grandMA2 light Turns at Academy Awards Telecast

grandMA may not have made it onstage at the recent Academy Awards telecast, but it was grandMA's night to shine, nonetheless. Jason Rudolph selected a grandMA2 light console to play the crucial role of controlling 34 GH Hippotizer servers, which fed multiple onstage screens via 70 video projectors. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of grandMA in North America.

"It was an enormous undertaking, to say the least," reports Rudolph. "I regularly program multiple media servers with grandMA2-- it's my main console -- but I hadn't done anything of this size: The entire set at the Oscars was projection. We had 34 Hippotizer HD units outputting 53 discrete active outputs and some spares with control from the grandMA2 light console. In addition to the screens, we also took care of the scenic tracking for the moving elements which acted as projection surfaces."

Rudolph had three grandMA2 lights on hand: a primary controller and backup plus a separate system located back of house for programming. "We could run one line to the show console and load the entire show into it," he explains. Rudolph operated the console during the Academy Awards telecast.

"Everything worked great. I did a lot of timecode triggers, and grandMA worked without a hitch. The grandMA2 light is a perfect size: It gives me all the features I need and plenty of workable space. I also like the new user interface, the way the macro system works, and the layout view," he says. "It's a very efficient system."

VER provided the grandMAs for the gala occasion.