Kinesys help Madonna Steal the show at the MTV Europe Awards

Automation specialists Kinesys, working for main rigging contractors Blackout, helped Madonna steal the show at the MTV Europe Awards last week, live and direct from the Pavilhao Atlantico in Lisbon.

Madonna wowed the crowd with the first live televised performance of her new single "Hung Up", emerging from a 2 metre mirror ball wearing purple leather boots and matching leotard. The mirror ball was flown out on a Liftket high-speed motor controlled by Kinesys’ Vector system, enabling it to travel the 17 metre ultra-smoothly in seconds.

It flew in and stopped in a pre-set position, followed by two loading positions (to take inside Madonna and dancers) while the song intro was starting up. It then went to the ‘go’ position, where it opened to reveal the star and her entourage onstage.

It was just one of a number of automation gags run by operator Toby Rouse for the event. Others artists with which Kinesys equipment was involved included Gorillaz and Shakira. They also sorted all the movement cues for two upstage lifting video walls that were used as stage entrances and exits.

Virtual Reality with Gorillaz

Gorillaz – arguably the world’s most successful virtual band – incorporated  two Pepper’s Ghost effects in their performance – one for the band and a smaller one for the drum kit.  These produced silhouettes of the human artists behind the band, appearing on a giant screen, combined with their cartoon alter egos.

The Peppers Ghosts were created using two translucent panels and a projector truss, both of which were lowered in on cue from the ceiling. The panels cut in at 45 degrees to the projector beams that were pointing at the floor, bouncing the projected images back up onto the screen where they were combined with life size silhouettes of the band members.

This involved 11 Lodestar Elevation motors in total – two for the large panel (for the band), three on the drum kit panel and 6 motors for the projector truss, which was sub-hung from a large trussing grid. All motors were controlled via the Kinesys system.

Borat’s Flying Circus

Presenter Borat - of spoof Kazakh television fame and a character of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen/AKA Ali G – didn’t escape the gags! At a strategically cued moment in the show, one of the stage managers clipped a line to a hidden harness in his pants, resulting in Borat being hoisted ungracefully 4 metres in the air and flailing around – courtesy of Kinesys - to the great amusement of the crowd.

This involved one Liftket motor and Toby Rouse getting the cue spot on which naturally he did!

Shakira

Shakira picked up the Award for “Best Female”. For her performance cyc drapes were flown in on a truss with 3 vari-speed  motors, and then out again at the end.

Making an Entrance

The Kinesys system and Liftket motors were used to lift the stage right and left video screens for people to enter and exit stage. These were part of a video wall traversing the entire back of the stage. Two motors were used on each screen to perform this task.

Blackout’s own Kinesys conventional motor control was used for the downstage drapes truss, for a false speaker stack flown in on 2 motors and for Gorillaz’ upstage projection screen which was on a Kabuki drop.
 

Automation specialists Kinesys have provided all the control equipment for the new grid arrangement at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

The Millennium Stadium wanted the option of re-configuring the stadium space as a smaller, arena style venue, enabling them to stage a greater variety of shows. Kinesys were asked onboard to deal with this specific area of the project by lead contractors Blackout. The two companies have pooled skills and resources on several other large ventures, and Kinesys were an obvious complimentary choice as a technical partner.

The largest section of the project was a moving mother grid system that has been installed into one half of the Stadium’s opening roof.

It consists of 18 five tonne Liftket motors permanently fixed to hanging points in the roof. Kinesys installed all the wiring, designed a complete cable tray system and designed and built all the required control cabinets into the roof itself. All equipment is specified and built to survive the harsh coastal environment with stainless steel fixings and waterproof enclosures.

Each hoist is suspended from a load pin which gives the real-time weight readings at each of the 18 points. These are all cabled back to the control cabinet, along with the encoder and motor cabling in the cable tray system.

The system is computer controlled at pitch level. This is mounted in a rugged, fully waterproof enclosure and includes a external illuminated keypad for running and stopping the hoists.

Data communications and Emergency Stop control are both handled via a wireless Ethernet connection to the control cabinet in the roof. The Emergency Stop system is designed to maintain maximum integrity even though it’s being run through a wireless communications system.

Once the external roof is closed, the hoists are lowered. A Total Solutions T2 grid (supplied via Blackout) is then constructed in position on the deck and attached to the hoists. The hoists raise the grid out to position stopping at preset intervals to level it out if needed.

The high capacity Liftkets enable the grid to be left suspended from the motors at all times for maximum flexibility, and they also to permit continuous monitoring of the point loads via the control computer screen.

A full manual backup system is built into the control cabinet, so the motors can be moved in the event of any problems with the wireless connection.

Kinesys also supplied Blackout with two 8-way standard motor controllers and a 16-way motor controller, which are used in the stadium to control the draping trusses. The entire width of the stadium can be quickly and easily masked, concealing the backstage and production area from audience view.
 

Kinesys team expands

Automation designers and engineers Kinesys have expanded their closely knit team with the addition of Martin Honeywill as Senior Design Engineer, who joins founders Dave Weatherhead and Andy Cave at their South London HQ.

Honeywill has worked with Unusual Rigging for the last 12 years and before then, with various lighting companies since his graduation from Keele university in 1985 with a BSc in Electronics and Computer Engineering.

Kinesys’ Dave Weatherhead and Honeywill originally met whilst the former was also working at Unusual after leaving University. Honeywill headed up the automation department, and Weatherhead was there for four years before leaving to go freelance and then on to form Kinesys.

“It’s great having Martin onboard” says Weatherhead “Apart form his wealth of experience, he’s a known quantity – both by me personally and at large in the industry. We know we can work together, and that’s vital on a small team”.

Honeywill is equally as enthusiastic to be with Kinesys, “They are an excellent company with a load of innovative ideas, much enthusiasm, respect from the industry and up for working hard to achieve their goals – it’s a perfect combination”.

Weatherhead adds that Kinesys is anticipating a very hectic autumn following the launch of their revolutionary new - highly intelligent - K2 control platform at PLASA 05.
 

Automation specialists Kinesys have teamed up with cutting-edge product designers, Carallon, to develop a brand new motion control software solution – K2.

The product will be officially launched at PLASA 2005, staged in Earls Court, September 11th – 14th.

K2 is a ground-breaking motion control technology that’s more powerful, logical, easy to operate and accurate than anything seen before.

Kinesys initially approached Carallon to help realise K2 because “Their pedigree is second to none” explains Dave Weatherhead. The Carallon design team has extensive experience producing specialist entertainment industry hardware and software, including iconic products such as the WholeHog range of digital lighting consoles. The team’s track record, combined with their energy and enthusiasm for K2, meant Kinesys knew they’d found the right partner with the right skills.

K2 features several innovative elements. Its ability to work with the actual moving items is central to the programming philosophy. Any item (prop, scenery, lighting truss etc), be it flown, tracked or revolved, can be dealt with in terms of its own movement – rather than the movement of the devices that support it.

This flexibility hugely simplifies the communication between designer and programmer. A request like “tilt another five degrees” is programmed logically and practically as exactly that – rather than the more clumsy ‘this winch up, this winch down, etc’ as is so often the case.

In order to accomplish this radical method of operation, K2 provides 3D viewers so that the movement of pieces can be monitored and programmed from any angle. The operator can move around anywhere and on any plane within their 3D world, flying their viewpoint camera in and around the objects, zooming in and out as needed. Programming of motion is equally straightforward with a graphical 3D interface providing intuitive and easy to use controls.

K2 can control any device, from the humble chain hoist to the most sophisticated variable-speed winches. It will also operate existing Kinesys equipment for full backwards compatibility.

Easy importing of 3D worlds and moving objects is possible via industry standard CAD packages. Motion effects, collision detection systems and many other powerful features are sure to make K2 the system of choice for motion control applications.

K2 will be demonstrated at a number of events over the summer stretching designers’ imaginations and making plenty of waves throughout the automation industry.
 

Kinesys Motor Control Installation for Grid at Centaur Arena

Kinesys have just completed the installation of a grid system for the Centaur Arena at Cheltenham Racecourse. The two 12 motor grids are controlled by one of Kinesys' new Elevation 24 controllers and operated via Kinesys standard Vector software interface with software additions to allow the loads reported from the system's 24 load-cells to be displayed on screen.

Each of the 24 motors has an associated load cell. The load cell monitoring offers resolution down to 1kg and all load cells are connected via a communications network to make cabling the system very straightforward. A separate controller monitors the load cells, tripping the chain hoist control system and stopping the hoists immediately should any individual cell, or the whole group, register as overloaded. The load cell network is also monitored by the Elevation 24 providing double redundancy as well as the ability for the load information to be transferred to the operator's computer screen.
 

Kinesys given a special commendation at the PLASA awards

Kinesys were delighted to be given a special commendation at the PLASA Awards for Technical Innovation and Design Excellence during the PLASA 2003 show at Earl's Court. The commendation was for the Elevation 1+ variable speed chain hoist control system.

This system is unique in its ability to convert chain hoists to run at variable speed while still leaving them capable at running at fixed speed from a standard chain hoist controller. This allows organisations that already own hoists to offer variable speed options without needing to incur the additional expense of purchasing new hoists. It also ensures that purchasers of new hoists can do so comfortable in the knowledge that variable speed performance is now possible after a simple conversion or straight away if they buy their hoist already converted.

Kinesys enjoy "Weekends of Mass Distraction" with Robbie Williams

Kinesys were delighted to be asked to supply all the control equipment for 8 massive moving video screens on the latest Robbie Williams tour. 30 axes of motion allowed the screens to track horizontally, lift up and down as well as rotate around their vertical axis. Click here or visit the projects section of our site for more details on this exciting project.

Kinesys on tour with Bon Jovi

Kinesys completed a trio of music tours this year by providing an automation control system to the Bon Jovi 'Bounce' tour that covered Europe and the USA during 2003. Twelve variable speed chain hoist controllers, combined with power distribution, emergency stop monitoring and a control computer complemented the Lodestar Elevation chain hoists. The chain hoists were converted to run with dual silent brakes and an encoder to give precision positioning and speed control. Our press release, issued to coincide with the European leg of the tour, is available to download from our Press Releases page. Click here to view more details about this exciting tour.