Robe joins Existential Reckoning in the desert
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Lighting designer Sarah Landau was asked to light the concert livestream, having been fascinated with the idea of Arcosanti for some time but not yet visited. She added Robe MegaPointes and PixelPATTs to her lighting design for this intricately constructed performance movie.
Keenan lives about an hour’s drive away from Arcosanti, the ‘arcological’ postulation of Italian American architect Paolo Soleri, designed to connect architecture and ecology as a philosophical base for democratic society.
The album backstory involves an alien landing on earth and trying to assimilate.
The Existential Reckoning video shoot was directed by Adam Rothlein of Ghost Atomic Pictures together with the band’s manager Dino Paredes, and took place in three different locations around Arcosanti – the central amphitheatre; the vaults (two large barrel-shaped structures above ground) and in the middle of a patch of desert just outside the main development.
The set was designed by Mat Mitchell, guitarist, and producer of the album, who also mixed audio for the stream. He presented the overall concept to Sarah when they first discussed the project in early August.
Lighting was left entirely up to Sarah’s vision and interpretation, and the six cameras then had their shots adapted and positioned according to her lighting layout.
In addition to the MegaPointes and PixelPATTs on this concert video shoot, Sarah had several other lights on the rig including LED washes and profiles, sky panels, LED tubes and LED PARs, all controlled off a grandMA full size console.
The lighting cues were initially programmed and timecode recorded by Joe Watrach in Burbank. “I very much appreciated his speed and organisation skills,” explains Sarah who took over for the updates during the Arizona production rehearsals and also operated herself during the filming.
