Daily Showcase

CHALLENGE: Bring all the excitement, flexibility, and quick-turn production values of live staging to a permanently installed AV system.

SOLUTION: Implement a blend of custom and catalog components capable of managing multi-source program material, all controlled remotely by in-house IT staff using their existing network of standard computers.

AS PART OF an AV integration project at its new Richmond Heights, Mo., offices, marketing agency Momentum Worldwide has far exceeded the kitschy-classic mirror ball with its own "video ball." A prominent feature within a design built to dazzle guests and serve as a multimedia expression of creativity, Momentum's video ball is part of an installation imbued with all the speed and capabilities of a live staged production.

St. Louis-based system integrator Cignal Systems was handed an existing design last year that lacked a creative element, such as the video ball, or anything even remotely resembling one. "The needs expressed to us in the beginning were essentially twofold," recalls Gary Haselhorst, president of Cignal Systems. "Familiar AV functions were required, of course -- like those you'd expect to find in most boardrooms and corporate environments -- and then there was the firm's desire to utilize AV on a much wider scale to really make a standout statement in front of visiting clients."

Momentum's clients include heavyweights Anheuser-Busch, American Airlines, Buick, and Coca-Cola. Within its own AV vision, the marketing company wanted to build a system that would impress visually, using the entire Richmond Heights office as display space and a showcase for its work. The agency also wanted to be able to customize programming on-the-fly for clients visiting the office on short notice -- or no notice at all.

"Within the big picture at Momentum, what they really wanted was the ability to produce a different multimedia show every day, using a variety of different source materials," Cignal Systems' director of visual media Peter Wille says, distilling the criteria expressed by the client during the project's nascent stages down to its most basic elements.

"Along with all of this, they wanted a big whiz-bang-wow component that would instantly grab and hold the eye's attention. Unfortunately, the design they gave us wasn't consistent with these objectives. We told them it wouldn't give them what they were asking for, and that we would like to build it differently."

Cignal's designers were given considerable creative freedom in developing a new blueprint for Momentum's new AV system. Added to the team in 2005, Wille and his staff bring extensive experience in live production to Cignal that the company regularly capitalizes upon for its work in both fixed installs and staged productions. Certainly up to the task of guiding the rewrite of Momentum's proposed AV story line, Wille set about building a house system that draws program material from internal narrowcast and satellite sources.

Assembled with all of the capabilities expected in live production to facilitate the quick-change objectives at hand, the system relies upon a total of 12 46-inch RevolutionHD S46LTD flat-panel LCD screens hung throughout the offices on a variety of low-profile Chief mounts. These screens are part of a carefully-crafted path plan that begins with projected imagery behind the receptionist and leads to the system's stellar feature, the video ball.

At 6 1/2 feet, the video ball hangs prominently in Momentum's main stairwell. "The ball is a sphere with video mapped on it," Wille says, downplaying both its complexity and stunning presence. "It does indeed standout as an unusual entity, but in the larger scheme of things, it's part of a whole: Wherever you go in the building, you are in the presence of a display of some sort that is individually addressable from any of the sources."