Pangolin User Meeting Results (and more Free Laser Shows)

[platinum]

. . .Personally, it's my favorite graphics show. I voted for it to be #1, but everyone else liked the "We are the Champions" show better. . .

I'm going to go ahead and point out that "We are the Champions" is a good song while "Rhythm is a Dancer" probably makes a few more people besides myself wonder what was wrong with people in the 90s. (additionally, how exactly is "rhythm" a "dancer"?)

I will concede two things: One, the bass line has a charm to it and two, the graphics show that goes to the song is very good. (saw it at Evil Adam's a few weeks ago)

/Oh Snap!

-Jonathan

[Jem]

An interesting side note about the "Rythm is a Dancer" show... The guy that created it did not have a laser projector to view it on. Thus he didn't know if the show would flicker badly or not. But he entered it in the award contest anyway!

Personally, it's my favorite graphics show. I voted for it to be #1, but everyone else liked the "We are the Champions" show better...

And yeah, on a 30K set of scanners it looks great. Even at 20K, the show doesn't flicker very much, even with the raster elements near the end. (Look closely at the lights; the bulbs are rasters!)

Adam

Hey Adam

I'm with you... I've watched both shows many times now and it might just be me but I just don't get the 'We Are The Champions' show. O.K., so the music is probably better, and technically it's very good. However, from purely a 'show' point of view the 'Rythm' show would get my vote anytime

Jem

[FourDee]

I'm going to go ahead and point out that "We are the Champions" is a good song while "Rhythm is a Dancer" probably makes a few more people besides myself wonder what was wrong with people in the 90s. (additionally, how exactly is "rhythm" a "dancer"?)

I will concede two things: One, the bass line has a charm to it and two, the graphics show that goes to the song is very good. (saw it at Evil Adam's a few weeks ago)

/Oh Snap!

-Jonathan

Come on. Once you can get past your embarassement, 90's music is the best.
Just as long as you don't take it to seriously.

(I don't know if my message came across properly, but I sometimes have trouble expressing myself in English)

[tocket]

Come on. Once you can get past your embarassement, 90's music is the best.
Just as long as you don't take it to seriously.

Well said, though I can't agree on it being "the best" it certainly has its charm. Perhaps the best album if you're curious about the genre is "E-type väljer sina eurofavoriter". Easily available for all spotify users through this URI:
spotify:album:1HTrVHGFp8DVwzqvwEPtRG

Like FourDee says the key is not to take it seriously.

On a side note, I've run lasers for E-type.

Does anyone have a video of the winning show btw?

[Insanity]

Hey Adam

I'm with you... I've watched both shows many times now and it might just be me but I just don't get the 'We Are The Champions' show. O.K., so the music is probably better, and technically it's very good. However, from purely a 'show' point of view the 'Rythm' show would get my vote anytime

Jem

100% Agree.... Rythym is a much more entertaining show...

Mark

[buffo]

To me the "Champions" show is a blatant rip-off of the water fountains at the Bellagio resort and casio in Las Vegas. Plus, even if you want to give them points for migrating the concept to lasers, the actual show itself is rather boring. Not many colors, and only a few fountain effects. I was *very* surprised that it won.

Granted, not everyone is into the dance music of the 90's, but if you are, then you'll surely remember Snap's "Rythm is a Dancer" as being one of the classics. It was in heavy rotation at the clubs back then, and was a good choice of music in my opinion. (Note: I also appreciate classic Queen, and love the music of the "Champions" show. I just would have liked to see something completely different graphics-wise.)

If you want to see the "Rythm is a Dancer" laser show, Loopee posted a video of it on YouTube a while back. Be sure to click on the "view in high quality" link though.

The video doesn't bring out the subtle use of varying brightness that the artist used in the show though. There are many portions that are only dimly lit, and they don't show up well in the video. But in person it only adds to the mystique of the show. You *really* need to see it live...

Adam

[loopee]

Does anyone have a video of the winning show btw?

Hey Tocket

I actually did take video of that show and a couple of others that I was going to throw up on YouTube.

But when I went to edit them I realised that the camera was zoomed in a bit and lost some of the effect.

So I have been meanng to video it again, was going to do it last night but went out and saw Grace Jones perform and got drunk instead I will probably do it tonight



Troy

[buffo]

Troy;

The video I watched looked just fine. Didn't seem to cut off anything on the top or bottom...

Adam

[loopee]

The video I watched looked just fine. Didn't seem to cut off anything on the top or bottom...

Yeah, that was the first video I did and I checked it out before doing more, I then went off and videoed some beam shows, where I went wrong was that I had zoomed in for the graphic show to maximize the image but I forgot to zoom out again when I did the beam shows.

To me the "Champions" show is a blatant rip-off of the water fountains at the Bellagio resort and casio in Las Vegas. Plus, even if you want to give them points for migrating the concept to lasers, the actual show itself is rather boring. Not many colors, and only a few fountain effects.

I totally agree, it starts of really slow and boring and it’s not until about half way in does it get interesting, however the concept is pretty good it should have really been integrated with something else.

I was *very* surprised that it won.

But it didn’t win, it got Honorable Mention. The winners as per Bill first post were:

1st Place: "Standing in motion" beam show
2nd Place: "Carol of the bells" beam show
3rd Place: "Rhythm is a dancer" graphic show

The video doesn't bring out the subtle use of varying brightness that the artist used in the show though. There are many portions that are only dimly lit, and they don't show up well in the video. But in person it only adds to the mystique of the show. You *really* need to see it live...

The video really doesn't do the show justice, one of the issues I have in videoing graphic shows is that the projector is in my living room and that there is only three meters between it and the wall and the wall is painted with a semi-gloss paint so it creates a lot of glare to the camera. So to video it I need to reduce the brightness on the camera to reduce the glare, and I need to deduce the shutter speed to reduce flicker.

So it becomes a bit of a balancing act to try and get it to look like the real thing, especially after YouTube’s post processing has had a go at it.


I was actually expecting to get a lot of comments on the YouTube video saying that it wasn’t done with a laser. When I viewed it after it was processed I thought it looked more like a video animation.


The one thing that I find really demonstrates the varying brightness aspect is the graffiti in the background in some frames, you can see it in the video but it looks so much better in real life.
The other things to point out in this show are: the eyes on the face that are Abstracts (I think) the dancers, the floor tiles and the Par cans at the end, all some really good effects put together extremely well.

Troy

[carmangary]

I thought the show had some cool stuff in it. But, not the dancers in it. They were boring for me.