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High Tech Finance with Mediolanum HD video and cutting edge
Italy - Leading Italian finance group
audio and lighting made for
of activity with a huge multimedia convention
a spectacular bankers’ convention in the Italain town of Pesaro.
Words & pictures
www.lsionline.co.uk
by Mike Clark
22 Lighting&Sound - January 2008
Mediolanum recently celebrated its 25th year in the town of Pesaro. The event, which had as its leitmotif the “Promised Land” (Italian emigrants’ idea of the United States in the 30s), was staged at the Adriatic sports arena. The grounds were transformed into a port, complete with a “ship” moored at the dock, shops, restaurants and bars, and the arena itself hosted an audience of 10,000 family bankers and staff, which took part in the celebrations at an in-the-round event produced by Mediolanum Communicazione Alboran, with ‘Madison Square Garden’s boxing ring’ as its stage and an impressive array of leading-edge AV technology. Alboran event manager Sara Gorla (one of three ladies in key roles on this production) coordinated the contractors supplying audio, video and lighting technology - respectively AB Systems, Cinemascope and Audiolux. The huge Litec truss structure flown above the ring formed two blocks of video screens round the venue’s basketball scoreboard: the uppermost with four sides, and below it an octagonal set-up. Visuals played a predominant role and there were also four 65” Panasonic plasma monitors and nine 43” Pioneer units round the edge of the stage and 55 LCD disseminated among the seats. Each of the four 45ft x 21ft top screens was used with a pair of Barco FLM HD18 18k projectors, whereas a Barco SLM R12 15,000 lumen unit projected on each of the lower eight. Cinemascope’s Simone Settembrini explains: “We
fielded an HD OB truck which fed live coverage to the screen control position, alongside the FOH desk in the arena, and recorded the event for a DVD, with nine Thomson LDK 6000 HD cameras. Playout was via three Folsom Encore 3ME video processors, which, as well as the truck’s signals, received PowerPoint graphics, animated sequences from two Dataton Watchout systems, and recorded footage from two GVG Turbo DDR units.” The truck feed was native HD and, using the Folsom units, the team up-converted all the other signals and sent an all-HD feed to the Barcos, exploiting their DLP displays. The main Adamson audio rig (supplied by AB System and designed by Didier DalFitto of DV2, Adamson’s European support company) was in the capable hands of PA man Luca Nobilini, supported by Alberto Francesconi of Adamson’s Italian distributor, Reference Laboratory, and David Nulli, representing DalFitto. It was decided to hang the majority of the speakers above the screens for aesthetics reasons, so Nulli realigned all the hangs as far as time and phase were concerned, using XTA’s Audiocore software driving the DSP, WinMLS audio and acoustics measurement software and Adamson’s Y-Axis Shooter. The impressive system featured six arrays: four with 16 SpekTrix each and the other two with 12 Y10s. Eight flown front-fill hangs each had two SpekTrix Wave and a SpekTrix system. Eight more SpekTrix were used as “lip”-fills round the stage and the bottom end was covered with clusters of three T21 subwoofers, plus two more on the floor under the ring. Power and processing was handled by 44 Lab.gruppen fP 3400 and 10 fP6400 (for the subs),
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Clockwise from above: The screens flying above the arena; The grounds were transformed into a port, complete with a “ship” moored at the dock; Lighting designer Ettore Dell’Orti (left) with Franco Fratus, director of photography; The audio team, (L-R): Saverio DeBellis, Luca Nobilini, David Nulli and Alberto Francesconi.
A well as a distributor, Reference Laboratory of Osimo is also a loudspeaker system and specialist cable manufacturer and several of its 300 models were used at the event: from the XTA 448 to the first rack, RSC8 8-channel multipair, and from there to the other racks RMC16TP. The processors were controlled via Computer-RS485. For the Adamson systems, there was RPC33 (Y10), RPC21 (SpekTrix) and RPC20 (T21). As well as designing the lighting rig (in close collaboration with DoP Franco Fratus), Audiolux owner Ettore Dell’Orti, who has worked on Mediolanum projects for years, programmed and operated the console. As well as a large number of conventional of various types, the automated fixtures were all by Coemar. Dell’Orti’s brief was to ensure the utmost visual impact. He said: “There wanted plenty of light in the hall, enabling speakers to look the audience in the eyes, but without sacrificing the event’s atmosphere or interfering with the video, which played a key role.” As well as the centre structure, four large vertical rectangles of truss were also flown above the seating, recreating the lighting in large stadia. Each
was fitted with 12 Coemar iSpot 575s and 12 Infinity Wash 1400s, of which Dell’Orti enthused: “They’re really bright - they’ve 40% more light than a Flex with a 2000W discharge lamp. We also used 52 CF7s for a wash throughout the hall. Basic scenes were set and stored, but 32 iWash Halo were under manual control. For example, when [ex-prime minister] Silvio Berlusconi arrived, he decided where to go, so we had to improvise, bearing in mind the TV troupe’s colour temperature requirements.” Four MDG Atmosphere fog generators and two Smoke Factory TourHazers helped highlight the 52 iSpot 575s used to ‘design’ over the 110 washlights. Control was courtesy of two GrandMa full-size desks, a GrandMa Light and five MA Lighting Network Signal Processors, converting Ethernet to DMX. Of the 19 DMX outputs used, only seven were for the moving head fixtures - no less than 12 were for the Expolite EPL 60 LED Powersticks, used to frame the screens. The RGB Powersticks were handled via GrandMa’s Bitmap Engine, with which the LD created a grid with several effect bitmaps. “Each Powerstick has 60 LEDs and, rather then using them with a video generator, I used them at maximum resolution, and varied effects’ tempo and intensity according to the videos being screened, or the music.” A toast to the success of the event by Berlusconi, Doris and all the attendees, for which over 9,000 bottles of sparkling wine were uncorked simultaneously, has reportedly been canditated for the Guinness Book of Records.
www.lsionline.co.uk
plus 14 XTA DP224, all installed on a catwalk above the rig. Overall control and distribution was via an XTA 448 alongside the Yamaha PM5D RH FOH console, manned by Saverio DeBellis (the monitor desk helmed by Paolo De Cori was identical).
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