Brian Rudman: If we have to have a screen, make it sound good

In recent weeks, blocks of plywood sheeting have replaced the lifeless $250,000 glass and light sculpture embedded in the Queen St pavement outside the Civic Theatre.

Sadly, Auckland City officials say it hasn't been put out of its misery, it's just away for general "maintenance".

The whisper is it was suffering from algal bloom and certainly the see-through panels were looking murkier than usual as the winter progressed.

But a city spokesman claims there was "nothing out of the ordinary" about the clean, and all will be back as bad as ever in the next week or so.

Shame is, they didn't take the opportunity, on this its second birthday, to put some more powerful batteries in it, or replace the lighting tubes with something that glowed a little brighter than the one candle power of the existing lamps.

Let's hope the officials in charge of the plans for the giant video screen around the corner in Aotea Square are more switched on.

Earlier in the year I did query the need to spend $1.75 million on a huge screen there "to assist in the successful execution of the Rugby World Cup 2011" - to quote a report to this week's Auckland City Council arts, culture and recreation committee - when the Government and the city council plan to spend our rates on similar screens at the competing Queens Wharf World Cup "party central".

And the question remains: Why should ratepayers be funding two competing temporary open air venues for rugby fans? But who can resist a big boy's toy like the mighty four-tonne, 70sq m screen being planned.

I'm just disappointed the obviously cloth-eared officials can write such a wordy report on an outdoor theatre system and make only the most perfunctory references to a complementary sound system.

A screen as large and costly as proposed, is surely going to need a $1.75 million surround-sound system to go with it, complete with sub-woofers so primal they'll shatter more Queen St windows than the 1932 and 1984 riots combined.

Jesting aside, the big screen feasibility report only scratches the surface by limiting discussion to nuts and bolts issues such as the merits of council ownership versus private and musing on possible uses, ranging from movie nights to "tai chi in the mornings".

Missing is any wider discussion of how this outdoor sound system could fit into a more adventurous new technology programme.

There's not even an attempt to discuss how it might be integrated with events taking place within neighbouring The Edge venues.

Beaming programmes live from Town Hall and Aotea Centre events is not likely to appeal to hirers of the venues, except during sell-out seasons, but recording them for later transmission could be an appealing marketing ploy.

Movie cameras are becoming miniaturised so rapidly that cellphone recordings of all sorts of events - rock concerts, opera, rugby games, schoolyard fights - are popping up on YouTube overnight, or soon will. And the quality improves by the week.

So why not beat the cheats with genuine house recordings and make them available on DVD straight after the concert, or soon after, all as part of the ticket price. And air them later on the big screen.

As for the big screen, my main trepidation is that the site proposed for it will reduce its impact to that of a "little" screen. The preferred site is high up the side of the SkyCity Metro building on the northeast side of the square, above the existing pillars. That's so high and far away from viewers in the square that they might as well be at home with a 32-inch LCD.

If we're going to pay $1.75 million on a huge screen, floating it halfway to the moon seems an awful waste of money and screen.

At the risk of horrifying the conservationists, hanging it on the side of the Town Hall would be much better - except, perhaps, for the problem of the afternoon sun shining on to it.

That leaves the front of the Aotea Centre, a frame in front of SkyCity Metro, or a site somewhere else altogether.