ETC at the Doha Asian Games
ETC was involved in three different but related elements of the massive opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Doha Asian Games in Qatar.
The amazing show – heralded as one of the most spectacular event openings ever – was produced by Sydney-based David Atkins Enterprises (DAE), and artistically directed by David Atkins and Ignatius Jones.
The first area for ETC was in the supply of PIGI projectors – in conjunction with the show’s projection designer Peter Milne of Sydney-based The Electric Canvass. A total of 44 7Kw PIGI projectors were involved in the show – making it the largest ever PIGI projection job to date. The machines were set up and tech’d by ETC’s technical manager, Patrick Matuszek.
The PIGI’s were used to produce stunning patterns and texturing onto the ‘field of play’ in Khalifa Stadium throughout both opening and closing shows.
ETC worked very closely with Peter Milne and the Electric Canvass on these PIGI elements - Milne has for some years has been the ETC representative in Australia.
The next area of involvement was in image management for all the show’s video surfaces in the stadium. This was controlled by ETC’s OnlyView system.
This included all sources going onto the enormous 156 metre wide by 64 metre high LED cyclorama specially built by Element Labs, plus onto two smaller Barco LED screens positioned at either end of the stadium.
Another 12 Christie 20K projectors were supplied by ETC. These were positioned along the edges of the arena, and used to project images onto portable screens coming up from some of the hundreds of floats traversing the stadium floor during the show, or dropping down from aerial-based props.
The third element in which ETC was involved was ‘Monitoring management’, catching the movements of technical and creative staff, supplying SD and HD signals through a Snell & Wilcox Kahuna desk, a Kaleido advanced multi-image display processor and 32 x 32 digital matrix.
In addition to this system, OnlyView was also simultaneously driving a synched a 10801 signal from the live broadcast.
The OnlyView Option
OnlyView had not been officially launched when Milne and ETC originally tendered for the Opening and Closing ceremonies. However, as soon as it was, it became apparent that it was easily the most powerful and flexible software tool available to run the show visuals.
Reliability was a deciding factor as OnlyView is inherently stable when running SMPTE timecode. It also manages timecode ‘drop out’ extremely well which influenced David Atkins’ final decision about show control.
The OnlyView system in Doha was run by two ETC technicians – Karim Belkacem and Yan Kaimakis – utilising the “Producer”, a PC-based encoder with 2-screen user interface and a multi time-line capability. The Producer managed the show’s Image Library, and – linked via Ethernet – ensured that the right images were sent to the right surfaces on cue.
The OnlyView system included over 40 fully redundant backup servers linked across a fibre optic network measuring approximately 5 Km.
The ETC team received all the video artwork and content material from Spinifex (the Sydney based company commissioned to produce the show’s video graphics, animations and content). This was imported into OnlyView which was then used for all the cutting, masking, perspective correction and fitting to the screens.
OnlyView can do this in real time – no waiting for images to render – making the process extremely fast. The finished loop can also be synchronised with the performers via OnlyView, allowing variations in the speed and timing of the final playback – along with the natural variations of any live performance.
OnlyView’s multi-time line is useful for rehearsals, enabling instant access to any part of the show, and also allowing the operator very clear show organisation.
The whole project was overseen for ETC by Patrice Bouqueniaux, who comments that the biggest challenges included “The sheer visibility of managing so many large images, and also the intense time pressure and the need to co-ordinate with all the other technical departments involved in getting the show on”. To achieve all this, a skilled and experienced crew with the right attitude is essential along with all the right technical tools, “I am proud to say that we had them all, and the resulting show spoke for itself” concludes Bouqueniaux. | Click on the pictures for the large version |
