Royal Exhibition Building Illuminations - A Melbourne Museum Project
Compiled from information supplied by Craig Gamble, Technical Operations Manager, Melbourne Museum.
Melbourne Museum exteriors have become a giant changing story-board canvas. The project was first conceived in 1999 by then Director, Dr George MacDonald who, after witnessing similar projects around the planet, realized the potential of the extensive use of projections and colour changing lighting to showcase the museum, and associated areas.
The first discussions around the topic were in mid 1999, but the concept didn't really begin to come together until early 2000 - and even then funding in the museum development was so constricted it was not until a basic budget was confirmed in early 2001 that serious scoping and planning was initiated. From that point momentum picked up rapidly in order to meet the agreed switch-on date of October 21 later the same year - the museum's first birthday. Since then, show development and scheduling has been markedly simplified.
The concept was seen as a detailed enhancement of the Melbourne City Council's proposal for a Garden of Light for the Carlton Gardens precinct of which the museum is a part. The brief was to incorporate sound, lighting, projected images and object displays to enhance the visitor experience to the precinct. That rather than the plaza being just being a space to pass through, the museum's location and the relationship between the heritage facade of the Royal Exhibition Building (REB) and the glass reflective frontage of the new museum allows for a variety of external events utilising a variety of technologies and the exploration of a variety of visual story lines.
Other groups had illuminated the building in a variety of ways over time - ranging from the original incandescent festooning installed in the early 1900s, and the halogen replacement of these in 1988, through to colour washes or even full projections on the faŤades for various events. Naturally, as the project progressed other individual or group projects of short term projections onto the building cameto light, and several of these people became important contributors to the vision.
When it became apparent that due to cost it would not be possible to deliver the entire original brief of the project in one step, the decision was made to phase the various steps of the project. As part of this, the team lead by Craig Gamble, Technical Operations Manager at Melbourne Museum, had to establish just what they wanted to do. They could afford to complete one part of the 350 metre facade in great detail, or all of it with a somewhat broader brush stroke. Considering the scope of the building, a broader approach was decided upon and this whole northern facade building coverage was integral to the selection of the companies involved in the project.
The actual provision of the massive colour changing wash fittings (by City Color) was initially seen as Phase Two of the project, but fortunately another business arm of the museum saw the potential in the project and purchased these fittings earlier than initially proposed allowing them to be to utilised from the launch date. Many companies, groups and personnel have been involved in the project. The original brain storming sessions in September 1999 had about 8 companies involved with representatives from the architects, museum display and conservation teams, contracting lighting and audio companies and other staff from the museum. However it was some time between these sessions and the development of an expression of interest leading to a tender to supply. Once they had let the tender for the delivery of phase one of the project, the group had become more compact. Vision Design Studio, Lightmoves, Classic Electrical and the Museum formed a partnership to deliver the project, thus enabling clarity on the project brief and rapid response as the project evolved.
Across these companies, David Bird and Steve Brown of Vision Design Studio provided much of the artistic vision for the project, Joachim from Gobotech who made the many many gobos both glass and steel, Braham Ciddor, Andrew Sherar, Joe and Darren (andall) at Lightmoves delivered on the installation and programming of the fittings, and Jamie and Mick from Classic Electrical did the physical delivery of the cabling. Within the Museum the project wouldn't have succeeded without the continued support of the museum's executive teams, Gill Dingli and Brenton James and the rest of Craig Gamble's team for technical and show support. As Mondo*arc professionals are aware, there are dozens of other people and companies that assist in the ongoing delivery of these types of projects. It is important to note that this partnership and these companies have continued to work together to deliver fresh shows, regular maintenance and occasional upgrades over the past two years of operation and hope to continue this co-operative relationship into the future.
The original concept was to create a garden of light and showcase the museum's foyer area using the Plaza, Melbourne Museum and the REB as parts of a giant storyboard canvas. Once they moved into a phased delivery of the project phasing the project the scope had to change. To quote the tender "...to provide Museum Victoria with a range of creative lighting, projected images, illumination of objects, architectural feature, colour washes and possibly sound/light interaction on the north facade of the Royal Exhibition Building. This is to be achieved by full illumination of the north facade of the Royal Exhibition Buildings, which are situated opposite the new Melbourne Museum in the area known as the Museum Plaza."
Once they had a contract in place the concepts for the shows were collaboratively developed, and their first show which opened on October 21 2001 (the new Museum's first birthday) was loosely themed around Melbourne, and the stories of the objects held within the new Melbourne Museum. They selected a piece of music (Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto #1) and had colours and gobos ranging from Bunjil (an indigenous creator spirit) through the Southern Cross, seagulls, atomic symbols, butterflies and flowers to an Aussie Rules football being kicked from goal post to goal post. All in all it was a comprehensive range of images of Melbourne and the museum's collections.
Subsequent shows have been more closely linked to the museum's exhibition schedule with the most recent being "Ad Astra" (To the Stars) for which the concept and story board was the history of human contact with the planets, ranging from observation of the stars to the delineation of the solar system, though to the early moon walks, space travel and exploration to Mars. This was backed with Holst's Mars: The Bringer Of War from the Planets Suite, and linked to the museum's Summer of Space marketing campaigns including space exhibitions at two Melbourne campuses.
For each of the shows a sense of theatre with music was developed -- lights fading a show state commencing. Each of the shows have been around five minutes long and they play every twenty minutes over four hours per evening. Between these shows 'sleep states' are run. These are simple entr'acte animations that at the very least keep the facade of the building alive, keep the light levels on the plaza high and hopefully hold people's interest as they cross the plaza area. There are also simple block colour wash chases, single colour states with the museum's logo over, and (for the most recent show) the sleep state featured star fields on a congo blue background with a full colour astronaut slowly rotating through them.
Further stages of the project are still planned to increase the level of equipment and scope of the project around the building to both add elements of interactivity for the passing public, and to increase the artistic and commercial potential of the Illuminations.
The entire project runs on Martin Lightjockey using WAV file triggering (WINAMP), and in order to tie it all in with pre existing schedules and whole precinct control, this is triggered by the museums Controlsoft system. As far as special visualisation software LightJockey Visualiser was used from the very early days of the project. For show one, the team could at least set basic areas and sizes which helped for the programming nights out on the plaza. For later shows when they had a better idea of equipment behaviour out there, most of the programming was done on the PC and really very little time outside on the plaza. A great boon as the plaza can get a bit cool of an evening. That software continues to be used to turn the storyboards into the shows (as they still storyboard the full show as the first step).
According to Craig Gamble, on site adjustment and programming is relatively simple using a standard PC running Lightjockey. The most challenging part of the whole thing is the 8 bit control of the Clay Paky GoldenScans and the sheer throw of the images. At the longest, there are images over 75 metres from the light source, so getting things straight over that throw (and on a building with so many vertical and horizontal reference points) is quite complex. To help us here we have dozens of reference shots taken using a standard line-up gobo in each of the Golden Scans at wide and narrow zoom onto various points of the REB or plaza surface. These telescopic sight-like gobos (JFKs as they came to be known) we came to call them) enable us to establish image sizes when designing gobos, and assist in gobo positioning within the individual fittings.
Why was the decision made to use City Color? Having already used some other of these inside the museum, they were known to be cost effective, big, boxy, heaps of grunt, long lamp life plus CMY colour mix units. The companies involved in the tender were also proposing City Color and after being checked out further for the specific application they certainly fitted the bill. The decision to encase the City Colors in concrete boxes was made after the production team had looked at a number of different methods for enclosure. They chose to design and construct mesh-fronted concrete cubes to encase them to satisfy a number of requirements, these being; the security of these desirable items, safety for the inevitable probing fingers of public curiosity. The mesh allowing light out but preventing fingers getting in and the concrete is very insulating from the heat of the units so people can (and do) interact with the fittings. Kids especially love standing in the beam and seeing their own shadows thrown huge against the facades. Additionally it was required that they be in aesthetic sympathy with the heritage elements of the REB and the rest of the architect designed plaza and new museum precinct and to enhance the weather proofing of the fittings. This was also the main reason behind the custom made enclosures for the Golden Scans and Stage Zoom as well.
Despite installation of these concrete enclosures this is not necessarily a permanent installation that will never be changed. At present, the seven City Colors are positioned to best evenly cover the facade of the REB. If in the future fittings are added or the positions altered , the housings can be relocated reasonably easily. Each of the fittings is powered from below - using the museum carpark below the plaza as a cable tray route saved many dollars in trenching, for running control and power to the fittings. Once the cables were through the concrete slab into the housings and the housings in their positions, the waterproof membrane of the slab was made good. As part of this additional data was also run and wires drawn into all the housings to allow for future project expansion. Some additional installed TPS electrical flex was used to add stereo audio to the plaza from some JBL Control Contractor 29Vs located in selected housings behind the City Colors.
Overall, according to Craig Gamble, feedback from staff, function clients and passers-by has been fantastic. After the first show was launched with much hoopla and media coverage it was not uncommon to find one hundred or so people siting on the plaza enjoying the show. This has decreased a bit over time, but due to the timing of the shows to coincide with IMAX audiences, the shows remain popular as an added experience for the passer-by. The equipment has also been made available for commercial hire for functions and such like, held in either of the two buildings (the museum or the REB). Understandably if a company is hosting a significant event at the museum, they love it if their guests are exiting into an entire 350m screen with their company colours or their logo writ large, it's pretty impressive. As part of the Melbourne's recent Fringe Festival - the Fringe Furniture Exhibition, a local artist hired the on site system (City Colors, Golden Scans and Stage Zoom) to create a 15 minute furniture imagery show (Fiesta Della Sedia) that ran every night of the festival from 6.30 until 12 midnight but the greatest accolades have come from within the industry, the Australasian Lighting Industry Association (AILA) have just held a "Paint The Exhibition Building" event, using on site equipment to demonstrate the capabilities of different lighting control desks. What better place to do it than Melbourne Museum.
Lighting Specs
information: www.melbourne.museum.vic.gov.au
All gobos, stock steel, custom made steel and b+w and full colour glass gobos are from Queensland based GoboTech, renowned for their dedicated service.
7 x Studio Due City Colors
4 x Clay Paky Golden Scans HPI
1 x Stage Zoom