Green Hippo

Meet James Valpy

Meet James Valpy

As more and more people discover the diverse range and functionality of Hippotizer Media Servers, we at Green Hippo have had more requests for training, demos and loans than ever before. Many of these requests come from creative and enthusiastic young people like James Valpy.

James was born in Cape Town, South Africa and went to school in Edinburgh. He studied at Central School of Speech and Drama (London) on the Production Lighting course. At Central, he specialized in programming media servers and video while continuing to do freelance lighting work in London.

He wants to specialize in programming/designing video for large events and live music. Here he talks about 2 of the latest projects he has worked on….

Show: Mystery of Edwin Drood

Video Programmer/Design: James Valpy

Lighting Designer: Jessica Glaisher

Set Designer: James “Jay” Hirst

Venue: Embassy Theatre, Central School of Speech and Drama

“The Mystery of Edwin Drood” is a Musical Theatre show based on the famous unfinished book by Charles Dickens. In this show the set designer James Hirst asked me to provide video that would fit in with the Dickensian theme of the show. The final show had a BP screen for back projection that was flown in and out during the show. The video for this was used purely as a backdrop to scenes taking place further downstage.

The system that I used for this show was a Hippotizer Stage located on the Electrics Gallery to drive two Sanyo XP56 projectors for the back projection. It was important to use a Stage for this application as I needed to get individual keystone to each projector to counter the angle that the projection was coming in at. I used a Hippotizer Express as the ZooKeeper GUI for this. I also used a Catalyst with a DualHead2Go to do a full iron projection throwing from the back of the theatre auditorium with two more projectors. I used my MagicQ system to program and run the show.

The challenge for this show was to learn how to use Adobe CS4 After Effects and Photoshop to generate a considerable amount of content as well as getting two ultra short throw lenses from XL Video. I would like to thank Malcolm Mellows of XL Video UK for making this possible with lens hire. Hippotizer was constantly reliable and is my favourite professional media server!

What made this production special was working with the Lighting Designer Jess Glaisher who was good to work with even with 8 footlights focused on the projection screen! CSSD Tutor; Nick Moran was a constant support to me in my role of Video Head of Department for the show with some great advice and also some ideas that made me challenge what I thought I could do with video.”

Show: Link Dance "Projections"

Video Programmer/Design: James Valpy

Lighting Designer: Adam Carrée

Venue: Urdang Academy “Great Hall”

“Link Dance is an annual show that Urdang Academy students put on every year. This year, the creative theme was “Projections”. Each dance piece in the show had a theme or idea that used video as a visual feature to enhance each performance.

The technical side of this show consisted of a Hippotizer Stage in Pan mode driving two Sanyo XP-100L Projectors for the full cyc projection and a Hippotizer Express driving the FOH Sanyo projector that was used to project onto the entire stage. I used my MagicQ system to program and run the Hippotizers.

The technical challenges that Hippotizer helped conquer were that due to the projector hanging positions we had to do some serious geometry and keystone correction for the cyc projection (we only used 19% of the total available screen output after the insane keystone was applied).

What made this production stand out for me was the way in which I used a vast range of functions of the Hippotizer. We used a custom written Generator plug-in to get a spectrum analyser on the cyc. We took the sound output from the sound desk into the Hippotizer to do this, I was really impressed at the lack of lag on this effect. I also had video and sound playing from Hippotizer together, outputting to the sound desk. We also used live video input for the finale which was a great crowd pleaser along with the fantastic selection of Hippotizer FX.

Working with Lighting Designer Adam Carrée was excellent as he had a good grasp of how Hippotizer works and what would look great with the projections, as well as being fantastic to work with in general.

This was the most fun project that I have worked on as I was able to generate some really beautiful video with the flexibility to offer each choreographer a style of video that suited their piece. The comprehensive control features that Hippotizer has to offer made it really easy to get the video looking great! I really enjoy working on shows like this that look so good that even you are amazed and I enjoy working with Hippotizer as it impresses me every time I use it!

I am currently working freelance in London but after I graduate from Central, I hope to enter a full time job with emphasis on media servers and programming. I am programming video for the Main Stage at LeeFest this year with Chris Burnage and am looking forward to working on SkyFest with Imagine Believe.

 I would like to say a massive thanks to everyone at Green Hippo for supporting me and lending me a Hippotizer Stage, without their expertise and kind loan, the video in these shows would not have been nearly as good!”

James will be undertaking a 1 month placement at Green Hippo HQ as part of his ongoing course at Central School of Speech and drama.

To find aout more about James click : www.JAVALX.co.uk