PAI and AV designer Vincent Rice carried out the design and installation, as PAI’s managing director Paul Adams explains: "Following a referral from PPM (Perspective Project Management), who we’ve worked with previously, we were approached by Richard Greenleaf of the design company Red Jacket, and Vince Rice and I had a meeting with him to discuss the project." Adams continues: "Red Jacket's concept was very clear. There is a large atrium alongside the escalators, and the brief was for a video screen that could move in and out of the space. When it was not being used it would maintain visual access to the rear shopping and retail areas."
As a result of the meeting, Vince Rice came up with the idea for a massive motorized Venetian blind screen, made of steel, measuring 6 x 5 metres and weighing in at 1.6 tons. Rice explains: "Using a combination of choreographed effects lighting with a quality sound system and a video presentation, all they had to do was turn it all on and it's show time." Rice admits that his choice of Mackie Fussion wasn't made after exhaustive listening tests. "I'd heard them briefly at a trade show but to be honest I chose them off the spec sheet and because of my experience of other Mackie products." (Rice has two Mackie mixers in his own studio). They fulfilled his need for something that would just plug in and work, which would require no maintenance and which could be made completely tamper-proof. The screen swings into position every 20 minutes and to announce its impending operation, Rice recorded a synthesizer chord sweeping down an octave to go virtually sub-sonic.
(Ruth Rossington)
