The Rest of the Industry

So, I am siting here, back stage, in the dark, at the Gaylord Texan doing a medium sized medical show. I was called by my buddy Shane to run his Spyder. Now, I am a Barco guy, I teach the screen pro 2 and the Encore, I love those products and I think they are amazing to work with, but Shane thought the Spyder was a better decision to buy, which I can understand, so I learned it as well.

Now, to explain what these two units do, I have a couple of pictures.

What these two pictures are are old encore shows. The top one was a show that I was brought in to do the encore design, engineering, and operating by my great partners at ShowPro (www.showpro.net). What this picture is is a blended two projector screen in the middle, 20 X 60, with 4 outside 16X9 screens, all controlled seperately, so I can put what ever the client wants on each screen. This had 4 Encore Processors on it.

The second picture was a show I was brought in to help design and to do the encore work with and it is a single 30X80 3 projector blend. Both of these are typical types of events done with encores or spyders.

So, onto today and also the title of this blog, "the rest of the industry" which could also be called the medium size shows. I love reading the magazines that show great photos from the huge shows, with unlimited budgets. Mike, who works for us when he's home, is currently on tour with The Fray doing a massive LED wall, really cool!!! But what about the true bread and butter of our industry, the medium sized shows. I have already shown some photos from these types of shows. If you read my May 14th Blog "Ahh HDCP how you take years off my life" you would know what I am talking about because it is that type of show, or like the show I am on here. These are what I am really talking about, smaller budgets but still have to look and sound great and make sure that the attendees think it is a huge show.


This is a picture of what I am currently doing, and what I am talking about. The three screens, because I am using the spyder, I can control each screen individually, even though the side screens do stay the same.

This is what the Spyder or Encore can do. This is the same center screen but with the joy of PIP (Picture in picture)! The client wanted to be able to put the presentations on the screen as well as an IMag (Image Magnification) picture, with a picture of the Dallas skyline behind them. The best way to do this is the Spyder or the Encore and can still be affordable.

This is a picture of what my control looks like for this show. Because of the budget, I am running the show from my laptop. A great way of looking at how you can make a show look great, with not the biggest, unlimited budgets.

Now, if you do have a big budget,




You can always make this your video control area!!

So in closing, I am showing a meeting that we did last year for Best Buy, this is another great example of the medium size show, the true bread and butter of our industry.

Our first Trade Show

So, what does Don't Wonder Productions do when we finally decide to exhibit in a trade show??

Well



That should show what we do!! I got together with David Corwin of Megavision Arts (www.megavisionarts.com) and we decided to have the best booth at this years BizBash Los Angeles.

BizBash LA this year was at LA Mart. which is a cool place but left us with some interesting options. David and I walked in and we saw our spot:



Our wall is 17 feet wide by 14 feet tall and we want to fill it with video. If you look to the top of the phtot, you will see track lighting, and an AC duct, but we want to fill the entire wall, top to bottom! There is only 1 real solution that will work for us and it is this amazing program my friend and mentor Paul Carrey with Marketing Specialists (www.marketingspecialists.com) brought to life for me, Scalable Display Technologies (scalabledisplay.com). Our solution was to put the projectors on the ground and point them up. The real problem was that we didn't want to put them straight in front, we wanted it to be clear in front for people walking up. So, we put them to the sides! This created a whole new problem!

How Scalable works is that you hook a computer up and hook a camera up to it as well, then you point the projectors where they need to be and have Scalable do the math to blend it all. Admitedly we had a problem or two...



and once we got past this, we had to make sure only certain parts were projecting so it didn't confuse the camera...



This was fun, really it was, but once we got past this issue, we got some great images:




This was the final test pattern and I was extremely happy!!! So, I am going to finish this blog with a couple of photos of our glorius event. If you have any questions, give us a call and let us know how we can help you.

Don't Wonder Productions 562-997-7289

It's 12:30 in the morning, is your truck loaded??

You know, I love my job, I really do. It's all I know really, but I feel that I am pretty freakin good at it, and I hope others do as well. But tonight is one of those nights that makes it hard to be a small business owner!

I have an event that loads in down in San Diego tomorrow morning (Will post pictures when I get down there). It is for my friends over at TLC. We are providing the video and sound for an outdoor party for the owners and managers of Panda Express! Kind of crazy... But, it is outdoors, on the water, which means, extra work! I have a couple of B-10 LED trailers comming down for video, I am using the new VRX line array from JBL provided by my friend Scott over at Broadcast Support, and I even get to play with wireless cameras! All in all, it will be a fun gig, but tonight, tonight I had to load the truck :(

One of the joys of being a small business owner is that there are times when everybody else is busy and you can't afford to hire somebody, so you get the job of picking up all the subrentals, loading all the gear, making sure there is plenty of drinks and snacks, etc. all by your self! And today, that was me. I have a 16 foot bobtail as well as my 10 foot trailer all packed full, ready to drive, and except for about 30 minutes of help from my buddy Matt, I did it all.

Really the hardest part is that I am prepping for BizBash on Thursday as well. Not only do I get to keep everything in order for San Diego but on Thursday, I Andrew Poley, and Don't Wonder Productions, am exhibiting in my first tradeshow! Scares the hell out of me to be honest. I think that is the hardest part of today, I am leaving for two days and when I return, I load it in, and I do not feel ready at all!!!!! This is a big step for me, I am excited and scared and anxious all at the same time. We are showing off Don't Wonder Post as well, so that is exciting (More to come on that later as well), just a crazy experience! Needless to say, it will be a very long week!

Well, being that it is now a quarter to 1 and I have to be on the road by 6 AM, I guess I should get some sleep. I will post pictures soon from both events!