Robe on board for Billie Eilish livestream
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Lighting designer and director Tony Caporale from Tennessee-based Infinitus Vox was working as LD on the tour, and also came onboard in the role for the livestream concert, where he collaborated closely with lighting director Madigan Stehly of 22 Degrees who was working for XR Studios Burbank in Los Angeles which staged the performance, directed by Tarik Mikou from Moment Factory.
The overhead lighting rig at XR Studio comprised 48 x Robe Esprites. Six of the Esprites were running on a Robe RoboSpot system.
Lighting is fundamental to the XR concept and the overall studio space. “The process was challenging in the best possible way,” stated Tony as he refined Eilish’s usually intense live lightshow to dovetail with the studio environment generally and augmented specific XR requirements for maximum impact.
“The core approach kept Billie well-lit within her respective colour preferences for each song and then built looks that worked for the assorted XR environments,” explained Tony.
The studio’s physical setup included a substantial stage / floorspace with three large Roe LED video walls, a video floor, and the overhead lighting rig with the 48 x Esprites plus a couple of additional fixtures on the floor for side lighting. On the other side of the studio was the socially distanced FOH setup with workstations for lighting, audio, video, media servers and cameras.
Six Esprites – five at the front and one at the rear of the studio – were controlled by two RoboSpot BaseStations which were positioned upstage right at ‘dimmer beach’ behind the video wall. The remote follow spot system was overseen on site by Fuse’s Matthew Kniss..
The other Esprites were utilised to add detail, texturing and drama to the different XR spaces created for the stream
The XR content was coordinated by Moment Factory, Silent Partners Studio, Silas Veta, Chop Studio and Pixels & Noise, Moment Factory XR content lead Aude Guivarc’h, and project managed by Michael Hernandez, (real-time rendering using Notch and Unreal Engine). Stefaan ‘Smasher’ Desmedt was the camera director assisted by Brandon Kraemer.
