SUSSEX, U.K. – Video solutions specialist SNP Productions supplied two Catalyst V4 PRO media servers and a complete projection package to Glyndebourne Opera for their production of Knight Crew. The new opera, commissioned from Glyndebourne's first composer-in-residence, Julian Philips and author Nicky Singerwas, is the latest youth-and-community-oriented initiative from Glyndebourne Education.
A cast of 100 young people joined Glyndebourne's professional team of singers, musicians and artists to perform the opera on three nights recently on the main stage at the Sussex, U.K. Opera House.
It was the first time that a Catalyst system has been used at Glyndebourne, and for SNP Productions Simon Pugsley, the show represented a "full circle" moment in his career, harking back to 1994 when he received his first break there.
"I'm very proud to have supplied Glyndebourne with a complete projection package and its first Catalyst system for Knight Crew," Pugsley said.
Finn Ross specified Knight Crew's projection system. He also created all the special content that ran during the show. Es Devlin designed the set, Bruno Poet designed the lighting, and John Fulljames directed the production.
The Catalyst servers each included a Matrox Triple-Head-2-Go, offering three outputs to three projectors and a programming screen. Each output has a distribution amplifier, which allowed for local monitoring and connection to the projector. The servers were situated just offstage, with a KVM extender enabling the programming and operation to be done from the FOH position.
SNP also supplied a Hog iPC for programming and two Artistic Licence Datalynx units for ArtNet distribution between the Catalyst and the three Barco CLM R10+ projectors, which were supplied, complete with lenses and DVI fiber links. In total, the two servers provided six projection outputs, all housed in one of SNP's custom Catalyst System flightcases.
Fulljames, who has worked with Ross before, asked him to join the project. He was given a brief to produce the content which involved a lot of underwater footage, filmed in a tank in Clapham. There was also plenty of footage of the cast members fighting one another, and he created a new alphabet based on graffiti plus some other off-beat graphics.
Much of it was created with the idea of bringing out colors onstage in what he describes as "darkly beautiful and harsh footage." By the time he had finalized and edited this down, his show file contained about 80Gb of content.
Finn also made the decision to rent the projection system from SNP and described their service as "excellent and highly knowledgeable."
Two of the Knight Crew Barco projectors were rigged at front of house, either side of center stage and used to project onto different areas of the large metal revolving set structure, fed content from one of the Catalysts.
Using the Catalyst's masking facilities, Ross built cues covering a selection of different surface areas or treat the whole set piece as one canvas. This took up a total of 32 video layers.
The other Catalyst was dedicated to one important cue, which was achieved using three small projectors ensconced in the footlights trough. These projected footage of children onto the t-shirts of the mothers' chorus, who were lined up along the front of the stage singing an aria.
This effect consumed 15 layers on the Catalyst, and having a machine specially dedicated to it was the easiest way of achieving exactly what was necessary.
For more information, please visit www.snp-productions.co.uk.
