Live video director is Andy Bramley and the content / media servers are designed and programmed by Ben Miles. Together they work closely with the production and lighting designer Paul Normandale, who designed the screen layout, and Phil Harvey, Coldplay's creative director. Misty Buckley styled the vibrant graffiti tagged set decoration which adds another layer to the visual tone.
Played to a 360 degree audience where possible, with audience seated behind the stage which is still in the end-on position, video is an intricate blend of raw and soft / colourful and monochrome elements in a lively, edgy interactive environment.
Both Bramley and Miles have worked with XL Video on many previous occasions and describe the service, equipment and attitude as "excellent".
Over the stage is a single five metre diameter circular Barco O-Lite (10 mm) screen -which is directly backed with a projection screen surface for the 360 degree shows. Out in the auditorium are four circular screens - two at 6m and two at 4m - flown in the roof above the audience.
This ensured that everyone in the arena has a good view of the video. The screens showed a mix of IMAG and playback throughout the performance, and video was again an essential part of the band's communication with the audience.
Each screen is fed by a pair of XL's Barco FLM 22K projectors with overlaid images, all connected via a fibre network, specified as the best data solution to deal with the long distances which can be up to 200m between projector and control.
Miles is running two active Catalyst media servers, via a grandMA Lite console, with two hot backups. Each is fitted with a TripleHead2Go giving three outputs per device - one for each of the six screens, so all can receive independent feeds in any configuration.
This gives the full flexibility to send any source to any screen, together with a 16 x 16 Lightware DVI matrix supplied by XL Video, a new product geared to touring and also remotely controllable. XL built a custom rack to house all the Catalysts, the matrix, associated devices and a UPS.
XL is supplying six crew to work with Bramley, including Miles, engineer Ed Jarman, projectionist Kevin Parry, LED tech Pieter Laleman and Rob Wick and Sacha Moore on cameras. James Morden and Tracey Donnelly have been XL's technical and project co-ordinators, with Phil Mercer from the LA office as the project manager.
(Jim Evans)
