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520 S. Claudina St;
Unit P |
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The Yuming Shangri-La II 2003 Tour; “The worlds largest high resolution water screen and development of the RCS “Rapid Cycling System” In 2003
Yoichi Aoki of Shimizu International Production Services called and
inquired about using our WaterScrim™
technology for an upcoming tour in Japan. The Artist was
“Yuming Matsutoya” the largest touring act in Japan. This 2003
Tour featured a set designed by the legendary Mark Fisher of
Rolling Stones and
Olympic Opening Ceremonies fame.
Mark had designed a huge water screen into the set which at 70’ long
and 50’ high was a new record for us and in fact the largest indoor
water screen ever done at that time. The water screen would be
divided into sections each of which would be controlled
independently. The WaterScrim™
V3-B system had just come off of the Britney Spears tour and
The show employed a trapeze act with 13 performers whom at one point all swung under the water screen plane and they had made it clear that they didn’t want a single drop to hit them while they were performing as it would understandably be a dangerous distraction for a high wire swinging act. Further, the lighting designer Hayashi wanted the different WaterScrim™ sections to be cycled on and off in a rapid fashion, so, we had to design a Rapid Cycling System to augment the performance ADS (Anti Drip System). From our new found experience on the Britney Spears Tour we know that keeping 70 feet of water screen from dripping a single drop between cues was going to be difficult to say the least. Further cycling the cues in very rapid succession was going to make it really tricky. Bare in mind that the V3-B’s were designed to operate at 60GPM/ per nozzle, so, we would be dumping 420 Gallons of water per minute from 50’ up in the grid. There would be 12,000 drip jets comprising the screen, not one could drip a single drop when it was off.
We had realized early on that the WaterScrim™’s created a down draft due to friction between the falling droplets and that the 45’ trim height on this gig was going to produce a very strong down draft, enough to blow your hair back, Literally. Since the WaterScrim™ catchment was located between the front of the stage and an ice rink it was fairly easy to increase the width of the catchment to compensate for the 45’ trim. The producer, Mr. Monta Matsutoya wanted the ability to operate all 70 feet of V3-B screen as a whole, or, to run it in three different sections, This would require us to partition the nozzle sections and break down the system into 3 separate sub-systems. This meant each of the pumpS (5) and each ADS system (3) would have to be controlled separately. An automated control system was built using DMX as the programming and control protocol. To make a long story short, the WaterScrim™ was a huge success as was the show. The ADS and RCS systems worked great and the whole system made it through without a single component failure. With the rigors of touring that is a feat in itself for a system of this size and complexity (The total hung weight was over 4000 Lb). We had fielded the worlds largest water screen, had developed a high performance RCS system and put the icing on the cake for an amazing and beautiful show. Best of all, the Japanese team was an absolute pleasure to work with, and we made some life long friends. Little did we know that Yumi and Monta would call on us again 4 years in the future.
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INNOVATION ENGINEERING & DESIGN |
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