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Scharff Weisberg (SWI) recently
provided design and programming services to Blue Man
Productions for the Berlin, (Theater Am Potsdamer Platz),
performance of Blue Man Group. The company expanded on
what it had done for other Blue Man shows for the most
technically elaborate and esthetically stylized
performance yet.
Blue Man Group is a creative organization dedicated to
creating exciting and innovative work in a wide variety
of media. The group is best known for its award-winning
theatrical productions which critics have variously
described as "ground-breaking," "hilarious," "visually
stunning" and "musically powerful." These performances
feature three enigmatic bald and blue characters who
take the audience through a multi-sensory experience
combining theater, percussive music, art, science and
vaudeville into a unique form of entertainment. People
from all over the world, all walks of life and all age
groups have become fans of Blue Man Group's show in New
York, Boston, Chicago and Las Vegas. Blue Man Group
recently opened a fifth theatrical production in Berlin
in May, 2004.
“The Berlin show combines our more elaborate Las Vegas
media show with the more stylized approach we used for
our touring production, « The Complex Rock Tour »,
commented Blue Man Artistic Director and Video Designer
Caryl Glaab. “We brought in Scharff Weisberg, who worked
on ‘The Complex,’ to retool the ‘Vegas’ model and update
the show control system with something that would grow
as we grew. Scharff Weisberg took what they knew of
‘Complex’ and ‘Vegas’ and redesigned the system to work
in Berlin.”
“We programmed the ‘Complex’ show last year, and Blue
Man liked the user interface so much that they wanted us
to implement it in the Berlin show as well,” explained
Scharff Weisberg’s Jon Kiphart. The MEDIALON user
interface not only allowed the operator to trigger cues
for the show but also featured an editor page permitting
simultaneous editing of “in” and “out” points of clips
on the DoReMi players. These clips were held in a
database where they could be exported, imported and
checked with the clip list on the players. The routing
of the 32x32 matrix switcher was graphically represented
with real feedback from the unit.
The Scharff Weisberg-designed system ran on three video
screens, and a front projection that projected over the
surface of the set which were controlled by an operator
through a series of Medialon interface cues. Pre-recorded
video as well as live video from the performance on
stage were run though a Sony DFS 700 switching system
off DoReMi players. The cameras were remotely controlled
though Medialon, which also controlled video routing,
shutters and power on the Barco projectors. In addition,
the Medialon system monitored the status of the
projectors and DoReMi players, providing feedback to the
operator in the event of a projector-dowser failure,
video-deck failure or loss of communications.
Backup situations for the PC itself were handled by an
8-channel RS-422 switchbox that switched communication
lines from PC ‘A’ to PC ‘B’ providing serial feedback
about the PC currently in use. Five MOXA comm servers
were used to interface with equipment with long cable
runs like cameras and projectors in the front of house.
At two points in the show (when audience members were
brought onstage) the interface enabled the operator to
record video to one of the DoReMi decks from one of the
cameras capturing the action on stage. The operator
could then use the Medialon interface to easily set "in"
and "out" points on that recorded video for its playback
during the "bows" portion at the end of the show. During
previous Blue Man shows this editing and playback had
been done manually using a tape deck.
Video camera movement and lens positions were remotely
controlled and could be edited by the operator from the
user interface. Although pan/tilt heads and lenses were
totally independent devices, they appeared in a clear,
common interface on the operator screen.
The interface included a video playback backup system,
providing the operator with a way to easily replace any
DoReMi deck that failed with a backup unit. All the
operator needed to do was identify which deck had failed
and press a button for that deck on the user interface:
from that point all cues using that deck would use the
backup instead.
The show’s lighting design featured five Catalyst
servers playing from a number of sources. Scharff
Weisberg was able to devise a system to share the
content between the Catalyst programming and the
stationary video. “That allowed us to literally put any
video anywhere we wantedon stage,” said Glaab. Video
playback was routed from DoReMi servers to the Catalysts
at several points in the show. At all other times the
Catalysts used their own servers.
“Scharff Weisberg was great,” Glaab declared. “The
Medialon system design was very well thought out in
terms of production needs as well as our need to run it
on a day-to-day basis. Scharff Weisberg was able to
design the system in their office in New York, send it
to our partners to set up in Berlin and then come over
at the end of the process to make sure everything
worked.”
Credits:
John Akerman (SWI)- project manager and system design
Barry Grossman (SWI)- system design
Jon Kiphart (SWI)- control system management, primary
show control programming, and interface design
Lars Pederson(SWI)- hardware "reality check" and final
onsite system testing
Jens Oellrich (freelance for Mediaservice Beddig)-
Final show control programming
Andras Schmidmeister- Initial onsite MEDIALON testing
Rainer Beddig (Mediaservice Beddig)- Initial onsite
MEDIALON testing and service. |
