Very distinct shapes under the duvet (SFW before you wonder …)

Our annual hip hop festival came around again – but for once I managed to mostly avoid getting (too) involved with it all – call it karmic payback for years of flamenco …

[Shop talk]

Most of the technical gubbins from last year applied again in any case for those interested in the shop talk sections (last years post here) – this year though SCS was up and running and a majority of pieces had their music controlled from PC rather than CD

No UHF 58’s this year (in fact no beat boxers at all) but we did have a small keys/tabla combo that had to be miked for one piece – not on the night I worked however so I don’t know any of the details. No sending people out on shopping trips this time though.

We did have to allow space for one company to add their O1V96 and Q-Lab playback, routed through our Midas.

Set wise, this years random items included a three seater sofa that I’d driven over to Haringey to pick up inbetween visits to Ikea Wembley and Ikea Blue Water that saw a lot of use offstage …; a couple of working traffic lights (American style); a DJ set-up on wheeled table as a prop (ignore how the music starts when the power gets plugged in – despite no audio cables attached …); a wooden chair,  and a camp bed.

Lighting was slightly simplifed from last year but with the addition of some MAC600 to our in-house MAC500 for some variety.

And then, because it would be too easy otherwise, we are in the process of switching from our old Strand 500 series lighting control to ETC Eos, though, of course, the subsequent tour has to be programmed for Strand.

But only after it’s been created on the Eos

I’m going to skip straight past that now …

[/shop talk]

I’m going to mention the AV set-up outside of shop talk as it’s something that seems to be amassing interest in various places.

It seems that TV manufacturers and film producers alike are trying to get 3D vision up and running properly. Well, theatre is doing it as well as we handed out 1900 sets of silly looking paper glasses out for one of the pieces.

Rather than the old red and green colours, the improved concept of stereoscopic vision utilises polarised lenses – think your sunglasses but with one of the polarisations at 90 degrees to the other. This is replicated at the two projectors both showing the same image with the result that each eye sees a slightly different image and re-assembles it in your brain to form a 3-D image.

It works pretty well, and had appropriate gasps from the audience, though it’s a little more blurry and less 3D at the edges – something that I noticed when watching Monsters Vs Aliens.

The show went very well the night I saw, and got good reviews the other nights – I have to say though, I enjoyed actually having a bank holiday weekend off work – which means I’m tempting fate for a few days annual leave I have coming up …