Video forms a simple but high impact visual component of the show, and was integrated into the overall live stage look by lighting designer Mark Cuniffe, who also shot some of the footage. The initial video aesthetics were devised by artistic director and choreographer Luca Tomassini, working closely with tour director Steve Martin and Cuniffe.
XL's crew for all sections of the tour are Richy Parkin and Mark Davies. Unusually, the four Barco R12 Plus video projectors are mounted in portrait format (i.e. on their sides) attached to specially made brackets fabricated at XL Video UK and attached to four Genie 25 Superlifts, positioned at the rear of the stage.
The lifts are wound up to exactly the right height at the back of the set each night so the R12's beam onto four arch elegant shaped projection screens - framed on the stage side by a scenic row of majestic Corinthian pillars flanked by steps. The screens are also electric and roll up and down at certain points.
Seven songs of well-planned video run during a 15 song set, each clip bringing its own ambience and texturing to the stage. The content is stored on two Doremi hard drives, each machine with both channels running simultaneously, triggered by an audio feed from Pro Tools. The images for the four arches are each split between two projectors, shifted and sized to fit the arch using the R12's internal geometry.
The pla-back footage was produced by Marcus Viner and the Blink TV team, working with Cuniffe, and programmed onto the Doremis by Richard Turner. All the content was made at 90 degrees and then rendered as two PAL sources - for arches 1 and 2, and 3 and 4. Each source is constructed from two layers, one above each other horizontally, rather than in the traditional top/bottom format. They are then projected at 90 degrees.
The footage is extremely varied. The opening 'quick change' sequences were shot during US production rehearsals at Wallingford, Connecticut and then edited back in the UK, and the stunning footage of Bournemouth Beach - as never seen before - for All By Myself was shot by Mark Cuniffe before being graded and made filmic at Blink's production facility in Chichester. When the tour transferred to Europe, three full edit systems went to Dublin together with Viner, Turner and Blink's Helen Springer in addition to Parkin and Davies, to ensure that the video playback elements were integrated seamlessly into the show.
For the larger European dates and all of the first US leg, four locally sourced cameras were introduced, with Parkin and Davies adopting the directorial and chief engineering roles respectively and Parkin cutting the mix.
(Chris Henry)
