Three Allied aircraft, two German fighter planes and The Red Baron’s left boot were among the artefacts on display in an exhibition devised by Freeman Ryan Design and situated in the Memorial’s Anzac Hall.
Avoiding disruption to the rest of the exhibitions in the hall was among the challenges facing Brown and Anthony Russo (from Technical Audio Group (TAG)), who undertook the expert system tuning. The demanding project saw Russo collaborate with local dealer Darren Russel (Elite Sound and Lighting) and Glen Harrison (HME Engineering), who was responsible for the “tricky” steel fabrication.
Developed to overcome the vast areas of hard reflective surfaces, the audio system comprised three Martin Audio Screen 5 THX-approved cinema active three-way systems, located behind the central curved screen, as well as two Screen Sub 1A high-powered 18-inch sub-bass units suspended far left and right of the space with a dead centre effect speaker.
The sound was produced in 7.1 Dolby Digital Cinema surround sound and the seven channels were processed in the system’s DSP post-decoder.
In the words of Russo, the Screen 5 is “a THX Hollywood cinema-size cabinet and stands well over two metres high. The large format mid/high horn gives hi-fi-sounding results but at concert levels. I wanted the people to feel like they were in the cockpit during the air battles, such that the fly-bys really felt like a plane had just buzzed through the Memorial and over their heads.”
Other elements of the impressive installation included visual content produced by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and his company Wingnut Film Productions, along with visual effects by Weta Digital. The entire presentation was controlled by a Medialon system installed and programmed by Interactive Controls as part of the AWM’s overall multimedia control system. The production was delivered by the Dataton Watchout application running on four computers, while lighting control was handled by Medialon via a Jands Vista console and Dynalite dimmers.
