Miami-based film production company, Robot Studios who specialize in high-end visuals recently worked on a project that involved shooting a very complex shot for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Brian Karr, President of Rockledge Design Group, Inc. and former Lead Engineer of NASA’s Advanced Imaging Lab during the Space Shuttle Program, called Robot Studios with a unique requirement:

‘Is it possible to start wide on a zoom, dolly the camera diagonally about 50 feet, while seamlessly pushing in tight on the lens, to land perfectly square on a target about 12 x 14 inches and hold still on it for 15 seconds, then boom up & around a column about 12 feet? Oh… And the camera needs to be on its side the whole time!’

Milo at LC34 with RDG

Read the full Case Study here.

Learn more about the Apollo 1 exhibit here.

RDG is extremely fortunate to have been part of the development team for the new Apollo 1 tribute exhibit that opened this past Friday at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The opening took place on the 50th anniversary of the tragic events that took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

RDG provided the multimedia portions of the exhibit including the hardware design, creative video production, and large wall graphic production. Included is the use of 12 new transparent OLED monitors in the exhibit cases that transition from full video screens to partial or full reveals of the case contents behind the OLED glass. Other portions of the exhibit feature a 4K LCD display, a rear projected fogwall, a semi-transparent graphic print over glass, and a 14’x24′ custom wall graphic of the KSC skyline.

RDG President Brian Karr attended both the Day of Remembrance at the Astronaut Memorial Foundation on January 26th, as well as the exhibit opening on January 27th. Karr expressed that “Our entire team felt very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on this special exhibit, and hearing the positive feedback from the families really meant a lot to everyone involved. The families have waited a long time for a fitting tribute to their loved ones.” The Apollo 1 tribute exhibit is housed in the Saturn V Center, available to guests as part of the bus tour when visiting the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Exhibit Links:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/apollo-1-crew-honored-in-new-tribute-exhibit

http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-012717a-apollo1-ad-astra-per-aspera-exhibit.html

http://www.space.com/35491-apollo-1-fire-nasa-museum-exhibit-photos.html

A new Forever Remembered memorial at the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Fla., honors the 14 men and women who lost their lives aboard the Space Shuttles Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. The memorial opened in June 2015 and was a result of the collaboration between NASA and the families of the fallen crewmembers. The nearly 2,000-square-foot memorial features photographs, video footage, personal mementos of the flight crews, and, in a poignant tribute, recovered wreckage from both of the orbiters, which has never before been on display for the public.

As part of the Forever Remembered exhibit, three multiscreen Ultra HD video displays each depict a different stage of recovery in the aftermath of the accidents. “Emotional Recovery” shows children’s cards and letters that were sent to NASA after each accident. “Physical Recovery” includes NASA’s collection and analysis of debris from the two shuttles, and “Return to Flight” features footage of subsequent missions that followed the investigations into the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

For Full Government Video Article visit: http://www.governmentvideo.com/article/forever-remembered/115743

Planar Mosaic Video Walls Pay Tribute To NASA’s Challenger and Columbia Missions

The Kennedy Space Center, already one of the country’s top tourist and educational attractions – drawing more than 1.5 million visitors annually – owes its popularity to the unique manner in which it connects people to the storied U.S. space exploration program. That connection has been made even stronger with the recent opening of the new Forever Remembered memorial in the Atlantis Exhibit in the center’s Visitor Complex. The Forever Remembered exhibit was conceived as a tribute to the astronauts who were lost in the Challenger and Columbia shuttle missions.

In planning the memorial exhibit – which involved many organizations and companies including architects, media and content experts, and Rockledge Design Group (RDG) – based in Rockledge, Florida, a leading audio visual firm. It was decided early in the development that the desired connection between the multimedia storytelling and exhibit visitors could best be made using the latest video wall technology. Subsequently, RDG selected and specified three installations of the Planar® Mosaic® Architectural Video Wall pioneered by Planar Systems, a company of Leyard Optoelectronics LTD., a global leader in the design, production, distribution and service of digital displays, video walls, and visualization products.

Read Case Study: http://www.planar.com/case-studies/project/kennedy-space-center-visitor-complex/

SVC Podcast – Show Notes – Show 148-1

In this edition of the SVC Podcast, SVC Contributing Editor Bennett Liles talks with Brian Karr of Rockledge Design Group (RDG) about the newly opened Forever Remembered Memorial at Kennedy Space Center for the crews of Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia.  Brian gained valuable experience through his work with NASA’s Advanced Imaging Lab and he amassed a huge collection of high resolution images and video of the Space Shuttle program. This was applied to the video wall exhibit at the memorial.

SVC Part 1 Link: http://www.svconline.com/rdg-video-wall-nasas-forever-remembered-memorial-part-1/404306

SVC Part 2 Link: http://www.svconline.com/rdg-video-wall-nasas-forever-remembered-memorial-part-2/404593