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Mark’s work is one of four pieces to be displayed on the ‘Big 4′ to celebrate the channel’s 25th anniversary year and was unveiled on Monday 4th February 2008 hot on the heals of the previous three month installation by Nick Knight.  All coming under the banner of The Channel 4 Big Art Project.

Two VidiKiosk systems have been installed.  The first sits in a dedicated booth forming part of the ‘Big 4′ logo while the other sits under the booth pointing out on to the pavement in order to allow easy access for disabled visitors.

Both systems are operated by the public using illuminated buttons.  Red for record start/stop.  Yellow to review their recorded clip.  And, finally, Green to submit it for the Channel 4 editors to consider for inclusion on the Plasma screens adorning the ‘Big 4′ logo.

In addition to the VidiKiosk software and computers to run it on Digital Antics also supplied a solid state MPEG player to run the Plasma screens during the day as well as a control solution to enable this playback to automatically stop during night hours in order to comply with local council regulations.

Photos

The naked ‘Big 4′ before Mark’s artwork and Plasma screens had been attached.

Mesmer’s Dick Straker looks down from his step-ladder-perch during installation as he puts finishing touches to the very compact arrangement of PCs, hard drives, audio processing equipment, keyboards and mice hidden away in the ceiling void above the main booth.

The main booth fully assembled and ready for visitors.

At the AV Awards presented by AV Magazine and announced at London’s Park Lane Hilton hotel on 12th October 2007:

• Best Interactive Media Project of the Year
• Best AV / IT Project of the Year
• Grand Prix Award for AV Project of the Year

At the Event Awards presented by Event Magazine in 2007:

• Gold in the Best Exhibition Feature category
• Silver for the Most Effective Event activity by sector in the ‘Exhibition: Automotive’ group

At the BIMA Awards presented by the British Interactive Media Association at the Midnight Gardens in the Truman Galleries on 29th November 2007:

• Most prestigious new media award in the best Business to Consumer category

Solution

The Aquarium already had an existing system in place for taking and processing green screen shots but it was clunky in process and cumbersome in use.

They approached us with a number of problems. We’ve implemented a number of features of our ChromaPose solution to solve these:

• Replaced the highly manual system of transferring photos from the photo point to the processing position at the tills via memory card with a high speed network link.
• Replaced the old ‘cloak room’ style tickets that customers were given at the photo point to take to the tills to collect their prints, with a receipt printer generating unique barcodes for each visitor’s batch of photos. These are then scanned at the tills to instantly recall the batch on screen for processing.
• Replaced the camera and flash kit at the photo point with studio grade flash guns and a fully tethered solution for the camera meaning that it is constantly powered and transfers photos directly to the local rack and then the remote tills without any manual operator intervention required.

We have replaced everything except their original dye sublimation photo printers. Our ChromaPose software was able to seamlessly support the incumbent printers with higher quality, more accurate results than the previous solution had been achieving.

Customer Experience

As per the Aquarium’s requirement to take photos in one location and then print them in another we developed a smooth workflow to ensure a friendly yet immersive experience for the customers:

1. They wander around Zone 6 of the Aquarium (the Atlantic Corridor) and see the impressive green screen photography area.
2. They approach the touch screen at the entrance where they can select a layout as well as enter their name. This touch screen is driven by the local computer which is running our ChromaSelect software.
3. They are beckoned on to the performance area (bespoke chromakey green rubber floor tiles and curtain). The photographer interacts with them ‘paparazzi style’ to goad them in to posing for an action shot. As each shot is taken we synchronise three separate flash guns to ensure the scene is perfectly lit (two Bowens studio flash units on the chromakey curtain and a camera mounted flash to light the subject). Each shot instantly transfers to the local computer and is displayed on a TFT screen which is visible to both the photographer and the customer so that they can judge whether they’re happy with the shot. The customer is allowed to take as many photos as they like in this manner until they are happy.
4. The photographer steps on to a foot switch which tells the local computer that this customer’s batch of photos is complete and prompts the system to print a receipt for them which includes a unique bar code to be scanned in later. The customer is advised that they should carry on their Aquarium tour and that they can optionally have their photo printed in Zone 12 of the Aquarium.
5. While the customer carries on with their Aquarium tour, the local computer transfers their batch of photos to the till machines in a matter of seconds so that they’re ready to be recalled with a scan of the bar code later on.
6. The customer arrives at Zone 12 after having (hopefully) safely stowed their bar coded receipt somewhere on their person!
7. One of the till operators (we have two tills in this installation running in parallel) scans the customer’s bar code in to our ChromaPose software and their photos appear on screen. Using the simple touch screen interface the operator selects one of the photos that the customer would like processed and is immediately taken to the compositing view. At this point the customer can be scaled and positioned. Optionally the chromakey settings can be tweaked (in case of subtle adjustments required to cater for those wearing green clothing). In addition the customer’s name and selected layout can be changed.
8. Once the customer is happy with the composite, it is then printed to one of the local printers depending on the medium selected. Currently the Aquarium supports key rings, fridge magnets, mouse mats and 6×8 framed prints however the system is fully configurable and plans are afoot for additional options in the future! An exchange of cash and job done.
9. These finished composites are optionally sent to the plasma screens around the Aquarium as teasers. The plasma screens are fed from a computer running in the Aquarium’s AV room running our ChromaDisplay software. We have run the video signal from this computer to the Sony plasma screens over a CAT5 cabling system at near HD resolution (1280×768 - native of the plasmas). Our use of DirectX and XNA technology in the ChromaDisplay software means that these displays are impactful and super-smooth in their animation of both static advertising stills as well as dynamic content generated by both the ChromaSelect and ChromaPose systems.

As usual Virgin Mobile IT team staff operated the main stage MMTS rigs at both sites themselves. Digital Antics operators Iain Rendle and Philip Plant handled the VMU systems in Hylands Parks (Chelmsford, Essex) and Digital Antics’ operators Paul Scullion and Nathan Lance were at the helm in Weston Park (Staffordshire).

Despite the rain the thumbs were still busy and MMTS handled thousands of messages over the course of the weekend with the text messages feed on the main stage screens often forming the main form of entertainment for the soggy crowd between acts.

The system was installed by Digital Antics’ engineers Quintin Willison and Raoul Mohamdee and then self-operated by the Cross Sports staff who were ably assisted by LTA volunteer staff.

Another year at Wimbledon and another 5,000 plus photos taken over the two week period.

The London O2 Wireless festival attracts over 100,000 visitors each year to Hyde Park promising big name acts like David Gray, Kaiser Chiefs, Faithless, Massive Attack and Basement Jaxx, amongst dozens of others. The festival has been running in London since 2005 and Digital Antics have been supplying MMTS for O2 Wireless since the beginning.

Hundreds of messages would arrive every hour once the previous hours’ images were displayed following sponsor advertisments and music videos. The general gap between bands would be roughly half an hour so there was plenty of time to display every message received.

Digital Antics’ MMTS Operator Richard Fish commented:

With hundreds of images being downloaded every hour it was important to keep on top of it all. The MMTS software does all the hard work for you: you simply check for new messages, view the thumbnailed image and add it to a playlist. Breaking the MMS messages up with a few O2 logos here and there ensured the screens were constantly in motion and really added to the crowd experience. Quite why so many people enjoy seeing their pets on the big screen is beyond me but as long as they’re texting, we’re happy!

MMTS is now a festival veteran and a familiar sight to many having been employed at over 10 major festivals within the past three years. Its robust operational characteristics and capability to show SMS, MMS or both in front of tens of thousands of people makes it the popular choice for many festival organisers wishing to add additional, dynamic feeds for their large scale LED screens.

MMTS is designed to collect, collate and display both text and photo messages on big screens at live events.

The content displayed to the big screens was separated into two sections: a constantly running ticker of text messages along the bottom and alternating band video and photo messages on the larger upper section. SMS and MMS messages were vetted continuously throughout the three days so as not to offend anyone!

Digital Antics’ operator Paul Scullion was on hand over the course of the weekend to operate the system and ensure things ran smoothly.

Held over 5 nights at two different venues in the UK, Road To V provides the chance for two bands out of 14 finalists to compete for the chance of opening this year’s V Festival held in June.

The gigs, held in conjunction with Virgin Mobile, made use of the brand by only offering free tickets to those with Virgin Mobile accounts. Once inside the venue, people’s phones would be their tickets to free cloakroom service, a number of free drinks and even a complimentary kebab on leaving. These same phones would continue to be the focussing point of one of Digital Antics’ most popular products: the MMTS solution.

By sending SMS messages to the 5 digit short code number, the members of the public could see their responses to “If you could listen to any music, anywhere what would it be and where?” displayed on the large projection screen that would descend to cover the stage before, after and between bands. The best response would win a set of V Festival 2007 tickets and a Sony Ericsson W880i phone. With this incentive in place it wasn’t long before the entries started coming in their hundreds!

This year’s Road To V message display wasn’t just about SMS messages though; The Virgin Angels were doing their job circulating with phones and snapping customers having a good time, and at the front of each venue was a voting station where people could hold up the name of the band they wished to see open this year’s festival. All of these shots came through to the MMTS system and were systematically playlisted and displayed.

Another feature of this year’s Road To V was the addition of Band Blogging. Each band was assigned a phone from which to take their own snaps backstage in their green room and upload to their individual blog sites. These feeds were received and displayed alongside all the customers’ texts and photographs, combining to create a feast of visual entertainment for the crowds!

The MMTS system will next be seen at three of this summer’s major festivals: Download, O2 Wireless and of course V2007.

Following the sell out success of his UK and Europe venue tour visiting 12 countries in 45 days, there’s no sign of George Michael letting up as he steams head on into his 25 Live Stadium Tour of Europe. Beginning with Estadio Cidade de Coimbra in Portugal and culminating in mid July at the OAKA Stadium in Athens, George makes his way across some of the most famous stadiums in Europe whilst picking up the accolade of being the first artist to perform at the new Wembley.

The Digital Antics team have flown out to various destinations in Europe to follow the tour as new content is added and changes are made to the show. In the process, new features have been added to the bespoke 25 Live Controller solution to make last minute rehearsals even easier.

The new Stadium Tour again features the vast central LED screen which contains 50% more pixels than the previous Arena Tour. The bespoke system developed by Digital Antics for George Michael consisting of both control and playback software components has coped admirably with the requirements of the new, upgraded screen.

Show programmers Jason Root, Paul Scullion, Raoul Mohamdee and Quintin Willison have all been out on the tour to support various dates working closely with Sam Pattinson, Luke Halls and Jan Urbanowski of the onedotzero content creation team as well as the tour’s Video Director Andy Bramley and Video Crew Chief and Racks Engineer Ed Jarman.