R&B create an 8 minute spectacle which tells the 200 Year story of the NECC.

The NECC are celebrating their 200th anniversary during 2015 with a number of events taking place throughout the year. A large gala dinner was to be the main celebratory event, held for their members in a large marquee within the grounds of Durham Cathedral. NECC approached R&B Group with a brief to provide the audio visual support to create a large scale projection that would create an impact and wow factor to help make the event memorable.

In order to provide maximum impact R&B created a projection screen that covered as much of the marquee as possible, creating a screen that spanned 3 sides of the 55×30 metre marquee. The backdrop (screen) measured approximately 260ft and turned 2×90 degree corners, and stood at a height ranging from 8ft to 15ft having a constant curve integrated along its top edge.

R&B created an 8 minute spectacle which told the NECC story of the last 200Yrs, from 3d models of buildings spanning the 260ft screen to trains running through the marquee, the media created a fully immersive experience for all in the audience. The evening content shown on the large projection surface even included a message from the Prime Minister.

Using 10 Panasonic 10k projectors for the output controlled via 5 Green Hippo Karsts. Using the new V4 software allowed us to easily create a system that was fully backed up utilising half the servers we would have in the past. Creating the large canvas using V4 is so much easier and efficient, and blending the 10 outputs took no time thanks to the way you can now control each output via viewports. The main mix canvas size (allowing for up to 18% blends) was 16038×1080 in pixel size, 10 Viewports corresponded to each projector output running at HD 1920×1080. All projectors were blended using the individual viewport control and screen warp components. Paul was able to quickly blend and warp all 10 outputs with great accuracy finishing the edges off with masks on each output to create the outer curve.

Meanwhile Steve Brown encoded all the media as it became available. The processing speed from the Karsts and the SSD meant that content was brought in very quickly which is essential for onsite last minute amends when considering the size of each clip.

Media Manager handled the main transcode form Apple ProRes to FlexRes Performance. The media was encoded quickly and efficiently and thanks to the Hipponet the media was synchronised across the server array. The clips varied in resolution from 3840 x 1080 to 16038 x 1080.

All V4 Karsts were controlled with an Avolites Sapphire touch lighting desk via ARTNET which was programmed to run all content playback from a simple fader push.

Credits:

 

  • Paul Borthwick –Projectionist and Avolites Desk Operator
  • Steve Brown – Content and Media Server Operator
  • Creative Video Design and Flux Production Services supplied the Media Servers.