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Technology in Entertainment
"O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention: A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene." Shakespeare's plays were performed on a bare stage, in daylight, in ordinary dress. Now, of course, we need a lot less imagination: there is technology to deck our kings. Today with lasers, state-of-the-art lighting, surround sound, pyrotechnics, water screens... live entertainment has taken a quantum lap beyond Shakespeare's wooden O.
Of course none of these technologies come easy: they require hundreds of hours of planning and rigging, and thousands of tons of equipment. No one ever said making magic was easy. Gearhouse South Africa has, according to Tim Dunn, an excess of three hundred moving lights and 180 people working full time. They have an excess of 40 000 square meters, supply, lighting, sound, stage, audio visual equipment all on a large scale, as well as a lot of small shows. However they specialize in putting together large projects.
"Our two most powerful senses are sight and sound", explains Trevor Tennant from Universal Productions, "and when we create synergy between these, we have the potential to create an awesome spectacle. Especially when these elements are taken and magnified to larger than life. These are the elements that are often used in Rock concerts by performing stars. Add elements such fireworks and special effects such as lasers and water screens and we will be able to transport an audience into a dimension that they cannot even really consider". Universal Productions has ordered one of the biggest laser video projectors that projects onto a giant water screen.
With the recent Symphony of Fire, seen in Johannesburg and Cape Town, fireworks have moved on considerably from a few sparklers and a damp Catherine Wheel in your garden on November 5th. At events like this, over a ton of explosives are shot into the air. "It took us about 2 days of preparation time and 2 days of setup and we would have used 20 to install this show", said Patrick Brault , the Canadian Show Designer. " About two thirds of the equipment here is what we call mortars cannons. These are all tubes, just like big guns, except that now with new technology we are able to use lighter mortars with new polyethylene and epoxy compounds. They are safer and can make a better explosion. The capsule is like a bomb - a shell. You have a bomb inside the dirt and you have a explosion at the bottom which you ignite with an electrical match and it's instantaneous - the shot goes off in the air and after a certain time, at a certain altitude it explodes." And how do we measure up? Can South Africans make big bangs with the best of them?
Well, it seems we have found ourselves in the midst of Shakespeare's brightest heavens of invention... a world where magic is reality... and the skies are made of water and fire. Contacts
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The hardest thing for Tim Dunn from Gearhouse South Africa in his 15 years as a line, set and structural designer was enabling clients to visually see what they could expect. It was done in the past with little plastic models, cardboard models or artists impressions. "Now what we've got is a lot of computer programs. We are actually taking physical sizes of things, moving things and creating virtual reality which gives a client a much better idea of what is going on, they can move it around in virtual reality, we can change things, we can check angles of lighting, we can check entrances. It's all physical, rather than having to go back and rebuild the model which is a great expense anyway. That technology has driven our industry far further forward than it has been in the last ten years."
Baletsatsi has been running every night at Sun City for over a year. Jean-Francois Darne, the Lightning manager at Sun city told us about the stage lighting they use: "In the Baletsatsi rig we have 8 cyber lights, 24 I-beams which is the intelligent lighting, and of course we have the generic lighting including parcans, floods, fresnels which form the bulk of the 120 generic fixtures."
But what is an intelligent cyberlight?
According to Mickey Lehr at Gearhouse SA, it basically consists of a power supplier and a light chamber in the back part of the light. The various effects, colour changing, patterns, gobos and other effects units are situated towards the middle of the fixture, followed by the discern drive and the mirror hat. The gobos used are not made out of steel as most conventional gobos, but are made from lithos. Lithos is a process where glass is coated and photographically treated. It gets edged, and various tychrome colours can be applied, so fairly free colour pictures can be used.
Heart stopping effects are not restricted to interior events - these can also happen on a much grander scale!
According to Mitri Mitri from Universal Productions, this screen is the biggest in the world. It is 50m wide , 25m high and can be triggered with the push of a button.
Nick Mitri is a Pyro Specialist who recently competed in the Dunhill Symphony of Fire. He represented South Africa and will be firing in Canada next year, representing the country. He has been over seas four times, to the States and to Europe, where he worked with big fireworks companies. He was trained locally with a local pyrotechnician, but he learnt the most whilst he was overseas.
