The programme, produced by Sveriges Television, aims to sculpt a fully customized creative solution, employing the strategy to deliver optimal impact and to create a memory of a lifetime.
The goal for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest is to take the show to a new level and create a spectacular event full of memorable moments. In order to do that, the production depends on working directly with manufacturers to find the new technologies that will become the standards of tomorrow and to use existing technologies in a new and innovative way, in order to create a palette for the creative team that exceeds the standard norms, and provide the tools needed to reach these goals.
ESC technical director Ola Melzig has played a major role in Eurovision since its last appearance in Sweden in 2000. Over the years, he has built a technical model whereby chosen manufacturers, or 'technical partners', don't simply supply equipment - they become involved with technical staff and support of the newest, cutting-edge technologies in the entertainment industry.
Melzig pushes the envelope each year by breaking records on number of units used in a show, using products in ways they haven't been used before, or employing Beta and even Alpha versions of new products. Many products have made their breakthrough performance on the Eurovision Song Contest. It is this powerful collaborative effort that has worked year after year and 2013 promises to be one of the most sensational in history for this hand-selected team of Technical Partners.
The 2013 ESC and CAST have agreed that BlackTrax Solution can be used to provide tracking of the talent and props during interval and opening acts. Melzig and lighting designer Fredrik Jönsson were researching new technology during PLASA 2012 and saw the potential for BlackTrax to automate the production with realtime tracking. BlackTrax allows spontaneous, seamless tracking of performers and props and CAST saw the potential to demonstrate and promote the powerful combination of creativity + artistry + technology - the next revolution in entertainment production. It was during PLASA that BlackTrax nabbed the only Gold Innovation Award.
The technology had also won a Game Changer Award at NAB earlier that year. The creative team behind Eurovision knew that BlackTrax was one of those special technologies to come along that would take the production to the next level.
BlackTrax is a powerful, accurate and cost-effective tracking technology solution that delivers precise 3D & 6D positioning to controllers for interfacing automated and robotic technologies used extensively in event production. Using proprietary IR and RF, it delivers dynamic streaming positional data with six degrees of freedom (x, y, z, plus roll, pitch & yaw) to 3D and spatial audio, automated lighting, multi-media servers and robotic cameras - all at the same time, in realtime.
One or more people wear a BTBeacon, which is tracked in the defined Space by BlackTrax. Anything tagged with a flip phone sized battery-powered BTBeacon, which carries an IR LED, gyroscope, accelerometer, and tiny wireless radio, is tracked inside the Space of up to 160 feet (49 metres) in diameter at over 100 frames per second by the overhead BTSensors. In parallel, the Trackable's orientation - roll, pitch and yaw - is communicated by RF directly to the BTServer.
"We're very excited about this opportunity to showcase BlackTrax during the Eurovision Song Contest, one of the most-watched television programmes in the world," says Gil Densham, president of CAST BlackTrax, "It's not only an infamous setting for music and kitsch, but also for pushing the envelope in its technological pursuits."
(Jim Evans)
