NELEM III --September 11-13, 2015

[Bradfo69]

As expected.... I'm seriously behind my original planned departure time. Work has been nuts and I haven't even started loading up yet. I ended up with a Chevy Suburban so, the packing exercise may be interesting. I'll still be getting on the road "sometime" this evening and drive until whenever I'm stupid and finish it up in the morning. Rick sounds like he's tied up until 9am or so anyway so I'll anticipate a mid morning arrival. At least I shouldn't hit crazy traffic around New York if it's 10 or 11 pm once I hit that neck of the woods.

[Fearless]

Hank--By all means invite him and everyone for that matter (that you know). And yes it is a public event, well, friends and such. It's really great that the MIT people are coming up for Saturday! So we are expecting 100 or so guests, same as last year.

Brad--Take you time--I have to pick up Mr. Porky in the morning anyway, so I will not be back on site until 11 AM, after that we are golden.

[Bradfo69]

Finally got on the road at 10 pm and have spent as much time sitting on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike as I have travelling. POURING down rain. It's a parking lot of hazard lights on both sides of the highway. Flood warnings til midnight. Tiny bit terrifying with the idiots that are still attempting to fly past.

[Bradfo69]

Well..... got here at 11am after stopping at 3am at an Econolodge in CT Lasers hometown of West Haven CT. Feerless does have a very amazing little chunk of the world up here. After the cursory introductions, we immediately began busying ourselves with unloading and set up. The training barn as seen in the pictures above is proving to be a great venue for lasers. Sound was first. Then setting up the totems and other infrastructure to hold the projectors.

Thus far we have six that I brought (2 Plutos, 2 Venuses, the 12 watt Ascent and Clubmax) plus Ricks stand alone projector and of course, Gort..... the 8' tall robot with a projector built into his body which shoots out of his visor. I talked Rick into scrim and I think he's glad I did. One thing about a farm is... you carry around as little as possible and use machines to do all your heavy lifting so, the scrim was raised using a John Deere tractor and standing in the bucket to reach the ceiling and install hooks. But... the results are worth it. One of the big benefits to arriving early is being able to do a test run and, I switched ways of thinking and am using the 12 watt to project graphics and abstracts on the scrim, rather than the Clubmax. Yes, it's true you don't need to use a lot of power for graphics but... it's a whole shit ton better if you do! Rear projected through scrim, a Swamishow is a thing to behold!

We tested about a dozen shows last night and I'm becoming more comfortable (and impressed) with Beyond since a few glitches were easily solved right within the software. Importing LD2000 shows also brought out some unexpected results and by breaking zones up, I saw things last I have never seen and it's going to make tonight's show even more awesome.

Pics to follow since they need to be transferred but, this is going to be one of the nicer looking shows for an audience I've ever been involved with.

[HankLloydRight]

Hi Brad,

I'm still on the fence bringing my 1.5w "Pelican" projector. Do you think it's needed other than just showing it to people?

[buffo]

Sounds like you've been busy, Brad! Can't wait to see the pictures.

Adam

[Bradfo69]

Hi Brad,

I'm still on the fence bringing my 1.5w "Pelican" projector. Do you think it's needed other than just showing it to people?

I was thinking along the lines of using it with the Z-5. Since I changed the configuration to use the Ascent rather than the Clubmax for graphics though, I can use that for the Z-5 if you don't want to bring it or, don't have room. Up to you... we can integrate it if you want.

[HankLloydRight]

Ok, I'll bring it. Packing up now. Be up there around 4pm or so.

Sounds like fun to put in on the Z-5.

[Bradfo69]

Day Two.

Where do I begin? Probably better to talk about how it ended. In a word... splendidly. I didn't expect anything less but, when the end of the night rolls around and you had a phenomenal show with no glitches and, a happy crowd of people leaving at the end, it's a great feeling. I'm thrilled for Rick and the opportunity to have been able to play a part in making it a success.

We ended up doing two sets. The first was graphics combined with beams and then after a brief intermission, we lowered the scrim, made a couple fast changes and Rick ran his three Gort shows and we blended right into all LD2000 beam shows, reworked for Beyond. Each half was perhaps 45 minutes. I think it was a pretty good mixture and a good pace to stay interesting for everyone and kept giving them different "looks". We changed up the playlist a little on the fly and really flowed through different genres and tempos pretty well. Planters (Eric) brought four of his masterpieces and in the end, there were 8 primary projectors.

Krazer and his crew from MIT made it there late afternoon and provided a warm up act of a giant - and I mean giant - tesla coil that was set up in the front yard and actually sparked to music. Pretty ingenious really. Hopefully some good video will follow because although I shot a little with my phone, Eric had his team working with a high dollar camera all night. Dinner preceded that with of course the pig and plenty of pot luck dishes and desserts brought by many of the 60 odd people or so that attended. Very tasty and the spread filled the whole dining room table.

More to come but, it's getting late.

[planters]

Just got back. It is indeed late. The video from the shows including the Tesla coil will be uploaded soon. Brad did a very impressive job. The scrim was a good idea and I was reminded that it really is less about the hardware and yes, it is also less about the software as well. I can say that being a hardware guy and sorry to the software guys, but it is the content that really matters. You could tell from the audience. When the lasers are being used as a complement to a musical group this is less important, but when the lasers are the show then after the initial oohs and aahs from the sheer power and the ability to throw this power around then the audience wants novelty. The LSX shows had this and the original material Brad used had this as well. He had so much original stuff that when an audience member called out during a Vangelis number they wanted something contemporary he delivered...seamlessly. The shows were smooth and the audio was great. The arena is pretty good acoustically.

The explosion at the Tesla coil wasn't anyone's fault really. I just regret the camera didn't pick it up.

After sailing today, we got a presentation on the MIT marine ROVs before heading through the Jamaican festival to see Peter's presentation in the ultra-fast lab. Nice explanations and a demonstration of air ionization and even supercontinuinum generation. A video covering this will follow as well. If all goes well, Peter may be moving on for a stint at DESY in Germany to continue with ultra-fast light sources. This would be a loss for us and a gain for them.

Finally, a big thanks to Rick for all the work. I'll bet he's still not done. He put this all together, not to mention the banquet we enjoyed on Saturday evening. I'm looking forward to next year.