ON THE ROAD: Britney Spears
Below: Clair Brothers i3 line array; Bright and bold colours were prominent during the show; Video was used as a storyboard but also showed the fans; Lighting control was handled by MA Lighting’s grandMA; Bryan ‘Froggy’ Cross, Monitor Engineer, Head Rigger, Bill Rengstl, and Rigger, Ricky Acebo.
which were positioned overhead and built into some of the props. These painted the venue with a variety of colours, whilst being much softer and subtler than the larger moving lights in the rig. A solid portion of the show was made up by
LED, with the crew making use of bitmap effects to create organic-looking patterns and a unified look across the entire rig of fixtures. “Rather than programme units independently to make up a larger picture, first you create the larger picture and then apply it to a system of fixtures. We used these effects in both the normal LED rig as well with some scenic elements. The Femme Fatale sign for example had 3 full DMX Universes of LEDs built in to it,” Postma explained. He continued: “Tom also chose Martin MAC
301 moving LED heads on the front of the stage - these are really small and fast units. We only have 10 on the floor and the front edge of the stage at this point, but we started off the US leg of the tour with 60, which ran along the entire runway and the secondary stage.” On the Femme Fatale tour, lighting was used
in a practical form by being built into props and scenery to illuminate them. A combination of wireless and LED technology featured heavily, as the predominantly LED fixtures making up the set-up were often operated using a wireless signal. One element of the set, which the crew referred to as the ‘transmission towers’ either side of the stage, included flexible LED tape that was dotted with full red, green and blue LEDs and could be bent into a variety of shapes. “The additional wireless lighting in props and
52 • TPi JANUARY 2012
scenery meant there was a whole other set of things we needed to make work on a daily basis. This is especially important when you’re working on a tour spanning multiple continents. These props and scenic pieces need to move around and you don’t want to have to drag cables all over the stage,” explained Postma. “We need to consider wireless frequencies
and have a dedicated member of the team, Luis Espinal, who deals with this for the entire tour. We work closely with him to make sure we’re running on legal frequencies that aren’t going to get a lot of interference and make props do strange things when somebody answers their phone in the audience, for example.”
STORYTELLING THROUGH VIDEO Visual elements of the production helped make a real impact on the audience, with all video equipment supplied by PRG Nocturne. Video Director, Kevin Carswell, who has been working for the company for five years, was asked to come on board as vision mixer for the European dates of the tour. Nashville-based Carswell, has worked in concert video for almost 19 years and directed visuals for a range of artists, from Metallica through to Michael Buble. “We are running content behind Miss
Spears for 95% of the show and we only have live IMAG on the screen in the centre of the stage for two songs. However, IMAG is being displayed on the outside projection wings for the entire production,” said Carswell. “The video footage forms a kind of
storyboard in between songs - Britney will sing four or five numbers in chunks and then we run
a piece of content for a few minutes. The show is broken down into different segments and each one ties into the next piece of content, so there is a visual story for the entire gig. For example, when we move from a spy scene to an Egyptian scene, both the set and video content reflect this.” Vidicon V9 9mm pixel pitch LED display wall
was placed upstage centre to run the main content during the show. Further V18 screens measuring 40ft by 7ft making up part of the set were also used to display visuals, alongside two centre 8ft high V9 surfaces that made up stage doors. Left and right IMAG, which was filmed using four Ikegami HL 65 cameras, was also projected onto 22ft by 41ft Vidicon screens by a pair of Barco 20k projectors. Said Video Crew Chief, Adam Dragonsin:
“The 40ft of V9 screen in the centre is broken up into pieces. In addition to this, there are five other small screens that move up and down, which we call the finger screens. The LED display wall is PRG Nocturne’s own LED product. It looks fantastic, which makes our lives easier. It’s fast to build and easy to maintain and having gear that can take a beating and still work means a lot when you’re on tour.” The content displayed on the centre screen
comprised a selection of stylish and abstract graphics created by Los Angeles firm Veneno. “The content and overall video concept hasn’t changed since rehearsal,” continued Dragonsin, who produced the template for the graphics that was then handed over to the content creation team at Veneno. “We needed to make sure a 1080 screen raster was created
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