Effects we did for a Eurovision 2010 finals in Romania

[andy_con]

oww i got a PM from Bart, did anyone else or am i just special

[-bart-]

As for the cameras, and since we have an expert on preserving ccd's...

What is to be considered a safe exposure?
Since cameras don't have a blink reflex and have a much higher aperture than the human eye, can one still assume what's safe for the eye is safe for the camera ?

Is there any scientific founded literature on this ?

[ElektroFreak]

While a quick google search didn't yield any math, the fact that CCDs with damage thresholds >50W/cm^2 are frequently used as beam profilers and the fact that CCDs are not made of organic tissue leads me to believe that they are able to withstand far greater energy densities than the human eye in general.

[andyf97]

oww i got a PM from Bart, did anyone else or am i just special

You should post it.

[andy_con]

to be honest its not very exciting and not really worth posting

[andyf97]

Again, I like the show. Looks good. I'm just VERY curious how you managed to protect the camera's against (direct or indirect) laser beams. I have done lasershows for Television myself and I know what problems you can expect especially when there's one or more moving camera's (crane/dolly/steadycam)! So again, I'm just curious.

Hi Jeroen,

Thanks for commenting,

What measures we took to protect everyone involved is a question that I can answer or not. Why would I share our methods with all our competitors?

Safety needs to be learned, not pulled off a tree like an apple.

I am not the master teacher of laser safety here am I. Or maybe I have to start doing a safety training course too. hmmm, that makes me think.

With respect for Bart and his questions which are quite valid; and for whatever reason he keeps nagging me for, I post videos for general viewing not as any open door to explain how we do our job..

Obviously we did something, if not then we can be sure something would have gone wrong and it would be all over the news.

[mccarrot]

Very nice effect those mirrorbals on stage.

Did you scanned them with a static beam or a small circle?

[gottaluvlasers]

Andy-

safety aside, your effects never cease to amaze me! EXCELLENT job! sometimes the simplest and most basic functions provide the best outcomes. Your simple fans and diffraction grating (or mirror ball) effects provide a great energy to the performance!

GREAT job!!

Post as many videos as you want my friend. Until i see someone in a video of yours with an eye ball on fire or melting out of their head, i wont question any of your safety procedures.

-Marc

[buffo]

For the record, earlier on the ILDA list server, none other than Dirk Bauer (from Medialas) posted the same misgivings that Bart, ollie, and JeroenVDV did regarding this video that Andy97 posted. And I agree: based on the video alone, the show looks unsafe. I'm not saying that it *IS* unsafe, just that it is questionable. Also, the show was quite impressive. Very impressive, to be sure, but potentially unsafe nonetheless.

Jem, while I appreciate your appeal to limit the drama in the thread, when someone posts a breathtaking video that also *clearly* scans more or less stationary beams into a crowd from several multi-watt projectors at close range, people are rightfully going to ask questions. I don't care who's doing the show. Hell, I questioned Ryan Waters when I went to see the Pink Floyd Laser Extravaganza in Florida, because he was crowd-scanning with a diffraction grating. And his answer was simple and to the point: the irradiance in each beam was below 1 mw/cm^2, and there was enough separation between beams that you couldn't get more than one in your eye at a time. (See how easy that is?)

Andy97, your answers to the questions posed above are not convincing at all. You can certainly talk about general methods used to ensure audience safety without divulging trade secrets. And really, what sort of trade secrets are there when it comes to attenuation maps, scan-fail interlocks, and irradiance measurements? These are all well-understood topics, so you can't have much to hide here.

But saying that "I can't tell you anything, because then you'd try to copy it" is a bullshit excuse, and you know it. Either you did the measurements or you didn't. Either the show was *verified* as being safe, or you didn't bother to check, in which case people can rightfully claim that it might not have been safe.

If you are so proud of your expanding business, then why not brag a little about how safe your company is? You would certainly gain more credibility by talking about safety, rather than finding excuses to avoid the topic. (Avoiding it makes people wonder what you're hiding...)

I also noticed that you haven't answered Dirk's message on the ILDA list server yet, either.

Adam

[Phredy1]

Hell, I questioned Ryan Waters when I went to see the Pink Floyd Laser Extravaganza in Florida, because he was crowd-scanning with a diffraction grating. And his answer was simple and to the point: the irradiance in each beam was below 1 mw/cm^2, and there was enough separation between beams that you couldn't get more than one in your eye at a time. (See how easy that is?)

I am not questioning safety with that crowd scanning, but is it legal?

I am only aware of 1 (Muse) laser show that is legal to do any kind of crowd scanning and that is with a hand held diffraction grating and the laser shot straight down from above the stage so there is zero chance of any static beam into the audience.

Gene