ImagineerTom

As I understand it that's /just/ a front panel controller for a larger bit of kit hidden somewhere else?

Sorry I should have added that caveat -that is a generic box rebadged by lots of companies..... and it's IR controlled with a whole interface & menu system so not even a hackable shortcut into it unfortunately.

unfortunately I'm an arduino person, not a PI person and arduino's one major weakness is video; they just don't have the oomph for it and I don't really have the time for the steep learning curve of PI on this project. I can buy 1001 off the shelf audio playback widgets for $2 - but I can't seem to find anything similar for video anywhere; might be time to dust off the VHS player 😄

I'm trying to create the simplest, idiot proof playback device for a short video. Essentially a black box with a big button on it and a video output (either VGA or HDMI) to playback a single video file (approx 1min) when the button is pressed. For various practicality reasons it can't be a laptop running Qlab, or any other interface for a more complicated media server, it needs to be simple and basic - power it up, when you're ready press this button and boom - the video plays. Is there anything out there off the shelf close to this?

In FX world "live" means that the prop/object has "something" in it that will do "something" if you use it so I can see why people are getting confused in the press as to whether "live" means an actual bullet or just a blank.

That’s not how it works, nobody held major long term stocks of pyros so now they’re not being made youre chasing everyone else desperately hunting for pyros made 6 months ago and bidding against them. The days of “easily” buying leMaitre stock have passed.

There are off the shelf micro smoke machines to rent or buy for doing exactly this sort of thing but before you go spending that sort of money have you tried filling a box with smoke, leaving a hole in it and letting the smoke naturally leak out; I've never done it for 5 mins but a couple of mins of subtle smoke leaking is perfectly possible.

If there’s even the slightest chance a human might inhale the smoke then smoke pellets are not an option. You either need a mains powered smoke machine with a suitable timer / hacked timer or you need a battery powered smoke machine so that the smoke you produce is safe for humans and equipment.

Doing that sort of thing with arduino is really really simple, that's not the difficult part with all this. The difficult part is that different batches of the same light use different protocols or colours internally and, in the case of IR specifically, unless you've got direct line of site from your transmitter to the receptor chip on every single lantern you won't have a reliable control system.

The one in the pictures on the ad is IR remote despite what the add copy says. The ir codes are easily hackable and consistent long term (though horrific to implement on the real world) occasionally legit RF units get released but in our experience there’s no consistency from batch to batch as to the frequency or control protocols used which made it impossible to build a bridge interface that had any long term viability.

yes but as I noted - the first they are going to do is contact the designer or manufacturer to find out the specifications, tolerances (and recommended inspection practices) etc so that they can work out what an appropriate inspection or testing protocol would be...

The only people ""qualified"" to do an inspection like that would be the designer (basically you) or the manufacturer / supplier. Anyone else is going to be charging you for learning about your weird bit of kit and double checking / collating the specs on it for them to inspect it against.

BOC rep warned us this morning that if we need any CO2 between now and Christmas we should book it now as their supplies are plummeting.

I hate to be “that guy” but the answer is “what does your risk assessment say?” Because light levels for 30 something audience that’s sober is very different to pensioners or to what drunk teenagers need, or if you have kids on site running around. There isn’t “an answer” you can specifically point to anywhere else because every circumstance has different needs and expectations. And as kerry notes- towers might not be the right choice as they provide hotspots which can radically reduce people’s night vision and make them more blind than had you not supplied any lighting- if there are predictable pathways then a constant low level light source like festoon is a better, safer solution than towers which are better suited to highlighting features like entry/exit points, junctions, ticket points.

Because when they book tickets to see the live stage version of a movie the punters expect to see faithful replications of the main scenes and generally aren't interested in reinterpretations. Case in point; Frozen. The original broadway production had a complete reimagining of the staging of "Let It Go" with AR projections and lots of theatre craft; it was a legitimate reinterpretation of the scene; all the audiences hated it and they tweaked it during the run to get it closer to the movie sequence. When remounting the show for London they went further by adding ice staircases and having the sequence be about her building an ice palace (as in the movie) and audiences love it. Of course there are a few notable situations when the live stage show has been a radical reinterpretation of a movie but generally audiences want one of the two extremes - either EXACTLY what the movie was or completely reinvented in every scene; a mixture of the two just brings complaints from the people who are ultimately paying for it all.

If you read between the lines here you might work out why I have so many notes on creating this effect..... The water needs to start its journey as a single, flat "sheet" of water - if you start it by coming out of a round hole (or holes) it will only ever fall as separate columns of water and that won't give you the effect that the scene calls for - its MEANT to be a drench of water. In the film I'm 99% sure they did that by literally getting a bucket full of water and having a crewman flip it 180 when hanging from the roof. In Theatre situations you can't do that and it's far too much water to catch & clean up, thus you have to play with dimensions and perceptions - if the audience see a column of water that's 18" wide they assume its also about 18" deep, thus dropping a relatively flat but wide column of water is a way of creating the visual that you want whilst only using a fraction of the water. Also as I noted above, the power of the scene is the combination of the water drop, the actress /not/ flinching (that's REALLY hard to do) AND the hair flick to create the spray; you could have the perfect water drop but if you don't get the other two right the scene won't land so make sure time and resources are allocated to all the elements.

The resurrection of a previous thread about mounting a smoke machine inside an Aladdin's lamp reminded me of a project from lockdown, creating a "dream catching" jar for a production of BFG - https://www.dropbox.com/s/kh43rpye1zaxsy5/dreamcatcher_jar.mov?dl=0

I can save you a lot of time and hassle… the tipping bucket is the way to go. If the water dump lasts more than about one second it just looks hilarious and a bit tragic- pulling a plug out of a smaller hole in the bottom of a feature will just produce a dribble that looks nothing like the effect you’re aiming for.

Even cheaper - pound shops sell lengths of LED tape with a USB plug on the end, they also sell USB power bank / booster cells which would be powerful enough to keep the LED tape lit for hours with the added bonus of easy recharging and no actual electrics skill needed by anyone. On the other hand RGB with remote control your cheapest / easiest option would be an arduino with a wireless shield / module, some coding that ties that to the many ready made LED tape driver programs with the whole lot powered from a poundland power bank but all that lot would cost you £10-12 per frame plus assembly and coding time.

But there are already solutions to all those problems. There are festivals on sites with much better drainage so less to no mud. There are festivals that have no onsite camping thus ensuring punters are either living within commuter distance or staying in hotels. There are festivals spread across the country so that punters don't have to travel (Reading & Leeds for example). There are festivals that have huge eco energy elements. ALL festivals have made dramatic changes to consumables (reusable cups, composting cutlery, single use plastic banned on site) to minimise waste, ALL camping festivals have quite sophisticated camping equipment recycling / upcycling / reusing schemes in place, and ALL festivals already have far reaching and highly effective integration with public transport systems. Of course half these things don't apply to arena gigs and the big giveaway is where one of their suggestions is bicycle parking at the gig - that tells you that they are mashing stadium gigs and festivals together under one report when they are completely different beasts; there's many reasons why adding bike storage to a festival site is a waste of time and resources...

I can tell you now that even the original west end production didn't have a water effect that looked anywhere near as dramatic as the film version so the first tip is to lower everyone's expectations! Instead of the chair being on the stage deck it's best creating a raised platform that is actually a catch tray / tank the water release is just a tipping bucket - much more high tech solutions were tried and never worked. LESS IS MORE - about a pint of water dropped looks much better than a real full bucket and most importantly the actress needs to spend specific time rehearsing the pose as the water drops (it's very hard to not flinch) and perfect the head flick to make her hair give off the arc of water droplets. It's also best back and side lit - front light makes the water all but vanish.

The article seems to be mashing together arena gigs and festivals and talking about them incorrectly in spite of that. In the festivals we are involved in the #1 headliner on a stage might be bringing a chunk of their own production but EVERY other performer will be using the house rig - if they're a DJ then they don't even bring their own decks! I don't have much faith that the report or its recommendations are viable if they've taken the data from a global touring band who mostly do one-off gigs crossing the globe and extrapolated that to normal festival setups.

That's not a mainstage I recognise and from the photos (which show half made roof panels wrapped and pinned in place) it would appear it was literally a brand new structure and that they intended to do a certain amount of final manufacture as part of their install; a very risky move. Does anyone know who the mainstage supplier was?

There's going to be a lot more of this over the next couple of years - from the handful of festivals we have managed to squeeze in over the last few weeks it's abundantly clear that a lot of established companies have gone completely and those that remain have lost the majority of their experienced staff and are relying on 90% agency and new hires. It's very noticeable how much "institutional memory" has been lost as long running festivals have barely opened in time because build over-run and shortcut / best practice knowledge has vanished so tasks get bodged and rebodged half a dozen times.

That makes sense - the audio goes from the microphone on stage through the cable to the sound desk, on the other hand the DMX signal goes from the desk to the stage in completely the other directions so as long as it's bi-directional cable he will be fine