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After Dark Magic at Legoland with CMT
CMT (Creative Media Techniques) produced and co-ordinated all technical production for Legoland’s hugely popular ‘After Dark’ 2007 event, featuring three evenings of spectacular laser, light and dancing water shows to launch the arrival of the new Lego Batman range.
CMT has worked with Legoland for the last five years on this and other shows at the Windsor attraction. Legoland event director Penny Jenkins approached CMT’s Tim Fothergill with an initial idea for the 2007 show, which included the brief that it should be Batman themed, contain lasers and ‘dancing’ water and be staged at the park’s Adventure Lake site.
They also wanted something visually different that wasn’t dominated by fireworks, but was equally eye-catching and fun. It was demanding to achieve all this within a cost-efficient budget, but CMT came up with a dazzling solution!
From there, Fothergill and his colleagues compiled a music track, produced a creative storyboard based on a 10 minute show and also put together a technical spec. The music contained different tracks from the movie “Batman Begins” punctuated with some late 1990s dance tracks to keep the pace pumping along.
CMT supplied an impressive total of 70 Watts of laser power, consisting of a 40 Watt green YAG laser, a 15 Watt red YAG and two 5 Watt green DPSS lasers. These were all located in the production area on the banks of the lake, opposite the audience and viewing zones. The lasers were all solid state and controlled via a 4 channel Pangolin system programmed by Richard Hawkins.
For the show, lasers were run by SMTP timecode, originated by an Aquilla machine and generated via DV cam playback. Hawkins spent three days pre-programming the show back at CMT’s base in Hertfordshire plus about six hours on the lake to get it fine tuned. On site he worked alongside laser technician Brian Bennington.
Strategically placed mirrors were secured to various structures at vantage points around the lake, and used as diffraction effects and bounce points for the lasers, enabling the creation of complex matrix style beam patterns shooting in all directions around the lake. This dramatic laser architecture contrasted with some more natural and ambient elements like the reflections of the beams on the water, all adding to the theatre of the show.
CMT also supplied four smoke machines, positioned around the lake for maximum coverage. At certain points of the show, the spray from the water jets also supplied an atmospheric layer of mist, onto which the lasers were juxtaposed for more dynamic stunning looks.
CMT brought dancing fountain experts Show Aquatique from Strasbourg in France on board to supply this feature. Their design incorporated nine special self-contained submersible floating units, each with integral lighting. Between them the fountains yielded 15 pumps and over 1000 jets of water which jumped up to 60 ft in the air, and needed a 400A 3-phase power supply. This was taken from the 500 KVA generator powering the whole production area.
The fountains were controlled via Show Aquatique’s own proprietary PC operating system operated by Claude Haecker, who crewed the system along with fellow fountain engineer, Sebastian Gilleg.
Pyro was designed and supplied by another regular CMT collaborator; Leon Hutchinson from Blackburn-based Classic Fireworks. The pyro content of the show ran for the final three minutes of the show and was deliberately kept subtle and understated.
Hutchinson, working with his wife Maggie, supplied and set up a series of low level ‘low-noise-low-dross’ effects, specially designed and chosen for their minimal impact on the surrounding environment. All effects were manually switched and fired in time to the music, which entailed Hutchinson listening very carefully to the music track and getting his cues bang on.
The show was a massive success, pulling over 50,000 people into the park over the Easter weekend.
In picture: Claude Haecker (Show Aquatique), Brian Bennington (CMT crew), Leon Hutchinson (Classic Fireworks), Richard Hawkins (CMT), Sebastian Gilleg (Show Aquatique) and Maggie Hutchinson (Classic Fireworks).
12th April 2007
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