The Opening and Closing Ceremonies of any Olympic Games is a daunting production task, and the ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. were no different. David Atkins of Australia-based David Atkins Enterprises (DAE) served as the ceremonies' executive producer and artistic director. He wanted to create a memorable event that reflected the majesty of Canada, and at the same time, create a tone that was personal and emotionally charged. The Opening Ceremonies, themed "Landscape of a Dream," transported the audience across prairies and mountains to the depths of the ocean, and through Canada's varied seasons through projected images that enveloped the stadium – floor to roof. Even the audience, asked to don white ponchos, became a projection surface.
BC Place Stadium was the first-ever indoor venue for the ceremonies, and the first time the nightly Victory Ceremonies were held at the same location as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. It would seem that being indoors would be an ideal situation for such the events, and while it was nice to not have to be bundled up while loading-in gear, the stadium did present some production challenges.
There are two important characteristics of BC Place. First, it is the largest air-supported roof in North America, so weight and movement are concerns. Second, the roof is translucent. This meant, indoors or not, much of the programming of the lighting and projection could only be dealt with at night. Add to that the fact that all of the ceremonies would take place in the one space, and you have rehearsals for multiple events and programming occurring in a single space on staggered schedules. BC Place ended up running 24 hours a day, with programmers, designers and the technical crew pulling together with the DAE team to realize the ambitious production design.
The video playback system for the copious amount of projection was not the largest system engineered by London and Paris-based E/T/C London Paris, but it was the most complex. Video director for the ceremonies Patrice Bouqueniaux, E/T/C's sales and marketing manager, describes the layout. "We worked out a system of 30 Christie 20K Roadster projectors for the field of play and 24 Christie 18K Roadster projectors for all of the aerial objects like the mountain and the ring screen."
The 20K projectors for the field of play were mounted just below the roof in two stacks of 15 projectors mounted in a horizontal position. The 18K projectors for the aerial objects were mounted on the balcony rail and arranged in a vertical position with six stacks of four projectors each. E/T/C/ also had 36 PIGI DDRA 7K Xenon projectors for coverage over the audience. The production company, Solotech provided the video equipment and technicians.
To handle the video feeds to all the projectors E/T/C decided to have a feed per projector. "All of the projectors are arranged like a fan," says Bouqueniaux. "Each part of the stage is reached by a stack of three 20K projectors. We had to overlap exactly the three projectors on the same surface with an angle of 21°, which is quite flat. Normally we would have one video feed for each stack of projectors but to be able to have the perfect keystoning here, we had to put one video feed for each projector. So instead of 10 video feeds to entirely cover the field of play we had to have 30 video feeds."
Another challenge was presented by the fact that most of the automated scenic elements were the projection surfaces. There was a large projection screen ring hung high above the center of the stadium that lowered and from within it two smaller concentric projection surface rings would drop down. There were also tall vertical "trees" that grew from the floor up to the ‘leaf canopy' of the rings. And most impressive was a rip-stop nylon "mountain" projection surface that rose floor to ceiling. All these moving and three-dimensional surfaces were a challenge that was solved with tracking technology.
"One of the big challenges was to follow 3D objects in space; in movement," explains Bouqueniaux. "For example, when the center ring screen was moving, the video followed the object. We have our own tracking system fashioned for 3D work called OnlyView that tracks the real position of the three ring screens and mapped video in realtime onto the objects."
Working in 3D space brings its own challenges, but then you layer on the movement and there are even more considerations. "We created a virtual cylinder – that was 30 meters high by 120 meters in diameter. After we had that virtual cylinder, we could match any object, in any position inside the cylinder," describes Bouqueniaux. "All the elements were inside the cylinder. Each time you lined up on the rings, when the diameter changed the new destination is applied on all of the video projectors. Each object had to have its own mapping because if you make an overlap for the exterior ring, that overlap doesn't work for the second ring and its worse on the third ring. There were more than 300 mapping textures applied over all the objects. To give you an example, the mapping texture that was applied to the mountain, altogether had 1,736 points of information to do the right mapping over the mountain."
If all of this seems daunting enough, then the team had to add in the fact that the roof of BC Place moves-a lot. The movement of the air-filled roof means the level of the roof changes, which directly affects the mother grid that everything is hung from. "The roof was moving as much as 1.3 meters during the performance. This, of course, changed the position of the 3D object," says Bouqueniaux. "We tracked the position of the ring and then we applied the general tracking for the position of the roof. To do so, we worked in strong collaboration with Stage One, who managed all of the rigging systems. We worked with Jim Tinsley, their project manager, to solve this challenge."
U.K.-based Stage One used their software system called QMotion, which allowed them to monitor the level of the roof. "Every 10 seconds they sent us the absolute level of the roof. From that information, we managed to create an offset of the general tracking."
Putting on a show of this scale required a lot of precise synchronization, with much of the show running on timecode. There were certain portions of the show where timecode would not work due to safety considerations and had to be run manually. One such sequence was called "Field of Dreams" where a field is projected on the floor as a young boy is flying, but at times looks as if he is running when he touches down on the ground. This was just one of the many beautiful images used throughout the Olympic ceremonies. The content creation was handled by the Spinifex Group, based in Darlington, Australia.
Lighting designer Bob Dickinson and his team from Full Flood are veterans of past Olympics yet this was the first time he worked with Atkins and DAE. "David is extremely detail oriented," says Dickinson. "There was literally nothing that he was not familiar with and did not collaborate on in the entire production. Working with him was a great experience." Though Dickinson enjoyed the collaboration the amount of projection presented an interesting challenge.
"It's an unusual project for a lighting designer," notes Dickinson. "Because of the nature of the large-scale projection it was more about not lighting than lighting. Finding a way to not light the projection surface and balancing such low light levels was extremely tricky."
Assisting Dickinson with this challenging design were lighting directors Ted Wells and Travis Hagenbuch, both of Full Flood. Wells handled followspots and Hagenbuch handled all of the cues during the show. Dickinson's team worked closely with DAE technical director Ian Baldwin and PRG project manager Tony Ward on many of the technical challenges. Production Resource Group (PRG) supplied the entire lighting package, the lead technicians, and 70 local crewmembers. They provided supervision as well.
Rob Hume and Laura Frank were the lighting programmers for the opening and closing ceremonies using PRG V676 lighting consoles. It was also the first time either had worked on the V676. Both liked the consoles, with Frank noting that "having two different styles of effects engines was nice. It is great to have two different ways to attack an effects problem." For the nightly victory ceremonies Jason Rudolph handled the media programming also on a V676 console in conjunction with two PRG Mbox Extreme v3 media servers. The Mboxes controlled a wall of over 360 Element Lab Versa Tubes. Paul Sharwell programmed the lighting on an MA Lighting grandMA console.
Since the Opening ceremonies had projection on both horizontal and vertical surfaces with performers flying and moving throughout the field, Dickinson decided to use a technique he had previously employed to help control the light and avoid blowing out the imagery.
"Our approach was to take and put a large quantity of instruments below field level in tech pits. The lens of the instrument was at the level of the field. By using a lot of framing instruments – VL1000 and VL3500 Spots in the pits – we were able to get the lights to actually hit performers in the middle of the field of play without polluting the projection."
Wells had 12 Lycian M2 2.5kW followspots in the tech pits and in the upper portions of the stadium were 16 followspots including Strong Gladiator IIs and IIIs, 10 of which were retrofitted by PRG to handle 4kW lamps.
"The cueing was tricky because of the low light levels," Dickinson explains. "Ted had to work extensively at night doing meter readings and with the spot operators to constantly control the intensity as performers moved in the light. The human eye is very tolerant; however, when a performer is on television that intensity tolerance is really, really narrow, not much light at all can cause problems for the camera.
"We lit this production at the lowest light levels I have ever lit a major production," Dickinson adds. "We started at 275 Lux (26 footcandles (FC)), but because of considerations with the projections, by the time we went on the air we were under 200 Lux (19 FC)." By contrast, lighting some of the built scenic elements including the ‘carved out of ice' platform for the Olympic officials, the crystal totems and the multi-legged cauldron for the Olympic flame required a tremendous amount of light. Each of the four automated legs of the cauldron had a VL5 Arc as well as an Arri 200W HMI Pocket PAR. There were also four PRG Bad Boy luminaires under the center of the floor to tightly uplight the crystal cauldron. The crystal stage for the Olympic officials had over 200 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlasts inside.
"Those pieces had probably 800 to 1,000 lux (74-93 FC) pouring onto them," says Dickinson. "Because so much of the light passed through them; they did not capture a lot of light, which of course gave them that crystalline quality."
The lighting was split between Hume and Frank's V676 consoles, which they were able to customize to their individual working styles. Hume handled the spot fixtures and Frank took control of the wash and scenic lighting. Dickinson used a mix of both spot and wash lights throughout the rig in the stadium to light the athletes as they enter as well as the audience, the building and the roof of the stadium. There were over 1,300 automated lights used in the lighting rig and 300+ conventionals. When projections were in use Hume had control of over 400 automated lights including Vari-Lite VL3500 Spots, VL1000s, VL2416s, Martin Professional MAC 2000 Performances, and PRG Bad Boy luminaires. Many of the automated lights were in the tech pits or on the balcony rail positions to allow for tight control of the lighting. Frank controlled approximately 1,200 fixtures including VL3500 Wash, A&O Technology Falcon 6kW searchlights, Martin MAC 2000 Wash fixtures and Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlasts. Most of these lights came from the outer extremes of the stadium and were much wider angles.
Hume, Ward and PRG chief technician Jason Trowbridge worked out how the consoles would be split and how the two systems would work on the PRG Series 400 Power and Data system network. The Vancouver Games was the largest-to-date Series 400 Power and Data Distribution System layout. The S400 distribution system in Vancouver used 27 S400 racks. One S400 rolling rack supports up to 72 lighting units. There were 1,630 individual Cam-Lok connections and 2,316 individual S400 connections. The use of the S400 system was key in keeping excess weight off the trusses because of the decreased cable required and the decreased number of connections, which also cut down the time for installation. Also by using the Series 400 system Ward could easily give the victories ceremonies crew control of part of the main lighting system. Though they had a separate rig, they used 25 percent of the main rig.
"The inflatable roof has no structure, so we were limited on the amount of weight that we could hang overhead and that limit got more and more critical the further that we moved into the center of the stadium," says Dickinson. "That was exacerbated by the fact that so much of the motion control of people, screens and scenery were being flown from the very center of the roof, which meant that we had limited instrumentation choices in the center. That's where I put some of the Bad Boys along with some VL3500 Spots."
The VL3500s were used for framing and the Bad Boys were used for downlights, especially for performers during a section in the opening referred to as the tree ballet where the performers flew up through a mist giving an effect of them flying up to the heavens.
To the 60,000 stadium spectators and billions worldwide, the hard work and many challenges solved by the production team resulted in a memorable presentation of talent, technology and spectacle.
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics
CREW (Partial List)
David Atkins Enterprise (DAE):
Executive Producer & Artistic Director: David Atkins
Artistic Director: Ignatius Jones
Producer: Geoff Bennett
Protocol Director: Steve Boyd
Associate Artistic Director: Drew Anthony
Director of Design: Doug Paraschuk
Technical Director: James Lee
Technical Manager System: Ian Baldwin
Head of Audio Visual: Cyri Meusy
E/T/C & Solotech Crew
Video Director: Patrice Bouqueniaux
Technical Director: Patrick Matuszek, Cyril Beme
OnlyView Manager: Nicolas Manichon
Content Manager OnlyView: Pierre Yves Toulot
Programmer OnlyView: Yan Kaimakis, Sebastian Cartier Grenier
Video Line-Up Manager: Patrick Lefevre, Mathieu Coutu
PIGI Director: Peter Milne
Programmer PIGI: Gaël Picquet
Network Manager: Benoit Thomas
Broadcast Manager: Serge Bergeron
Content Creation
Spinifex
Creative Director: Richard Lindsay
Rigging Automation
Stage One
Project Manager: Jim Tinsley
Lighting Company
PRG
Project Manger, Gaffer: Tony Ward
Account Executive: David James
Account Executive: Andrew Beck
Chief Technician: Jason Trowbridge
Lead Technicians: Jeff Anderson; David Favorite; Mark Klopper
Operations Managers: Mark Olsen; Sarah Cunningham
Technicians: Jon Morrell; Scott Amiro; Corey Tom; Sabrina Kells
Local Crew Wrangler: Donald Thorsness
GEAR (Partial List)
Projection: (Solotech)
30 Christie 20K Roadster projector
24 Christie 18K Roadster projector
2 Christie 30K Roadster projector
4 Christie 10K Roadster projector
36 PIGI DDRA 7K Xenon projector
6 Only View Master unit
118 Only View Display unit
2 Only Cue Master
6km fiber optic cable
Sony broadcast switcher and monitoring for all the creative staff
Lighting: (PRG)
Fixtures:
192 Martin MAC 2000 Wash
64 Martin MAC 2000 Performance
19 PRG Bad Boy
70 PRG VL6C+ Spot
242 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spot
165 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash
173 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spot
112 Vari*Lite VL2416 Wash
74 Vari*Lite VL1000 A/S
104 Vari*Lite VL5Arc Wash
50 Vari*Lite VL5 Wash
44 A&O Technology Falcon 6kW CMY
4 A&O Technology Falcon Flower 7kW
326 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 TR
44 Philips Color Kinetics iW Blast TR
33 Philips Color Kinetics iColor Cove MX Powercore 12"
30 Philips Color Kinetics iW Profile
22 Coemar ParLite
386 Element Labs HD Versa TUBE 1 Meter
24 Element Labs HD Versa TUBE .5 Meter
5 Strong 3kW Xenon Gladiator III followspots
11 Strong 4kW Xenon Gladiator III followspots
2 Strong 2.5kW Xenon Gladiator II followspots
16 Lycian 2.5kW HMI M2 followspots
300 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal and Source Four PAR
Control:
6 PRG V676 consoles
1 PRG Virtuoso DX2 consoles
2 MA Lighting grandMA consoles
2 PRG Mbox Extreme v3 media servers
27 PRG Series 400 racks
162 S400 208V breaker modules
336 S400 208V break out boxes
4 S400 FOH modules
52 S400 Node Plus
45 S400 10 port switches
17,500 feet (3.3 miles) optical cable
77,745 feet (14.65 miles) S400 trunk cable
37,135 feet (7.03 miles) L6-20 cable
47,710 feet (9.04 miles) 5-Pin XLR DMX cable
21,925 feet (4.15 miles) 4/0 feeder cable
