Here's a still from the projections on Dean St last month...  Along with a screenshot of the movie that was playing across all the windows...  I made a quick patch in max so that I could keyframe vertices to keystone the three different projectors beyond their natural capacities.

I am the video programmer for Big Art Group’s production of SOS. We began working early last spring of 2008 through Isadora to create a patch that could cue 8 cameras and 8 projectors. In addition to the live feeds, we also used green screens, chroma keying small video files (looped) from 4 Mac minis. Totalling 8 live cameras, 8 projectors, 3 green screens, 4 Mac minis plus 1 Powerbook Pro (as master board), and 3 A/V switchers to allow for chroma keying.  All of this was patched through a 16x16 Matrix swticher, to allow for switching between different combinations of video feeds to the projectors. We communicated between computers through an Ethernet hub that conversed with Isadora on all desktops. 

This final setup was the result of several weeks of untying knots in our heads to come up with the most simplified tech table. What is amazing about multi-media performance is that there are always a myriad of options to produce the same look. I come from a Max MSP/Jitter background and this could also be done through that program (especially Max 5 and its glorious debugging button!) However, for these needs – Isadora mixed with A/V switchers and the Matrix was the most efficient conclusion. Efficiency and simplification are our friends. I loved the moments where Caden and I would come up with this debauchery of a setup and realize that all of those 8 BNC cords running from the Matrix to the switcher back to the matrix and THEN out to projectors could actually be simplified down to 2 BNCs going through a mixer to the Matrix and immediately out to projectors. Sigh! What a relief (and a hearty laugh with a hit on the forehead). 

This simplification also bodes well when traveling internationally. This is for two reasons; one, travel compactness…and two, a quick and easy setup when arriving in the theater – so to allow for maximized playtime. SOS premiered at the Vienna Festival in May 2008. There, we brought what we had worked on, with the intentions to add more video cues and adjust certain moments visually. With that in mind, we needed to be ABSOLUTELY sure that we had the setup as accurate as possible. Once the setup was complete, we were allowed to play. We spent the first two days setting up the tech table and running what we could, allowing Caden to add video cues and switch certain cues around. It always was an incredible thing to get a note that entirely changed the look of a scene (i.e. “Could you change cameras 1 and 3 to be on screens 7 and 8, instead of screens 1 and 3? That means to put computer videos A and B on screens 1 and 3, and chroma backgrounds from Computers C and D with cameras 1 and 3 on screens 7 and 8? Awesome! Thanks.”). If that were initially asked at the beginning of building the Isadora patch, I would have passed out. But because Caden and I spent the extended amount of time building the infrastructure – these changes were not only possible, but quite easy: a simple switch of numbers. 

Caden also makes a rule that nothing (let me repeat, NOTHING!) can be changed, omitted, or finagled between the final rehearsal and the opening performance. I have worked on several multi-media performances where this was a possibility…and let me tell you, the amount of screw-ups and misfortunes that took place on those openings were detrimental to my health. Frightening. Vomitous. And so when Caden made that rule clear to me, I smiled and understood. But that didn’t stop the urge to change one tiny, little, microscopic thing an hour before the house opened. That urge never dies. Thankfully I didn’t. Changes often open up a series of deeper things to be changed. If a run gets from start to finish with only miniscule issues, why open up the opportunity of technical malfunction. We want to be in control, not the computers. Which is why we also create as many backup plans and safeties as possible. Programs quit, wires get stepped on, and extension barrels become shotty. For this reason, we ran extra cables, had an emergency kit backstage, and extra barrels, electric tape and batteries in our pockets. And even then, we stumbled upon technical difficulties. 

But that’s the joy of this. It’s live performance. We can never escape that risk. Isn’t that why we still put ourselves out there, on a stage, with a live audience capable of anything? Especially in multi-media, where we are still hit with the plethora of options to create one specific look… There’s no one-way to do this. With the option of video, there is also the opportunity to pre-tape EVERYTHING and make it a permanent production, unable to change over the course of a run. But that’s not the point, either. Big Art Group pushes towards an absolutely live performance, always being created and consumed in the same instant. Only with the chroma-keyed backgrounds do things become pre-created…but even then, the live performers in the foreground keep that risk alive. We are constantly battling between permanence and impermanence onstage (finding the balance of a shaped, live, multi-media performance). I have found through Big Art Group that it is within the accuracy and stability of the programming in the booth that gives way to a lively, risky, and dynamic duel-reality of live performers and video projection on the stage.

-Jared Mezzocchi 

So I have uploaded both pictures of Tallulah May and some pictures I have scanned from old Popular mechanics magazines.  I have a bunch more to scan but haven't gotten it done yet.  If anyone has any thoughts or comments about the vehicle for Stanley reference pictures, feel free to post.  I will keep adding more as I can.

Ch 

Stanley's sister was born on August 14th, Tallulah May.  I will upload some pics of her as well as some refrence photos for Stan's vehicle...

Cheers,

Joe