warrior and undertake tests to accrue points, which qualify the top scorers to 'play' on the show.
Secondly, there is the TV show itself, where w
A prototype of the Vector was seen at LDI in Las Vegas last October by Megan McGahan from the Australian television network GTV Channel 9. No stranger to Compulite, or to large-scale productions, McGahan spoke to network LD Rohan Thornton on her return and to Australian distributor Coemar De Sisti Australia (CDA), about the availability of a Vector for use on The Logies.
Compulite was initially cautious, as further testing of the system was still needed, but the company realized that there would be considerable benefits for the console's development cycle in being part of such an event. Following the decision to send a console and technical person 'down under', a duplicate system was set up at Compulite's head office in Israel, so that any
Designed by John Napier for Troika Entertainment, it features an updated score and instead of the race track that was an integral part of the original show, it now has stunning stereoscopic 3D race sequences projected using a custom-built rig, from London-based 3D specialist, Inition.
Stuart Cupit, James Gant, Chris Sutton and Andy Millns formed Inition in 2001. The team has a passion for 3D graphics, creating a range of virtual reality (a.k.a. VizSim) graphics products and services, including the recently-launched Duality range of stereoscopic projection rigs. Although 3D projection has featured in themed entertainment instal
It is situated 300 metres above sea level, in the Rock of Gibraltar, and has caught the imagination of visitors to the area since Roman times. The Cave was often reputed to be bottomless, or part of a link to Africa, 15 miles away. With a lighting and sound system in need of updating, the Government of Gibraltar issued a very broad invitation to tender, seeking ideas for the refurbishment of the lighting and sound systems - with a short 'day' show for visitors walking through the caves and an 'evening' show for special occasions. Since the Tourist Board of Gibraltar, which manages the caves and the project, wanted a single supplier and a 'turnkey' solution, audio-visual company Electrosonic was called upon to put together a team of specia
The attraction's centrepiece is a 5m deep themed Atlantic reef, contained in a massive seawater tank, and complete with a 10m-long wreck of the 'Kaye Louise' which also provides habitats for indigenous creatures such as conger eels and lobsters.
Areas inside the venue include the Ocean Theatre, a presentat
A.C. was awarded the contract after supplying a cost-effective solution requiring minimal upgrading of the existing gallery fixtures to accomplish all theatrical lighting aspects of the brief. Throughout the build project manager Ray Dolby worked closely with the exhibition's designer, Trista Quenzer, to en
The 10-night sold-out production ('amateur' in name only) was staged in a 1,200 capacity big top located in Boscawen Park, Truro, and featured five trucks of staging and equipment, a cast of over 100, a 12-piece semi-pro orchestra with considerable sponsorship and a budget of £120,000.
The event's technical infrastructure - including lighting, sound, staging power and distribution -was all supplied by Viking, who have worked with the Operatic Society on many previous occasions, twice on productions in the same big top.
Lighting designer Ian Leonard utilized over 40 Robe fixtures, including eight Pro Wash and eight Pro Spot 250s, with 12 each of the Robe Pro Wash and Pro Spot
These courses have taken place in a variety of locations, including Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin, as well as at the company's base in Maidstone. The current training programme offers a range of 10 courses, principally covering service and operational skills.
Chris West, Martin UK's head of training, is employed on a full-time basis to organize and run these training courses. When he's not doing that, he's developing new courses to cover the wider variety of educational needs of the company's customers. Over the next year, Ma
Most of the press surrounding the event focused on the awful travel experiences of many of the thousands of fans who travelled to Knebworth - 375,000 in total across the three shows - ourselves included. And let's face it travel chaos made for good headlines, as did the sheer number of people who were packed into Knebworth Park: this was not an event for anyone with a fear of crowds - 120,000 plus each night - although a large proportion of these stood no chance of actually seeing the star of the show directly.
However, it was the show itself that made the delays, travel headaches, expensive 'pints' of beer and enormous viewing distances worth i
- Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage has traditionally been equipped with Turbosound Flashlight systems, but this year, in a major departure for the organizers, SSE Hire provided one of the world's largest Nexo GEO T Tangent Array systems. Nearly 100 GEO T4805 cabinets were used, configured with two far-field arrays of 24 cabinets each (25m offstage each side) and two near-field arrays of 11 cabs flown from SSE's Teepee structures, each about 7m offstage. There was also a centre array of six T4805s for centre image/near-field, and two field delays (eight cabinets each) 130m down-range from the system. Camco Vortex amplifiers powered the whole system. SSE's Chris Beale says they used 12 CD-18 subs per side, plus nine S2 subs under the near-field
The Festival drew some top names with 2003 headliners including Radiohead, Yes, Bonnie Raitt, Jethro Tull, Cypress Hill, Morcheeba, Craig David, Herbert Gronemeyer, Stereophonics, George Benson and The Pretenders - plus just about every musical genre you might care to mention.
The production elements of this ambitious schedule were managed by technical co-ordinator Andre Vouilloz, while audio aspects were in the hands of Patrick Vogelsang, MD of Meyer's Swiss distributor Niveau2 and the fes
Professionals from the theatre lighting industry in Asia will now have a platform from which to share information and ideas on their craft, and foster closer networks with other lighting designers when Esplanade presents the first Asia Light 2003, a theatre lighting seminar, from 13 to 15 October.
The facilitator for Asia Light 2003 is Francis Reid, a theatre lighting specialist with over 40 years of experience and author of the indis
Lighting designer Andi Watson had been keen to develop a concept that was practical to tour for festivals as a 'special', but which could also be incorporated into the lighting rig and visual elements as the tour developed. Originally, he thought in terms of a video-based solution, but this transmuted into the idea of having a row of colour-changing LED battens upstage, capable of producing a variety of spectacular effects, as well as introducing a layer of texturing and depth to the stage.
Watson researched the LED products currently on the market before deciding on the James Thomas Pixelline 1044 batten, of which 48 were rigged vertically, end-to-end on 24 Manfrotto stands. Watson reali
Also new from ETC is a new wall-
Power Gems conducted a series of tests at Philips in Belgium, which demonstrated that lamps which had operated for 1,000 hours on high frequency sine wave displayed considerably reduced de-vitrification, and appeared almost new. Power Gems see this development as revolutionizing the way we consider discharge luminaires in the future, not only for the moving light industry but for theatre, venue and film applications also, where the ballast now
To help bridge the video and traditional lighting worlds, Catalyst DL1 incorporates the communications standards of both: VGA, RGBHV and S Video inputs for incorporating movie, film or graphics content, and DMX programming - a lighting communications standard that allows the DL1 to be remotely pointed or focused from any DMX-based control u
Also new from Robe is the ColorSpot 250 AT which improves on the company's successful ColorSpot 250 XT, with a streamlined new design that follows the style of the ColorSpot 1200 AT. Updated features include a new rotating gobo wheel with seven replaceable 'slot and lock' dichroic glass
Ben-Ri Electronica - Stand D69
Compulite/Stagetec - E40
Among the new additions is the grandMA micro, the smallest control interface in the range. The Micro uses a new hardware platform for maximum reliability and offers control of 1,024 individual parameters for both conventional dimmers and moving lights. MA Lighting also showed the new range of high quality dimming systems - naturally named 'dimMA' - and showed advancements to its 3D Visualizer software.
MA Lighting - stand K40
The RADlite video manipulation package (which utilizes DMX control and is already established as a visual live production tool) is the engine behind PixelDrive, giving DMX control of visual images via a familiar set of attributes - similar to programming a moving light.
The system successfully integrates lighting designers with video and graphics departments, with all mediums now controllable from the lighting console. PixelDrive quickly and easily mimics how the LED fixtures are performing in real-time via a
Zero 88 - Stand G68/G69
Also from Avo is the D4 Elite console, streamlined to offer the maximum power and functionality in the minimum physical space. The D4 Elite is fully featured and cased in a smaller, lighter chassis, complete with 14 submasters and 96 assigned playbacks, with dire
