Brilliant Stages Tours with The Wall Live

	Photos courtesy of Mark Fisher @ Stufish.

Brilliant Stages has supplied three towering inflatable puppets and a circular projection screen for Roger Waters' The Wall Live tour, the European leg of which began earlier this month.

Standing over 20.5' tall, three iconic images of the Teacher, the Wife, and the Mother are supplied, complete with the mechanics and automation to operate them, inside inflatable skins from Air Artists.

The Teacher and Wife puppets require extensive animation, so Brilliant Stages devised a system of cradles and winches to facilitate this. The puppets are suspended by fine steel wire ropes attached to individual electric winches mounted into a compact cradle. The winches move the limbs independently whilst the cradle carrying the winches also slews to enable the puppets to turn 180 degrees.

Brilliant Stages used customized control systems from Andy Cave, of Kinesys, for the cradles and winches.

The largest puppet, the 33' high Mother, is seated,. yet is required to move her head from side to side. Brilliant Stages created the movement using an electric motor driving a toothed-belt pinion onto a slew ring within the neck.

Working alongside Lee Threlfall, Brilliant Stages also incorporated LED light sources to illuminate the eyes of each puppet. RGB LED light engines with custom heat sinks and enclosures were built into a customized hanging frame suspended inside the head of each puppet and containing power supplies and control modules.

In addition, the Teacher has two 23.5' diameter custom light boxes incorporating RGB LED strips that represent the white of the eyes. Power for the eyes is derived from the automation cradle using cable reelers, with data control supplied by wireless DMX.

Each of the three puppets travels in its own dolly, designed for ease of transport and rapid installation.

"The puppets are the most important elements to us as they are a focal point within the whole Wall performance," says Brilliant Stages' Tony Bowern. "We are very happy that Mark Fisher and his team considered us for this crucial role based on past work we have done with them."

Working in collaboration with production manager Chris Kansy, Jeremy Lloyd, of Mark Fisher Studio, and The Wall Tour's head rigger, Dave Rowe, Brilliant Stages also designed and supplied a 35' diameter truss circle. This is suspended centre stage and supports a 30.5' diameter Gerriets Optilux projection screen. The truss is designed to withstand the weight of 24 Philips Vari*Lite VL3000 Wash moving lights mounted around its perimeter and clad by 12 fascia panels constructed from aluminum and plywood for lightness.

The truss and screen are assembled horizontally before being raised to the vertical position with the aid of a rolling skateboard and suspended from three customized flying points.

The circular structure is fabricated from non-standard truss formed of triangular stacking sections which pack into only two touring carts and provide a perfect space-saving solution. The Wall is the latest in a long line of pioneering projects in which Brilliant Stages has worked with the Mark Fisher Studio, Stufish. Following on from 2010's American leg, the European leg of the tour kicked off in March at the Atlantico Pavilion in Lisbon and continues through until its final date at Milan's Mediolanum Forum in July 2011.