Schwäbische Post 29 May 2007

LOBO LASER SYSTEMS Elaborate laser show on the creation of the world produced for Holiday Park in Hassloch – expert audience in Dubai impressed.
Mother Earth goes Multimedia – under this motto, LOBO presents “Amaceon” – a spectacular multimedia show – in a former Dolphinarium in Holiday Park in Hassloch. The event even sent the public at a specialist exhibition in Dubai into raptures.
AALEN/DUBAI • How it began: In the seventies, the scientist Dr. James Lovelock developed the thesis that the earth could be seen as one great living organism. This inspired LOBO’s Creative Director to create a new show: “Even if Lovelock’s theory is somewhat controversial, we all like to talk about ‘Mother Earth’. This was the perfect basis for us to create a really exciting show concept: Who is this Mother Earth? What does she look like? What does she think about us?”
Since the middle of May the results can be seen under the name of “AMACEON” at the Holiday Park in Hassloch as an opulently produced multimedia show. This leisure park in the Palatinate region of Germany contracted the global market leader LOBO for its new top attraction with investment figures up in the millions. LOBO is already responsible for producing the open-air laser spectacle Summer Nights at the Holiday Park which is presented annually for an eight-week period. Within just six months, LOBO created a universally applicable multimedia theatre which, as well as the AMACEON show, could easily be used in the future with minimum effort to stage other programs in an alternating operation.
Enormous technical efforts are required so that park visitors can be whisked away into a dream world for about 15 minutes: Four high-power video projectors with a total of 29,500 lumens along with four laser systems and partly moveable projectors create hologram-like laser and video projections in front of a high-resolution, 24 m wide video panorama projection on a water screen with fast switching.
And that is by no means the end of it: To perfect the experience, the new attraction offers water fountain effects, cloud effects, underwater fire effects, 8-channel surround sound and a complete Armada of moveable and conventional lights. Water sprinklers above the spectators and cloud equipment with wind generators provide the last touch of perfection to the dream machinery. The multimedia orchestra is controlled by LOBO’s real-time multimedia workstation LACON-5 which guarantees the simplest system operation imaginable as well as quick program changes.
Spectators witness the Big Bang, the creation of life and the origins of the human race. Director Hennig doesn’t bother with plain storytelling or educational content but creates picture sequences like film clips, sometimes abstractly arranged, with a symbolic expressiveness. Hennig: “You can experience the show on various levels. While some will try to understand the content of the show, others will simply enjoy the visual opulence of the performance. And with each visit you notice new details and other facets of the show.”
During the rebuilding work and technical installation, which was done during the winter break at the Holiday Park, LOBO’s design team took on one of the most demanding show productions in the history of the company. Creative Director: “What my team has accomplished in just 5 months working under enormous time pressure is really amazing.” The work of more than 60 people had to be synchronized to have a version of the show ready to run for the start of the season at the end of March and the final version completed by the middle of May. During this time the storyboard and production plan had to be created, followed by the complete video production including auditions, time-consuming blue-box filming, countless computer animations at feature film standards and the complex arrangement of all the video elements. Not forgetting the production of all the laser content including spatial beam effects, 3D laser animations and complicated cartoon passages composed of many hundreds of individual pictures. At the same time, the musical director Roman Schütz was coordinating the soundtrack composition, the recording of the musicians, the sound design and the surround mix in a studio in Hamburg.
Most of the show elements were created in the LOBO studios, which meant that production time could be saved. But there were many other challenges outside of LOBO which had to be dealt with.
This included blue box scenes underwater and involving humans. Hennig: “We were happy that we were able to get, among others, the trampoline world champion Adam Götz and the winner of several youth and European championships for multi-discipline events Alexander Otto. However, at first we had underestimated the problem that, for these shots, we needed not only a lot of space for the floor athletes’ run-ups but also a height of nine meters for the trampoline athletes. After a long time searching we found a location where we had to build a whole blue-box set for two days’ filming.” Compared with the show production at LOBO, fitting it all together at the location was accomplished quickly in a few nights’ work thanks to the well-polished control concept.
Directly after the final inspection of the show by park manager Wolfgang Schneider, Hennig flew to Dubai where, with a slimmed down version of AMACEON, LOBO managed to amaze the experts at the PALME exhibition.