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R&B Group diary at Tantallon Castle

Bdaily caught up with events production company R&B Group to chat about exciting new projects the company has been working on. We spoke to Project Manager, Paul Borthwick, about the latest musical spectacular event at Tantallon Castle on the Scottish coast in North Berwick.

Paul told Bdaily about the event at the castle and R&B Group’s pioneering ‘projection mapping’ technology.

“We were up at Tantallon Castle last Monday for a musical spectacular as part of the Lammermuir Festival and the Year of Creative Scotland, so this was a really big event. Tantallon Castle was brought to life with our projection mapping technology, which was designed to go alongside a specially written score by William Sweeney and was viewed by an audience of 1500 people.

“Projection mapping basically lights up the side of the castle with projectors which impose an image onto the side of the building. Using this technology we created 3D images to go with the narrative written by Aonghan MacNeacail to tell the history of the castle. Using the technology, we made it look like the castle was coming to life in front of the audiences’ eyes.

“Using projection mapping we can bring walls down, recreate battles that damaged the castle through its long history and build walls back up to show how it originally looked. Tube UK created voices and sound effects played through a large scale surround sound system submerging the audience in a full sensory experience. One of the highlights was the re-creation of the Cromwell battle which brought the castle to ruins in the 1600s.”

Northumberland-based Culture Creative were brought on board to creatively produce the show, while R&B Group worked on the digital technology. Paul told us about how it was received.

“The night went really well. The team had to contend with gale force six winds, which did hamper setting up and testing equipment at times. Luckily, the weather improved for the actual night. The audience enjoyed the event and our clients were over the moon with the results. Historic Scotland commented that they would like to produce similar events in other historic locations in Scotland, which is really exciting and rewarding.”

Paul told us about the processes of creating a visual show and how long it takes for R&B Group to prepare.

“It would usually take a few months to design and create all the graphics but we crammed the process into one month and worked around the clock to get it finished to a really high standard. This meant a lot of computing time, but when you get a really great reaction from the audience and the client, it justifies your hard work.”

Bdaily found out what Paul thought was the best and more rewarding part of the job for him.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .