UK - Leading lights and newcomers to the entertainment industry turned up to see what the future holds for lighting at the launch of Scene Change on March 25. The new company, sister to DHA Lighting, is taking DHA’s 30 years of experience in gobo creation and large-format projection for the performing arts forward into the video age. It offers a huge range of video effects, from abstract animations to bespoke footage. It also provides royalty-free video clips from its own libraries and those of Artbeats, Digital Juice, The Digital Vision Motion Clip Library and others.

The Open Day at the MacOwan Theatre, Earls Court, was staged in conjunction with High End Systems, whose Catalyst system has proved ideal for replaying Scene Change’s video footage, and Flying Pig Systems, who provided control of the lighting and projection through the new Wholehog III. It took place o

UK - Stardraw.com has added powerful new functionality to its suite of software design and documentation packages in the form of URL links within attributes. Each symbol within Stardraw can contain an unlimited number of ‘attributes’ which are data fields representing numbers, text or database links. Attributes are used to describe a real-world product and can indicate, for example, the manufacturer name, product model number, price, etc. These attributes now support URL (Uniform Resource Locator) links which will be familiar to most people in their simplest form: as website addresses.

All of the products in Stardraw applications now have at least one link, to the manufacturer's homepage, while other product ranges within Stardraw - BSS for example - already have links to dynamic pages on the manufacturer’s website that use a script to give users instant and sp

UK - Large format projection specialists E//T//C UK were called in by the London Tourist Board to help launch their high-visibility ‘Totally Lond On’ advertising campaign. E//T//C’s Paul Highfield supplied a single 6kW PIGI projector, slide artwork and his technical expertise for the event, staged in the fabulous new glass roofed Great Court of the British Museum.

Keystone correction was by Wyatt Enever at DHA, and the projection was beamed onto the new limestone arch in the Great Court. It consisted of a simple slide, pastiched in the style of a London Street sign, emblazoned with the words ‘Totally LondON’ and ‘www.visitlondon.com’.

White Light supplied architectural lighting and LD Simon Jones for the event. Both E//T//C UK and White Light were approached for the project after their highly successful illumination of the Tower of Lon

UK - AutoPatch Europe is offering transmitter/receiver modules to provide point-to-point transmission of signals including Y/C with stereo audio (up to 300m), composite video (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) with stereo audio (up to 300m), RGBHV (up to 100m), for cost-effective routing and distribution of video and stereo audio throughout a facility. In addition, there is a modular CAT5 Matrix System, up to 32 inputs x 32 outputs, providing true flexibility in a CAT5 installation.

CAT5 cabling with RJ-45 connectors provides a convenient and cost effective alternative to coaxial cable: CAT5 is lighter, more flexible, and a fraction of the cost of coaxial video cable. The result is an all-in-one solution for routing and distributing professional quality video and audio that reduces installation and cable costs in less rack space, say AutoPatch.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Avesco plc have announced a major sales and marketing restructure following the integration of Creative Technology and Screenco into a single resource. As sales director, Mike Walker will head up the consolidated team which has relocated to Chessington, and which sees the return of Adrian Offord who, prior to his last position with General Location, previously worked at Screenco.

The team also includes Alex Davenport, who joined MCL two years ago, and sales and marketing coordinator, Emma Houlden, from CT’s Wandsworth office. Also joining the team from CT is Charlie Whittock, who has recently returned from the US where he has been working in event and production management, having worked closely with Creative Technology since the company was founded in 1985.

Said Walker: "In centralizing the sales team at Chessington on the Silverglade Business Park, we will be

South Africa - South Africa’s Standard Bank Stars event on 29 March was an incentive awards evening held to honour employees throughout the country who are part of Standard Bank’s retail arm. Gearhouse South Africa was contracted by Jenny Lenahan Productions to provide the technical equipment and skills for the event, which took its theme from three decades of television and featured music, celebrities and television personalities from each of those eras.

Heading up the Gearhouse SA team was Ian Watts, who is operation’s manager of the Johannesburg branch’s audio-visual department. Ian was project manager of the Standard Bank Stars and comes with 15 years’ experience in the broadcast industry - at the SABC, and M-Net as well as Gearhouse Broadcast on an international basis. What made the Standard Bank Stars so unique was that the event took place si

UK - Blink TV launched a new theatre-sized visual package on the recent six-week Liberty X UK tour, along with the supply of video project management, specification and hardware. The package is a new, highly flexible Blink format designed to bring high production values to tours playing theatres, town halls and other smaller-sized venues.

Blink’s project manager for the Liberty X tour, Adam Walton, worked in close consultation with lighting designer Jvan Morandi. Morandi is extremely specific about the look and style of all the shows on which he works and used a High End Catalyst video system as an integral part of the show’s visual aspect. Morandi and Walton chose an innovative format for Blink TV, with two Fast-fold video screens onstage for the opening and support band slots, onto which the Blink programmes could also be projected. Aesthetically, this has resulted

UK - Cheltenham Ladies College has had its presentation infrastructure boosted with the installation of a new state-of-the-art projection system. Designed and installed by AVPS - who have serviced the college’s requirements in the past - the larger contract to fit out the multi-purpose assembly hall was put out to three companies. AVPS tendered successfully and their Christie-based proposal was accepted on the strength of the product specification, obviating the need for an on-site demonstration.

AVPS’ Jules Deakin believes that it was his preference for the Christie Roadrunner L6 LCD projector which won them the contract. He recommended the L6, offering 1024 x 768 true XGA resolution, as the best solution in view of its superior brightness and its dual lamp facility. "It allows the college to run both lamps to achieve 5200 ANSI lumens during the day when the am

USA - Barco Media is pleased to announce that it has provided state-of-the-art display technology to the new Quiksilver Boardriders Club store in Times Square, located on the corner of 42nd Street and 7th Avenue in New York City. Quiksilver designs and manufactures a diverse line of products for young men and women catering to the surf, skate and snowboard riding lifestyle. Quiksilver brands offer a range of products including clothing, swimwear, accessories, eyewear and wetsuits.

Barco installed three of its DLite 10 LED displays above the entrance to the store. Each display measures 5' 11" high by 13' 3" wide and are used to show surf, skate, and snow video. All three displays are controlled by Barco's Signam!cs content management system, which allows Quiksilver to schedule the right message at the right time.

"The installation of our total display solution in

Hong Kong - The tourism industry is one of the major pillars of Hong Kong’s economy, which is why its Government has initiated plans to upgrade the major tourism clusters of Hong Kong.

Sydney-based Laservision Macro-Media was commissioned by the Hong Kong Tourism Commission last August to draw up a harbour lighting report. The report was wide-ranging, and covered the architectural lighting of Hong Kong’s landmark buildings (as well as opportunities for regular lighting shows in Victoria Harbour), the inclusion of a night-time attraction, and an assessment of current lighting pollution. As a result of the report, the Hong Kong Tourism Commission promptly decided to showcase some of the lighting techniques to be employed under Laservision’s plan during the Chinese New Year holidays. China Light and Power agreed to offer sponsorship to ensure the trial became a r

UK - Students in the third and final year of their acting course at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts recently performed a production of The Tempest at the Academy, under the direction of Debbie Seymour, head of Mountview’s Directing course.

The technical crew were students on the two-year fast-track BA Honours Degree in Technical Theatre, which is validated by Middlesex University. The production brings the action of Shakespeare’s play forward to the 1920s, using the period’s developments in the fields of quantum physics and genetics as the background for Prospero’s grasp of ‘magic’. It was also decided to use moving projection to visually characterize the ‘masque’ aspects of the play.

Mountview strives to give its students access to the latest technology, and this production has taken them to the leading edge of stage projectio

UK - Specialist AV company Blitz is supplying sound equipment for a new theatre production Jus' Like That! celebrating the life of comedian Tommy Cooper. It has just opened at The Garrick theatre in London's West End for an open-ended run. As the show contains many of Cooper's original routines, it was essential not only to select the right sound equipment, but also to ensure that it remained unobtrusive and did not overshadow the star of the show.

Mike Walker, sound designer, explained: "Initially we carried out some rehearsals without any vocal reinforcement with the intention of seeing if we could maintain the intimacy of a play. In order for the comedy routines to fully work we found the reinforcement was necessary. We reconfigured the speaker system and added two Sennheiser SK5012 radio mics."

The production has four musical numbers and the music was spec

UK - The recently downsized S Club are out on the road again, as part of a major UK arena tour. Working with production director Chris Vaughan of CV Productions, LSD/Fourth Phase is providing the lighting (Pete Barnes is again LD), Britannia Row the sound (including an EAW line array speaker system and flown subs) and XL Video the video equipment. The sets were designed by Hattie Spice and the set construction was a collaboration between Brilliant Stages, Total Fabrications and Hangman Backdrops, whilst the spectacular inflatable for the cave scene was built by Air Artists.

The tour features an integrated show performed by both S Club Juniors and Seniors, with the Juniors’ high-action set kick-starting the evening’s entertainment. The live camera mix is directed by Blue Leach, working with an XL team of five. Leach was also involved in creating most of the Seniors&r

UK - To coincide with the imminent summer festival season, the Technical Focus section of the May issue of Lighting&Sound International magazine will be looking at the technology related to the development and use of mains distribution systems. An often overlooked area of entertainment technology, safe and efficient distribution systems are a fundamental part of any show. We will also assess some of the current standards and safety issues in this area, including work done by British Standards and the ABTT. This will be followed by a brief profile of the main manufacturers and coverage of a selection of their leading products in the marketplace.

If you would like your product to be featured in this report, please e-mail L&SI’s technical editor James Eade at the e-mail address below before Thursday 1 May, 2003.

(James Eade)

USA - The RADlite, from UK company IRAD, is a brand new Media Server; a fully configurable, DMX-controlled image and video manipulation system. It allows the creation and playback of images and video with added effects, shapes, colour palettes, and movement -controlled in real-time by a regular DMX lighting console.

Mountain View Staging of Salt Lake City has made the bold move of purchasing the first RADlite in the US. The system, supplied by US RADlite distributor TMB, debuted on April 11 at a dance performance in the 22,000-seat Marriott Center in Provo, Utah. Mountain View designers programmed RADlite to manipulate images and video on a backdrop 55 feet wide by 30 feet high! Lighting designer Benjamin Sanders selected a variety of stock images and video, plus client photos, RADlite onboard graphics, and custom-created images. The programming for RADlite and the show’s

UK - Metropolis AV has completed a cutting-edge sound, effects lighting and AV installation in Manchester at Lucid - the first of a new genre of multimedia concept venues.The unusual concept was developed by the Canadian-owned MagicCorp Group, and is expected to be subject to a selective roll-out. Metropolis was asked onboard by Lucid’s technical director, Nick Meacham, to implement the technical infrastructure that he’d helped design.

Metropolis’s brief also included the design of an integrated operating system for all things technical in the venue. The Metropolis team was headed by Simon Harris, and included site manager Stuart Clowes, technical director Shane Winterbourne, design project manager Martin Geraghty and installation engineers Shane Stanley and Ian Benstead.

The open plan venue has three levels, including a 1200-capacity Function Room/Showroom;

UK - Projected Image Digital has sold a second RADlite digital media server system to live video specialists XL Video, the video hardware suppliers for the final UK leg of Ronan Keating’s ‘2003 Destination’ world tour.

The RADlite was specified by lighting designer Peter Barnes - a great advocate and experimentalist with the RADlite system since first using it last year. Always a pioneer of utilizing video in new and imaginative ways onstage, Barnes has integrated RADlite on the Blue, Will & Gareth, S-Club and Blazin’ Squad tours. This time he went further, evolving its use as a visual effect working with a solo artist. The stage and video design for this final leg of the tour - which started back in 2002 - was a collaboration between Barnes and production manager Iain Whitehead of Production North. It consisted of five vertical upstage panels of Westerha

UK - Amptown Cases has introduced the SiP plasma screen insert in a new, affordable concept for professional flightcases for plasma screens. The SiP (superior impact protection) cases are an innovative development, produced in-house and only available from Amptown Cases: each plasma screen is held securely in a unique moulded rubber insert. The combination of a durable rubber surface and a softer, shock-absorbing foam kernel protects these delicate plasma screens during transportation, especially in the event of an unpredictable or extreme impact.

A very precise fit thanks to highly accurate moulding technology provides the highest levels of protection. Provision within the flightcase can be made for associated accessories such as stands, wall brackets and even speakers where practicable, making it a convenient way of moving these often awkward pieces of equipment around. Custom

UK / Singapore - Digital Projection Ltd, the Emmy Award-winning manufacturer of high-performance projection systems, has appointed Electronics & Engineering Technologies Pte Ltd as a distributor of its large-venue projection products in Singapore.

Electronics & Engineering Technologies provides one-stop technology converging solutions, involving audio, video, IT and integrated control, and has a long history in system integration for the business, entertainment, conference, cinema and broadcast markets. The company handled the prestigious installation for E-Trading at the Singapore Stock Exchange.

On signing the collaboration agreement, Louis Kangean, CEO of Electronics & EngineeringTechnologies, commented: "We are very happy to be a partner of Digital Projection. They were the pioneers with Texas Instruments in bringing DLP-based projection products to the market. With t

UK / Russia - As members of the Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) will be aware, PLASA has been approached by IIR Exhibitions to work on a project that will see the launch of a trade show in Moscow, Russia in April 2004. In order to assess interest in the project, PLASA and IIR Exhibitions are staging an Open Day on Wednesday 21 May at One Whitehall Place, London SW1.

The Open Day will include presentations from a number of key speakers including representatives from PLASA, the DTI and IIR Exhibitions. The presentations will focus specifically on doing business in Russia, emphasizing changes in the business culture, the types of assistance that can be accessed, the pitfalls to avoid and the opportunities available. The event will be a half-day session starting at 11.00am and concluding at 1.15pm with a buffet lunch to follow.

All interested parties are invit

UK - Live video specialist XL Video is working closely with Production North, the Yorkshire-based production company headed by Steve Levitt and Iain Whitehead. Three of the most spectacular pop tours of the year so far benefited from this winning combination - Westlife, Ronan Keating and Fame Academy - all with one common element: high production values.

Video has been crucial to all these tours - emphasising the seminal role of the medium in the genre of live pop. With a largely young audience, moving images and camera relay are vital ingredients. Live show IMAG ensures that everyone has a good view of the artists, and on the creative front, video adds a dramatic and effective visual dimension to any show.

Westlife’s action packed, up tempo ‘Unbreakable’ tour is produced by Will Baker and Alan Macdonald, who conceived the eye-catching video visuals, based on

UK - Scene Change, the new company that creates video content for the entertainment industry, has teamed up with The Foundation Design, one of the UK’s leading graphic and animation design companies. The Foundation Design specializes in the creation of digital content for the retail and leisure industries. Its client list includes Yates’s, Lloyds No1 Bar in Birmingham, The Gate (Land Securities’ £70million leisure development in Newcastle - see major feature in the June issue of L&SI) and many drinks brands.

The new creative alliance aims to build on the strengths of both companies in lighting design, video-effects generation and video editing for the performing arts and entertainment industry. The Foundation Design has already created a selection of royalty-free abstract video clips which can be previewed and bought from the Scene Change website.

"We a

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tell Me On A Sunday, starring Denise Van Outen at London’s Gielgud Theatre, was originally a hit album and television special written for Marti Webb in 1979, and later appeared in London and New York as one half of Song & Dance.

Produced by Bill Kenwright and The Really Useful Theatre Company, directed by Matthew Warchus and designed by Rob Howell, this latest production has been expanded to an evening’s entertainment and features five brand new songs.

Serviced by London-based Orbital Sound, the production features the company’s fifth Yamaha PM1D digital mixing console, which was purchased from dealer Marquee Audio. With three of Orbital’s other PM1Ds specified for other West End musicals - Bombay Dreams, Our House and Joseph - the Yamaha desk has certainly made its mark in top-flight theatre.

"Large format digital desks are

UK - Music video specialists Blink TV shot and edited video footage of Kylie Minogue for leading contemporary dance pioneers The Rambert Dance Company’s new work ‘21’ - a production which will receive its London première at Sadlers Wells later this month.

Blink are no strangers to Kylie - the company produced all the insert material for last year’s seminal ‘Fever’ tour, and a specially commissioned video for her Royal Variety performance. They were approached by renowned Rambert choreographer Rafael Bonachela, who devised 21 to provide imagery for the dance piece, which runs in three sections, and lasts 21 minutes. The soundtrack for the performance has been composed by Benjamin Wallfisch and its lighting design conceived by Chris Davey.

Bonachela asked film production designer/video artist Alan Macdonald, and Kylie’s own personal image mak

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