BLUEDOT
Ground Control Productions MD, Jon Drape & PM Jon Green; Bluman Associates’ Pod Bluman; PlayPass’ Ben Wild-Hirons, Kasandra Fry Mills & Steve Jenner.
stage, Green handled the other elements across site. “Duties were split between Jon and Tommy due to the demands of Bluedot which are unlike any other festival,” explained Drape. One such “demand” which created some interesting logistical issues was the screening of the movie Apollo 11. “The movie is currently in the IMAX cinema and protected by licencing,” explained Green. “This meant our video panels and servers were not set for purpose. A lot of work has gone in to ensure our dsp and dsi is compatible not to mention shipping in a lens from Germany.” Despite the evolving nature of the festival, the Ground Control team signed up two of its long running suppliers for 2019. Transition Video provided video and camera solutions site-wide along with dbnAudile suppling lighting and audio across the festival. “In the last three years, we’ve developed a really strong team with both Transition and dbnAudile,” reflected Drape. “It’s a very tried and tested formula and there’s certainly no reason to change it for this year’s event.” Another supplier involved with Bluedot since its conception is Bluman Associates, which has consistently facilitated the technical requirements of the famed projection onto the Lovell Telescope. This year the projection specialists increased the equipment provided so festivalgoers were able to walk around the circumference of the whole structure. Bluman Associates’ Pod Bluman told TPi about the new disguise gx 2c servers used. “They are able to give us a lot more power to create more
interesting visuals. We had more confidence in being able to deliver high quality, dynamic visuals due to the increased capabilities of the gx 2cs.” During Kraftwerk’s headline performance, the Bluman Associates team made used of the disguise real time capabilities to achieve RGB control for five individual quadrants of the telescope via artnet, which allowed the lighting designer to dynamically control the projections throughout their show. This year, Bluman explained how the team added an extra projections tower, each housing a Panasonic 30K laser projector. “They are more punchy than previous years and they use less power,” stated Bluman. The Telescope acted as an awe-inspiring backdrop to the headline sets on the main stage and doubled as the site of Luna Loops, a two-hour visual narrative. It was designed by Visual Projection artists, Illuminos, using some of the 19,000 hours of audio ‘loops’ created between mission control and the lunar module, fused with signals and recordings generated by the Lovell Telescope as it tracked the moon landings. Illuminos also collaborated with Tim O’Brien and the team from Bluman Associates to create custom looks for the telescope for The Moonbounce. The activation encouraged the audience to phone in ‘messages’ to be sent to the moon via the Dwingeloo Telescope in the Netherlands that were then bounced off the moon’s surface and picked up on site at Bluedot. Noisebox Productions, that managed sound for the show, gave the team 62
