Video Design creates ELO fantasy
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Bringing that sense of scale and sci-fi to stadium stature for 2017 has been the task of production manager Chris Vaughan and a creative team lead by Tim Routledge. Like Lynne himself, they have plundered several genres, not least by recreating the flying saucer for the twenty-first century to ‘fly’ above the stage and by using video on an epic scale.
“The stage is wrapped in a back wall of seven very tall and closely packed portrait LED screens derived from the Muse Haarp tour,” Is how Video Design’s Alex Leinster describes it. “Add two even taller screens for IMAG on the PA wings and it’s a big logistical project; four trucks full of LED tiles alone!”
Vaughan had clear imperatives, “This was to be the briefest of outings, just two stadium shows at Wembley and Hull and two in arenas. It needed to meet the tightest budgetary constraints but still fulfil the need for a true spectacular. I knew Alex and his crew could readily provide the right LED system; Video Design are very nimble on their feet and easily able to scale up for big demands like this. It meant we had certainty on costs and feasibility in short order.”
It was Misty Buckley as part of the creative team who had proposed the new flying saucer. She and Routledge also suggested many of the initial conceptual ideas for the video content that would dominate the stage screens “The content was developed by Ben Ib of HyperVague studios,” explains Video Design’s D3 specialist Luke Collins. “As an evocation of classic fifties and sixties Sci-Fi iconography it’s a marvel. There’s nothing more satisfying than marshalling great content onto such a vast panorama.”
For the IMAG to the sides Vaughan engaged video director Mark Davis, “Mark had previously done several shows for us; he has a good measure of the material and great sensitivity for what Jeff’s management and the audience wants.”
A five-camera set-up, the indoor/outdoor nature of the show presented Davis with a challenge. “Due to height restrictions indoors, the IMAG screens had to be the opposite of outdoors and rigged landscape,” explains Davis. “Two very different framing needs. Fortunately, the Video Design crew that work as camera ops are all used to the different aspect ratios and know how to frame shots for me.”
“This was a whole new show from Lynne’s outing last year,” concludes Routledge, “And a quite different order of magnitude. Even when we’ve played indoors and were unable to fly the saucer, we have been able to create a very high impact presentation. A fantasy world that both band and audience could inhabit. I’m really pleased.”
(Jim Evans)
