ON THE ROAD: Kasabian
Below: Lighting Designer Nick Gray’s influence from architectural shows was evident in the production; Bold and vividly coloured visuals provided the perfect backdrop for the rock band’s guitar- driven sound.
of the show’s design. “These bars have each got a couple of Sharpys, an Aura, a Strobe and a 1-lite on them and are scattered around and give the audience a continuous ‘wherever you look there’s a light’ feel. This means that on the non-video songs, there isn’t a dark patch where the LED would normally be.” With such a full-on lighting show that
went through many different phases, PK used cue stacks when working on the High End Systems Wholehog 3 console he had chosen. “The Hog 3 is a proper lighting desk that I’m really familiar with. Nick and I spent a lot of time programming the show and I have a cue for every event that happens in it - probably around 1,000 across the whole production,” he explained. “There are a lot of striking tracks, but Shoot
The Runner is probably my favourite because it has a great set of lighting cues. It’s in steel and white and there are some effective positional looks that rapidly change to create a cathedral of light.” And from watching the show, this was just
the effect produced. The front truss, featuring eight lights to light the band and another eight to light the audience and then the arch - a custom built structure - showered the crowd with light. “The front truss is fairly conventional, but the arch is very specialised in terms of its build and a beautiful tool to use,” added PK.
FULL-ON VIDEO EXPERIENCE “People pay their money for an arena show
46 • TPi FEBRUARY 2012
these days and the bar is continually being raised in how far anyone will go to provide a full-on experience for the paying concert-goer,” said Production Manager, Smith, speaking about the visual side of touring. “The video concept for Velociraptor! was that the band and audience should be immersed in the visual element of the show, that the lines between the two be somewhat blurred and a more 3D interactive experience would result.” While the video design went through many
incarnations throughout the pre production process, the basic concept remained the same. Integrating lighting and video in the planning stages remained the key to the production’s success and the final lighting design had to wait until the set and video concept was complete. “In the end, it was the brightness of the lights that dictated the move to LED from projection,” said Smith. Aside from the band, another star of the
show was the single curved upstage screen supplied by Colour Sound Experiment. Made from 80 sq metres of the company’s BT 12 LED, the screen comprised 50cm square panels that displayed the content and interactive / live camera action. “The whole tour started out with a
projection surface, but this presented complications because it wasn’t bright enough so there was a last minute decision to go into LED and Colour Sound Experiment’s LED product was the one that could achieve what was needed. The way the screen has been
designed allows the panels to be arranged in a curve,” said Video Engineer, Wolfgang ‘Wolfie’ Schram. “The most outstanding thing about the
screen is that every day of the tour over 2,000 components have to be put together to make it work. The fault rate is less than three or four panels that have to be replaced and I have a massive respect for the whole team putting it together because it’s am enormous amount of work for the LED video guys and carpenters. The quality the screen can deliver is incredible, but the quality of work from the team is fantastic too.” All of the playback was triggered timecode,
which was generated by Drum Tech Laurie Jenkins’ Pro Tools system. Meanwhile, interactive content operation was the responsibility of Philip G. Haynes, who used a pair of Catalyst media servers to feed the centre screen. Barco MiStrips were also fed by a Catalyst provided by Neg Earth and controlled by the lighting operator. Certain elements normally considered as video fixtures were used in a lighting application for the show - one example being the MiStrip. Video Engineer, Wolfie, honed his technical
skills on tour with artists including Take That and Queen and has become part of a successful duo working alongside Velociraptor!’s Live Camera Video Director, Paul ‘Eggy’ Eggerton, on Biffy Clyro and The Script. “Because we worked well together we started to team up as an engineer and vision
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