DALLAS – (For Immediate Release) – ’Twas almost the night before the Christmas show at Prestonwood Baptist Church, when a technical snafu threatened to keep the annual live stage production from ever happening. A spectacular multi-media event, The Gift of Christmas has become the centerpiece of the Dallas church’s Yuletide season, bringing the Christmas story to life in visually stunning fashion, complete with costumes, choreography and special effects.
With seven sold-out performances, The Gift of Christmas 2012 was primed to be a more elaborate pageant than ever, featuring an original music score, live nativity animals, flying angels, and -- to make it all come alive -- an 80’ long video wall that would provide virtual scenery and dazzling magical effects. But as the production was being rigged, a last-minute serious design flaw came to light: the massive video wall was too heavy for the church roof’s load limit.
Desperate to salvage their show, which was dependent on having a video backdrop, the church turned to Gemini Light, Sound, Video (Dallas) to find a way around the problem. “The wall they had brought in was about 30,000 pounds, which was almost twice what the building’s roof was weighted at,” said Terry Cain, CEO/founder of Gemini. “We were called in to see if, by using some truss or stage towers, we could take maybe 15,000 pounds off the roof and put it to the floor. But we determined the floor couldn’t handle the weight load either.”
The only viable alternative would be to use a different, lighter weight video product. Cain recommended the EPV762 LED panel from Elation Professional. A high resolution 7.62 mm 19.2” square video panel containing 3-in-1 RGB SMD LEDs, the EPV762 produces 2,000-nit brightness and features high refresh rates for flicker-free performance. Cain said his company has used the Elation EPV762 for a variety of projects in the past, ranging from TV commercials to theaters and touring productions. “I’ve owned this wall for nearly two years, and used it in all different types of applications and had really good success with it,” he said.
Best of all, each EPV762 panel weighs only 28.7 pounds. Thus, the 420 panels needed to construct The Gift of Christmas’s specified 80’ wide by 14’ high video wall would weigh in well below the building roof’s 15,000-pound load limit. With a slim cabinet design, seamless mechanical system, built-in 100-240v power supply, Ethercon in/out for video signal and Powercon in/out for power link, the panels are fast and easy to rig – a critical factor with the clock ticking away to showtime.
“We were awarded the contract late Friday evening, and dress rehearsal was the following Tuesday, with the first performance on Wednesday,” said Cain. Adding to the crunch was the fact that Gemini had to outsource about 125 panels from other vendors, which turned the project into a dramatic race against time.
Cain credits Elation, its dealers, and sales representatives Red Walter and Joe Adams of Professional Sound and Lighting Products, Inc. with “going all out” to get him the needed panels on a very tight deadline. “Between Merstone Productions (Phoenix) and Pacific Coast Entertainment (Huntington Beach, CA), we were able to get all the panels that were requested. Everybody went above and beyond. Pacific Coast opened shop on Saturday and weighted for the air freight people on Sunday. I can’t say enough good things about them helping us make this happen.”
Physically obtaining the panels was only the beginning. With three different batches of panels coming from three different sources, the panels had to be color corrected for consistency. But here, too, the EPV762 proved to be up to the task. “Everything went smoothly. There were no problems in getting everything color corrected on time,” said Cain. “The show was absolutely flawless – beautiful.”
And a true Christmas miracle in its own right!
For more information, contact Elation Professional at 866-245-6726 or visit www.elationlighting.com
Gemini Light, Sound, Video can be contacted at 214-341-4822 or visit www.geminilightsoundvideo.com
For more information about Professional Sound and Lighting Products Inc., visit www.pslp.com