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LSC Dimmers the Drive Behind Myers Melbourne Christmas Windows
One of the great Australian Christmas traditions is the Myer Christmas Windows and this year they are even more stunning than ever with the Myer in Melbourne celebrating their 50th presentation within the Bourke Street window frontage for the 2005 season.
To be taken backstage at such an installation is quite impressive, appearing as an Aladdin’s cave in itself of show technology and equipment. It is quite a different picture from the images backstage from yesteryear.
Stage One Promotions P/L has been responsible for the design, fabrication and maintenance of these windows since 1994. Over the past 12 years, a customised system of control for lighting, sound and animatronics has been developed specifically fulfilling the needs of an event, which operates daily for 18 hours for a gruelling eight week season.
LSC dimmers were chosen to drive the lights; 12 x LSC tour series dimmer racks, racked in lots of four (i.e. 48 circuits), with supporting equipment held within each rack including data splitters, 3-phase distribution, DMX addressed relay switching units and 24 low volt dimmer circuits for driving birdies. Three new custom manufactured power distribution boards were produced by LSC for the 2005 season. Each dizzy board is interconnected by a 24 volt DC signal, closing the main feed relay contact, which facilitates an emergency stop system for all animation and is also connected to the main time clock control. The dizzy board also powers the DMX splitters, so upon loosing power all dimmer racks go to a DBO.
“The system is simple, and works beautifully, as I discovered when I accidentally unplugged the 24VDC supply one afternoon!” stated John Kerr, creative and technical director.
Once cues are programmed and timing is fine tuned, each window’s data is stored as a separate show on two Alcorn McBride DMX Lightcues. These units have the ability to not only store multiple shows but they can also play back six separate shows simultaneously, cued via a master show control system via RS 232 communication.
Lighting within a confined window space has been a self taught education based on years of playing within windows for John Kerr. As there is no front of house lighting opportunity, the design of lighting fixture placement and focus occurs very early on, whist the set and scenery are still on the drawing board.
The windows create a fantasy 3D environment, and the tools to create this need to be masked from the audience. The sightlines are extreme and need to be accounted for, as there is a moving audience and it is necessary to accommodate extreme eye levels; from a standing four-year-old through to a 4-year-old sitting on the shoulders of an adult.
Each window is choreographed with movement, lighting and sound. The lighting within each window is sourced from Stage One’s internal inventory, the majority being Selecon 650 and 1K stock fresnels and profiles. The main fixtures being used are the Selecon 1k 90 degree pacific.
”When these arrived on the market, my prayers were answered,” said John. “Building on top of the basic work horse rig, are an arsenal of “specials” or better known as “my toys”, from flame lights, fibre optics, LED fixtures, moving mirrors, water effects, DHA wheels, gobo rotators, candle effects, etc.”
The windows are lit theatrically, similar to dance/ballet techniques, utilising low cross light and lots of overhead projected gobo textures and effect wheels. Colour is always an issue, as the traditional saturated colours are lost during the daylight hours and gel replacement daily becomes extremely tedious.
Although Stage One maintains a moving light inventory, their use is dictated by the theme seasonally.
”I still prefer the art of focusing a profile and the magic that a controlled beam, a texture break up and some split colour gel can create,” John said. “I find that too much moving light and associated effects can actually distract and camouflage the actual crafted animated movements within the windows.”
The addition of eight Martin Cyclo RGB colour mixing fluorescent fixtures to the inventory this year has allowed great opportunity to produce colour cross fades on cycloramas at very close range. Over the next year, further procurement of these units will replace the entire stock of their multiple cell cyc fixtures.
All windows across Australia are controlled by Alcorn McBride systems, developed for theme park, museum and retail environment applications. Starting at the top of the show control rack sits the Alcorn McBride Webster, this unit allows control and monitoring of the windows from the WWW. The windows are cued daily by a digital Chrontrol clock, switching contact closures as programmed, to independently power up and down the windows daily, beginning with air plants, followed by window power and finally show playback. The unit also switches the external sound volume down at 10:00pm to abide the sound curfew enforced by MCC.
The master show control unit is a V16, supplying 16 serial ports of RS 232, each port cueing individual window playbacks, MP3 8 TRAXX playbacks, Lightcues and CD players.
The windows operate two sound systems. Each window has up to three separate tracks which are downloaded to two Alcorn McBride 8 TRAXX multiple MP3 playback units. The signal is then distributed to a standard PA/speaker system and also to an Audio Spotlight speaker system supplied by EAV. The 12 Audio spotlights, operate during the last three hours of each nightly performance, supplying very focused sound beams of ultrasonic generated soundwaves. The sound is invisible unless the punter stands directly in front of each window.
The windows contain an array of mechanical equipment, comprising of pneumatics, DC and AC motors, servos and solenoids. Controlled by DMX via Gilderfluke editing and operating systems, the control is primarily digital or analogue. Each window has a dedicated 512 DMX universe.
16th December 2005
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