World Childrens Games opened with Christie
Published: MEA
TURKEY: Christie projection was relied upon alongside a wealth of other equipment for the opening ceremony of the first World Children’s Games held at the Ankara Sports Hall in Turkey.
The rental company tasked with the job, Phantom Event Engineering, purchased 16 Christie Roadster HD18K 3-chip DLP projectors from distributors Astel Elektronik, with this event in mind – fielding 12 of the devices, double stacked in six clusters. ‘As soon as we sign for a project we prefer to purchase all the equipment necessary rather than sub-rent,’ confirmed managing director, Aykut Gönültaş. ‘In this way we enlarge our equipment pool.’
The projectors were fitted with 1.4-1.8:1 HD zoom lenses and mounted on two truss lines at 20m horizontal and 20m vertical from the projection area. They were also angled at 45-degrees (vertical) which provided challenges with the focusing.
The Roadsters were fed by six Hippotizer HD media servers. Each media server has two outputs so Phantom used three to create the six projection feeds, keeping the remaining three Hippotizers as back-up units. Using Hippotizer’s Uberpan component it created a 50m x 30m white PVC canvas for the six outputs, using the blend, warp and alignment functions in the server. The content was produced specially for this event by Spinifex Group Australia in 5000 x 3000 pixel resolution and Hippotizer’s Virtual Media Manager component split this content to the outputs, carrying the signal with Extron DVI fibre optic extenders.
Meanwhile Phantom set-up a Christie network by using a 1Gb switch at the control point and a 10/100 Ethernet switch for each cluster. It also made all the connections for the network with fibre optic cables and EtherWan FO to Ethernet Media converters. ‘Using a switch for each cluster really helped us enormously, as there was a heavy network,’ said Mr Gönültaş.
Spinifex created 10 tracks, each of five minutes duration, for the opening ceremony. The content was prepared as JPEG sequences and imported to media servers by Virtual Media Manager Component which encoded these sequences to MPEG-2 files. ‘The cultural content was a very important element for the ceremony and we thought it would be the best option to fill the big dancefloor with projection and program the video together with lights,’ explained Mr Gönültaş.
There was also a symphonic orchestra, reinforced by d&b audiotechnik J Series for the main PA and Q Series for the delay towers. And since the show was based on a theatrical dance show, Phantom drew heavily on intelligent light from Clay Paky as well as conventionals from ETC, Desisti and Philips Selecon.
There was also a second media display in the form of a circular transparent LED screen on a 10m diameter circle truss, set at 3m. This screen was fed by another media server on the same network as those feeding the projectors.
Reflecting on a highly successful production, Mr Gönültaş stated, ‘We were delighted with the performance of the projectors; everybody was impressed by the colours, intensity, resolution and brightness of the HD18Ks.’ The projectors were hemmed in by the roof and back walls. ‘Because of this we had been concerned about cooling issues,’ admitted Mr Gönültaş. ‘However, we need not have worried as all 12 projectors worked constantly during the five days, including set-up, rehearsals, and show day.’
Astel Elektronik, with Christie’s support, helped scope out the projection for the stadium, ensuring that the screen areas were covered with high performance video imagery. ‘Astel are one of the strongest integrator and distribution partners that I have worked with which I endorse with the full knowledge that they have recently invested in a world class service centre,’ noted Simon Smith, senior sales director, Christie EMEA. ‘This means that in practice, Astel go to the Turkish market just as Christie would do.’