Electrosonic's work supported Clermont, Florida-based entertainment design and production company WOW!Works which crafted AT&T Dolphin Tales, a sweeping 25-minute musical tribute to the beauty and grace of dolphins. The indoor show is staged in the new multi-function auditorium that seats 1,800 people and houses 1.8m gallons of water in four pools.
"The show needed to be a hybrid of show-controlled equipment and events, pre-recorded multitrack audio and video playback with a layer of live performance mixed in," says Electrosonic design consultant, Steve Coe. "We wanted to meld a live theatrical show with dolphin behaviours and, at the same time, tap into the gamut of theatrical technology available, especially digitally-projected sets and backdrops and a high-quality theatrical multi-channel audio system."
The AT&T Dolphin Tales story is narrated by the StarSpinner, a mysterious seafaring adventurer who leads the way through an interactive journey across the oceans. The timeless tale of good and evil is marked by exhilarating performances that highlight the strong emotional bond between humans and dolphins, and deliver a powerful message of the importance of caring for and about aquatic creatures.
Electrosonic coordinated with Atlanta-based programme manager, Heery International; St. Louis-based architect, PGAV; and Atlanta builder, Brasfield & Gorrie to accommodate the show into the new building design.
"Alongside lighting designer, David Agress, we helped design catwalk systems for them and advised on areas such as backstage dressing rooms and routes for performers across the stage," Coe says. "We also did a study for them to help specify the control room glass, which needed to be angled for projection and follow-spot use."
One of the biggest decisions the team made was to locate as much AV equipment as possible in the control room to protect it from the saline atmosphere of the dolphins' salt-water pool.
For the video system, the team selected Green Hippo Hippotizer HD media servers connected via DVI to seven Christie Digital S+20K projectors edge-blended in two stacks of three, plus one on centre.
The Hippotizers handle media playback and content masking on independent video layers, as well as pre-show in-house advertising content and audio playback. They receive the LTC master clock from a Medialon show control system and sit on their own HippoNet with a single network bridge to the main AV network.
The audio system is wired for 7.1 surround sound and features an L-Acoustics speaker system with Kudo and ARCS arrays. Coe opted for a Digidesign D-Show Profile mixing console with onboard snapshot automation that stores audio information on the different actors who rotate into the show. During the show, Sennheiser handheld wireless and wired mics are mixed live with prerecorded music tracks, which Coe mixed onsite in the theater. He also specified waterproof VHF wireless mics for the dolphin trainers and Clear-Com Encore theatrical intercoms.
(Jim Evans)
