August 19 , 2008 - 110 Axons create a spectacle for the worldwide audiences

On 08.08.08, the eyes of the world focused on the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. The "One World One Dream" theme was illustrated in a spectacle from China's National Stadium, nicknamed the "Bird's Nest."

High End Systems (a new member of the Belgium-based Barco Group) not only played a starring role in the ceremonies, but helped set some records: for the largest quantity of media servers (110 HES Axons) in any live event, and for creating the largest High Def projection -- in this instance, one clip covered a screen encircling the stadium that measured 1,942 feet long (592 meters) by 45 feet high (14 meters).

All effects were achieved in “real time” using the Axon media servers and projectors with 78 HES Orbital Heads. Four Wholehog 3 lighting consoles controlled the Axon media servers in the ceremonies, connected with 12 DP 2000s.

HES Axons created a number of non-stop visual effects in the show: from the projected visuals encircling a video ring – called the “membrane” - around the top of the stadium, to the projections on the Globe. The HES Orbital Heads were used to project images onto performers on the field.

HES distributor Leifull in China purchased and installed the HES equipment, and also created the media server room specifically for the Axons. HES sent four product specialists to help with set up, with Zach Peletz from Austin serving as product support on the scene from May until the closing ceremonies, to be televised Aug. 24 on NBC-TV. The closing ceremonies will use the same equipment but in a different design.

Another Wholehog 3 worked in the TV broadcast booth in Beijing’s International Broadcast Center. Broadcast Lighting Director John Pappas used the console to control a media server for Seven Network Australia’s broadcasting.

There are many people involved in the production. Just to mention a few: Olympics Ceremonies Lighting Designer is Sha Xiao Lin. Dennis Gardner is the Chief Lighting Programmer and Digital Lighting/Video Programmer. Steve Kellaway is Gardner’s programming assistant. Scott Chmielewski of Digital Media Designs was involved in pre-production design with the Axons. Paul Collison handled the broadcast lighting and control system.

Programming the Digital Lighting at the Olympic Ceremonies

UK programmer Dennis Gardner joined the Olympics’ digital lighting production team in mid-April. The seasoned Wholehog 3 programmer includes Peter Gabriel’s world tour on his resume. But this gig tops them all for sheer magnitude, he says. We emailed him for some quick “sound bites” in written form on the various elements of this show.

The Axons:
The show was the largest I have ever done. Normally I have worked with about 6-8 media servers and this was just huge at 110! This was my first time to use Axon and I found it very easy to use and very flexible. For the scale of the show, it was ideal!

The Wholehog 3 consoles:
I have been using the Wholehog 3 console since its birth and I feel it’s the best tool for the job. The ease at programming lots of media servers and being able to link to timecode was a joy. The show was run on LTC timecode, which came from the music. The whole system was rock solid.

We programmed the show on one Wholehog 3 network running version 2.6 software. We had the network set up as: one server console that was never touched and just used as the server; two client consoles at FOH for myself and Steve Kellaway; and one console as a roamer for programming around the stadium to get better viewpoints.

The content:
The Tai Chi part came from Andre Verleger of Germany, who also created the whale. Spin Effects of Australia created the doves, birds and faces of kids. The rest came from the Chinese Production Centre. General color washes and effects came from either HES stock content or my own library of content.

The Globe:
The Globe was projected on from 8 projectors, external to the Globe, set up in four groups approximately 90 degrees from one another. We had no Orbital Heads for this one as we needed a much bigger image and more brightness. We used Axons and their blending feature to help achieve this effect. We had the Globe recovered with white material to get the best from the projection; the original was dark grey.

The challenges:
The hard part was doing 40 projector line-ups and keystoning with sometimes only an hour on a set piece, also not knowing when we would see the piece again. We found it hard some days working on a section in the show when no video file had been made and not knowing what it could look like. The torch sequence was only completed the night before and due to secrecy was never run until the show.

Scott Chmielewski had done a lot of pre-production work which was brilliant, but due to the ever-changing design of the show, many of his calculations, lens types and positions changed and so most of this unfortunately had to be redone and doesn’t reflect on Scott’s work.

It has been a learning curve for myself and the Chinese: one, because of the scale of the event; two, because of their understanding of the technical nature of what we are doing; and three, the cultural differences in the way work is done.

Closing Ceremonies:
The Aug. 24 closing ceremonies will use the same gear and will be just as big but with a bit more of a party feel. Our big challenge with the closing is not being able to get into the stadium because of the athletic events taking place. We will not be able to see the main center set piece until the night before – and even then, if we are that lucky, as it depends on if they build it in time. So who knows what can happen!