This year's Freshers Ball at Birmingham University used the soon-to-be released 3.3 version of Screen Monkey. The yearly ball in the guild of students is one of the highlights of the year for students at the University and takes over the whole of the Guild of Students, including the Underground for DJs, a silent Disco and a chill out area outside. The main venue where Screen Monkey was used for video playback included live acts with the Scratch Perverts and Vernon Kay headlining.
The video in the main venue was designed to impress and compliment the lighting. A total of 3 projector screens and 8 video wall monitors were used to create a feeling of depth and coverage. Two of the projector screens were triangular which was where the Screen Monkey layer masking facilities came into their own. It was essential to be able to crop the image to the non rectangular screen so that it did not look like you were watching a normal video projection. The video monitors were placed on stage to provide video fill where projectors would have been ineffective.
A total of 3 Screen Monkey PCs where used, 2 for video playback and 1 to crop the screens. The quick access to a large library of video clips with thumbnails which are easily accessible was one of the strengths and makes it easy to respond to changes in the music; Screen Monkey's loops, transition effects and cueing features also played an important role making seamless, professional results easy to achieve.
Also in use was the new effects clip which is included in version 3.3. This made it easy to quickly generate simple, custom video content to display on the triangular screens. When providing graphics for a live act you just want simple graphics that moves and the effects clip makes it easy to generate simple moving content with different colour schemes.
To see for yourself how Screen Monkey was in use please take a look at this video from the event.