On December 10, a TV audience of around 10 million - as well as an invited studio audience of 560 sports personalities - assembled in TC1 studio in Wood Lane to see 60 of Screenco’s 15mm modules, with help from Vertigo and Stage One, perform some gymnastics of their own. Assembled in a block, the matrix formed the entire scenic video backdrop for the production - but the show’s senior producer Paul Davies saw possibilities way beyond that.
He decided that the matrix could also be configured as a walk-on entrance for the personalities. "We wanted to integrate an over-the-top screen into the show, but hadn’t realised it could move around so much until we saw the Screenco/Stage One demonstration at Three Mills Island. "Suddenly, we could see how we could use this with star walk-ons - allowing us to support these by great images of yesteryear - because we could move the screens around." Taking feeds from conventional VT and live camera relay, there were six preset positions.
Working with set designer Christopher George and LD Mike Lefevre, Screenco’s main concern was providing a skin to diffuse the LEDs and reduce the luminance. "It’s the kind of problem you expect when you merge the technologies," said Screenco’s Mike Walker. "We’ve done a lot of testing to get a good picture, and adapted our screen for TV, minimising the moire pattern and diminishing the strobing effect."
The Video Workshop at Three Mills Island, had demonstrated not only the accurate tracking of Screenco’s giant LED video screens, but also the sophisticated image-processing capabilities of the Electrosonic Vector. Davies was also able to make full use of the image processor - supplied by Screenco - which allowed for the mixing and display of the most stunning big screen images, while simultaneously controlling from one to 16 individual image sources.
Screenco also provided the control, and set up an operations unit in the gallery. "All the operation, including the slo-mo, took place from there," continues Davies. "A second vision mixer sent four aux signals to the Vector, which then decided whether to do a quad split or send four separate 4:3 images."
The installation and safety aspects of the flown screen system were overseen by Martin Smith, BBC studio operations manager. Vertigo, another company involved in the workshop, were again asked to rig the overhead screens and motion system. This was a tricky task with the weight-loading in TC1 needing to be carefully spread to satisfy the BBC’s structural calculations. Each of the two flown sections of screen involved a moving load of one tonne across a 24m span in the roof. Vertigo’s Tim Roberts project-managed the rigging operation, and had to work out clever ways of not stressing the roof beyond the set limit (250kg load every 2.5m). This was done using a series of spreader trusses inbetween the existing roof beams, ensuring that as the screens tracked across, they were always over a 500kg point.
Two further screens were also trucked at ground level built on modular sledge platforms and steel wheels running on steel tracks, driven by a motor driven sprocket-and-chain set drive shaft. The positional accuracy and speed of the screen movement was regulated via the Q-Motion system, Stage One’s PC-based controller capable of running up to 128 axes with an unlimited number of cues.
For the lighting elements, LD Mike Le Fevre used the in-house lighting system supplemented by a Richard Martin lighting automation package. Moving fixtures included 80 MAC 600s and 26 Clay Paky Stage Zoom 1.2Ks. Sound supervisor Tony Revell, meanwhile used Cine Video for radio microphones and JHE to dry hire the PA, while Marcom
