The Who s. First 50 Years. Creating distinctive lighting and video for the band s semi-centennial CONCERTS

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1 CONCERTS Copyright Lighting&Sound America February The Who s First 50 Years Creating distinctive lighting and video for the band s semi-centennial By: Sharon Stancavage 50 February 2016 Lighting&Sound America

2 Photos: Todd Kaplan The goal of The Who s current tour, The Who Hits 50!, is quite straightforward: We wanted to celebrate how important The Who are in the world we are in, and to provide entertainment for adults it s there to make you sit, enjoy yourself, and really chill out, explains production designer Tom Kenny, who has been working with the group since He adds, It s great to work with people at this level for Pete [Townshend], Roger [Daltrey], the band, and all of us, we have two-and-a-half hours of sheer fun every night. We re also very lucky that they re not afraid to spend money on the right stuff. A lot of bands would cut corners, but they didn t. This celebration of 50 years of The Who was in the planning stages during the last tour, Quadrophenia, Kenny says: Myself, Pete, Roger, and management decided we needed more visual help, so we contacted two friends of ours from London, Des Murphy and Chris Rule, who helped us with Quadrophenia. Murphy and Rule are with the animations and graphics firm ShinyEye Studios. We re fortunate to have a lot of archived stuff of the band, Kenny says. We also have Pete and Roger, who have great opinions and are not negative at all they help everyone 100%. A 45' x 35' WinVision video wall is used for both content and IMAG; also featured are two 16' x 9' side screens used exclusively for IMAG. Kenny says that the band members didn t want [the visuals to be] as psychedelic as Quadrophenia s were. They don t like anything too literal, and they don t want the visuals to take away from what they re doing; they also want everyone to feel comfortable. Overseeing the content displayed on the new PRG Nocturne VR-7 (7mm) LED wall is video content director Giani Fabricio, of Ultima Productions, the firm that supplied the front-of-house video control system. Fabricio decided to eschew traditional media servers, instead designing his own media control solution. There aren t many options out there as live control solutions for media servers, he says. Lighting consoles are often used, but I don t find that ideal, because they re designed to control lights via DMX first, so MIDI or OSC programming is not a priority, which often results in limited functionality and inevitable drawbacks when wanting control applications running on a computer instead of lighting fixtures. Fabricio has experimented with different options; the last time out with The Who, he employed an Avolites Ai media server. I like to try different systems for each production, he says. Still, he adds, It s great to design and build your own system, as you end up knowing it inside out. If something goes wrong, you can quickly fix it yourself, without having to rely on tech support that might be halfway across the world in a different time zone. Fabricio has devised a setup with two separate facets. The control console would be the equivalent of the lighting desk, while underneath it is a dual-rack case that hosts the computers and processing units, which mostly deal with inputs and outputs getting video feeds from the cameras, sending video outputs to the LED wall processor, or receiving and sending audio. Two Apple Mac Pros function as the system s central processing units. For a control surface, Fabricio turned to the firm Native Instrument, which makes MIDI controllers for the DJ market; he has one Traktor S1 and two Traktor S4 MIDI controllers. Because they ve been building widely used performance-driven MIDI controllers for a long time, the build quality is really awesome; they feel great and are very robust, he says. They also have an efficient and intuitive system for programming and mapping, which makes it a much more fun experience than using Art-Net to program a lighting desk to control a media server. Also, he says, I can even customize the backlight color of each control, and there is a wide range of controls to choose from, with different types of faders, knobs, jog wheels, and pushbuttons of varying sensitivity to allow for different kind of control styles. Because they are typically used by DJs, they also have built-in audio interfaces, which allow the system to send and receive up to four channels of audio for time code or media playback without the need of additional rack units; they also have a convenient headphone jack with volume control, which is really handy while programming a show. Fabricio adds, The primary computer monitors are two 23" ASUS PA238Qs with picture-in-picture functionality, allowing them to receive multiple inputs; I also use two Blackmagic Design SmartView Duo monitors, which are smaller units that can accept SDI broadcast signals. I use them to keep an eye on the camera live feeds in case I want to mix them in with the visuals and add effects. One is used for a fixed camera on [drummer] Zak Starkey so I can follow his leads for timing and cues. It s great to have all the components being independent units; if one goes down, I can very quickly replace it without having to swap February

3 CONCERTS Kenny was an early user of the Chauvet Professional Nexus 4 x 4 wash light, which is used here to frame the WinVision LED wall. a whole desk. Also, Fabricio says, Two of the rack units are Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K Thunderbolt 2s; their primary function is to capture the camera feeds into the Mac Pros. Because each is a combined video and audio interface, they could also be used to send and receive audio or time code. The units are used for capture and playback and to support a variety of input/output connections, including 6G-SDI, HDMI, analog audio, AES/EBU audio, analog video, time code, and Sync.in. One of the more unusual aspects of the system is a Focusrite RedNet 6 MADI bridge. I do a lot of work incorporating audio within the video world, Fabricio says. I m a data-flow programmer, and I design audio-reactive systems for other projects, so I wanted to have that as an option on a show like this, which has lots of audio channels, but in a way that I wouldn t need to bother the very busy audio guys. RedNet 6 allows me to receive up to 64 channels 52 February 2016 Lighting&Sound America

4 directly from the FOH audio desk with one single cable, and to network them to however many servers via Cat6. For playback, Fabricio uses a mixture of programs linked together by a new protocol called Syphon. Instead of using one server environment, like an [Avolites] Ai or a Hippo, I have taken advantage of protocols like Syphon to create a custom environment made from various interlinked apps, he says. It s a very useful protocol; it s similar to what the Dante or Soundflower protocols do for audio in terms of digital routing or networking of high-quality audio with no latency. Syphon allows you to stream video from one application to another within the same computer directly on the graphics card, without having to output first and then recapture thus adding possible latency. The system includes a variety of programs that Fabricio can call on as needed. He explains, I use Resolume Arena as the main interface. It has a really neat way of arranging, triggering, and mixing media. It also has great time-code functionality, integrates well the Blackmagic Design hardware for video capturing or transmitting, and has a very intuitive output-mapping engine. I also use a visual programming environment called Magic, which is great for certain kinds of effects, especially for audio-reactive sort of stuff. Then I use Vezér for some MIDI/OSC sequencing, Ableton Live for audio channel monitoring, and a series of other plug-ins, patches, and utilities for all the bits in between. Basically, it s a modular system that takes advantage of protocols, like Syphon, to share a video stream across different applications, for them to process it in different ways, depending on what they are good at. The control data is generally just MIDI or OSC, which you can also network to multiple applications at the same time. If something suddenly happens, like a bad software or firmware update, or a bug screws up your main media server environment, you re hanging there you end up with the typical scenario of an engineer trying to urgently reach an already-busy software developer halfway across the globe to fix the problem before showtime. With this more modular system, if something is not working, I can generally just reroute things or use a different combination of apps as a quick fix. The rest of the system will be fine, and I can solve the problem at a later time after the show. Fabricio works closely with video director Mathieu Coutu, who was also part of Quadrophenia. Mathieu receives all the feeds, he says. He s directing the cameras and the final IMAG feed. I m not in direct communication with the cameramen; I m in direct communication with him so he can send me specific shots to mix in with the content on the center LED wall. The production has both manned and robotic cameras; all are provided by PRG Nocturne. Fabricio says of his custom system, Overall, it s a great solution for me because it s flexible and modular and more resilient to failures; it also takes up less space at FOH, with both main and backup system taking up the same space as one lighting console would. Although the bulk of the tour has been in arenas, he notes, The Who does a lot of charity shows and sometimes we end up in smaller venues like historic theatres where FOH space is limited. Especially for the video person, unless you want to end up backstage it s important to have a small footprint to find a spot once the audio and lighting desks have settled in. February

5 CONCERTS Lighting As expected, the color palettes of the video and lighting work in tandem. Kenny notes, I gave the content guys the colors we like: deep reds and blues and ambers and golds. The Who likes very strong, very British and patriotic colors. We have a lot of deep reds and deep greens, so it s a cornucopia of very deep colors. Of course, we use a lot of white light. Kenny relies on a trio of lighting instruments: the Philips Vari*Lite VL3500 Spot [48 total in the air], Chauvet Professional Nexus 4 x 4 wash light [50], and Robe 1200 LEDWash [64]. I frame the whole show with the Nexus 4 x 4s and it gives us a nice color, Kenny says. I got the first demo units, and I ve liked them ever since. And, because there s no smoke, they add a different visual to the show. The Nexus units surround the video walls, and are also used on the stage right and stage left kicker trusses. The Robe units are used overhead and on the floor, Kenny says, mentioning some of the band s iconic symbols, The Robe 1200 LEDWash is a big wash light with a lot of different effects, and I wanted to be able to do the roundel and the target and all the different effects that we use with The Who. It is a beautiful light and we get a great wash out of it as well. For his key light, which is always pristine, Kenny uses the VL3500, a favorite of many TV lighting designers. We keep the IMAG very crisp and clean, he says. That s because myself and our video engineer, Sebastian Lamoureux, are very attentive to the close-up imagery. Because I do so much TV and film, it s just natural for me now. The lighting rig, provided by PRG s Toronto office, includes 46 Martin Professional Atomic strobes in the air and on the floor. It is a fantastic white strobe Kenny says, adding, I have some GLP impression X4S units [30] on the deck that I use to color the band. An additional eight VL3500 Washes are placed on the floor upstage. Because of the production s strong focus on video, Kenny says he streamlined the lighting package. We have four straight trusses over the stage, and four towers upstage. We have some diagonal kickoffs at the side on stage right and left. It s very straightforward, but the way we trim it makes it look a bit different and bigger. The show carries two Lycian M2 followspots and also uses four house spots. On the road, the show is handled by Kenny, as well as lighting director Jim Mustapha; programming was done by David Fuji Covertino. Lighting is controlled by two MA Lighting grandma2 consoles. I ve got a great crew from PRG; they support us really well, and the lighting goes up quickly every day, the designer adds. The Who Hits 50! Tour continues until the end of May. We ve done so many shows and we ve enjoyed them all, Kenny says. I really look forward to the house lights going out every night, because, like with every Who show, you never know what s going to happen and it s a joy to watch. IMAG is handled by video director Mathieu Coutu; the camera-and-video package was supplied by PRG Nocturne. 54 February 2016 Lighting&Sound America

6 Fabricio created a custom video control system for The Who, using Resolume Arena as his primary interface. Key to illuminating the band are Robe 1200 LEDWash and GLP impression X4S units. February