tdeagan
3rd November 2005, 11:30 PM
Just finished the Corporate Sales Rally event I've been on all month. Turned out great, mostly due to prep.
300 salespeople, hotel ballroom, 10'x14' rear projection screen, 10K lumen beamer.
My kit was 3 PCs, Edirol V-4, DVD, Folsom Presentation Pro Switcher. I also ran the music. There was a lampy running 8 lekos and house lights and a sound guy running the mics.
1 PC was dedicated to Powerpoint. Lots and lots of Powerpoint. Careful word tight cuts between slides alternating with DVD based video.
2nd PC running OpenTZT, a couple little custom 'tote board' apps I wrote in VB to count up dollar figures and it ran Winamp playlists during the breaks.
3rd PC ran slide shows of sales person photos, pictures from the party the night before that were given to me on CD at the show and a couple of logos. I used IrfanView.
PC's 2 & 3 and the DVD went into the V-4.
I _loved_ the folsom. It took a 1024x768 VGA signal from my Powerpoint machine and an S-Video from my V-4. It just has buttons to switch between signals, but the fades were clean and sweet. It also had a logo-grab button that I put the show logo on. _Very_ useful. Pricey piece of kit that I rented so that I could run the PowerPoint at better than NTSC but still do quick cuts to the V-4.
I ran the music PC and the DVD audio into a Behringer DJ mixer which fed the main board.
I used the fade-to-white and fade-to-black on the V-4 a lot. Between that and the logo button on the Folsom, I never committed any uglies on the screen at all.
Getting the DVD's clips to cue and run was nastier than I liked. My DVD player kept going into a sleep mode if I let it pause too long. I had to ride it hard (thank heavens for the preview monitor on the V-4) to keep it awake and cueing tightly.
I had a preview and an output monitor on the V-4 (5" LCDs) and a computer monitor on the Folsom. We had a 42" Plasma display for the speakers mirroring the screen's image.
I had a very tight cue sheet made up for me, the lampy, the sound guy and the stage manager and we all used Clear-Com headsets with me calling cues. That worked nicely, especially since there were lots of moving (human) speakers about and getting 'props' like a ticket drawing bin and prizes ready.
It really really paid off that I spent the time to put all of the 11 Powerpoints together into a single presentation. That helped me set up decent transition slides, avoided me having to load presentations,etc. It did take a lot of fidgeting to get the different formats to all fit in a single presentation, but that's just ppt juju and I have waaay too much experience in that world. (blecchh)
It also paid off that I took the DVD's people gave me with wierd sequences (run clip 4 then 2 then 7 then 5....) ripped all the VOBs off them and re-burned them with the only the clips I needed in the proper order. VOBedit and IFOedit were indispensible for this.
I also spent a lot of time in Vegas Video taking video clips and stills of corporate charity events, picnics and parties and turning them into canned videos. I had originally intended to run this stuff live, but backed off towards the end when I realized it had to be cut with edited music and would be easier/better canned. I ran some TZT stuff lightly on top of it through the V-4 for gentle, non-threatening corporate effects.
All in all, a good paying, fun, hard working gig. Show ran from 9am-3pm, I loaded in at 6am and was out by 4pm.
Cheers,
--Tim
300 salespeople, hotel ballroom, 10'x14' rear projection screen, 10K lumen beamer.
My kit was 3 PCs, Edirol V-4, DVD, Folsom Presentation Pro Switcher. I also ran the music. There was a lampy running 8 lekos and house lights and a sound guy running the mics.
1 PC was dedicated to Powerpoint. Lots and lots of Powerpoint. Careful word tight cuts between slides alternating with DVD based video.
2nd PC running OpenTZT, a couple little custom 'tote board' apps I wrote in VB to count up dollar figures and it ran Winamp playlists during the breaks.
3rd PC ran slide shows of sales person photos, pictures from the party the night before that were given to me on CD at the show and a couple of logos. I used IrfanView.
PC's 2 & 3 and the DVD went into the V-4.
I _loved_ the folsom. It took a 1024x768 VGA signal from my Powerpoint machine and an S-Video from my V-4. It just has buttons to switch between signals, but the fades were clean and sweet. It also had a logo-grab button that I put the show logo on. _Very_ useful. Pricey piece of kit that I rented so that I could run the PowerPoint at better than NTSC but still do quick cuts to the V-4.
I ran the music PC and the DVD audio into a Behringer DJ mixer which fed the main board.
I used the fade-to-white and fade-to-black on the V-4 a lot. Between that and the logo button on the Folsom, I never committed any uglies on the screen at all.
Getting the DVD's clips to cue and run was nastier than I liked. My DVD player kept going into a sleep mode if I let it pause too long. I had to ride it hard (thank heavens for the preview monitor on the V-4) to keep it awake and cueing tightly.
I had a preview and an output monitor on the V-4 (5" LCDs) and a computer monitor on the Folsom. We had a 42" Plasma display for the speakers mirroring the screen's image.
I had a very tight cue sheet made up for me, the lampy, the sound guy and the stage manager and we all used Clear-Com headsets with me calling cues. That worked nicely, especially since there were lots of moving (human) speakers about and getting 'props' like a ticket drawing bin and prizes ready.
It really really paid off that I spent the time to put all of the 11 Powerpoints together into a single presentation. That helped me set up decent transition slides, avoided me having to load presentations,etc. It did take a lot of fidgeting to get the different formats to all fit in a single presentation, but that's just ppt juju and I have waaay too much experience in that world. (blecchh)
It also paid off that I took the DVD's people gave me with wierd sequences (run clip 4 then 2 then 7 then 5....) ripped all the VOBs off them and re-burned them with the only the clips I needed in the proper order. VOBedit and IFOedit were indispensible for this.
I also spent a lot of time in Vegas Video taking video clips and stills of corporate charity events, picnics and parties and turning them into canned videos. I had originally intended to run this stuff live, but backed off towards the end when I realized it had to be cut with edited music and would be easier/better canned. I ran some TZT stuff lightly on top of it through the V-4 for gentle, non-threatening corporate effects.
All in all, a good paying, fun, hard working gig. Show ran from 9am-3pm, I loaded in at 6am and was out by 4pm.
Cheers,
--Tim