XL Video supply kit and expertise for REM tour

XL Video’s live music division kicked off what promises to be another very busy year supplying full video production to REM’s European tour – the first time that REM has ever carried touring video.
The video concept and the very specific look that REM wanted was originally developed by lighting designer Susanne Sasic in close conjunction with the band. They particularly wanted to avoid a ‘conventional IMAG’ look, seeking something more imaginative, abstract and genuinely integrated into the lighting and stage visuals.
Sourcing the right video director was also vital to this equation. Blue Leach first mixed a show for REM when they headlined the 2003 Move Festival in Manchester. It was a magical moment, explained Leach, when the chemistry came together through improvisation and just totally ‘hit the spot’, with him producing a fabulous camera cut. He and REM’s management kept in touch after this with a view to getting him onboard as and when they decided to use live video production.
This technically and creatively challenging tour is being project managed for XL Video by Accountant Director Des Fallon.
Leach and Sasic worked really closely together to produce the idea of a portrait format stage, ‘crowned’ with a strip of video screen at the top. This is comprised from 14 panels of Lighthouse LV102 LED SuperScreen.
Using a combination of Dataton Trax, two Magic DaVE digital Video effects machines and an Apple I-Book laptop for create an intuitive and easy-to-use selection and playback system, Leach can have up to eight cameras appearing simultaneously across the screen. One of the DaVE’s is also used to produce a variety of very cool camera ‘looks’.
The eight cameras consist of a 3-chip DV cam that’s used onstage, complete with its own menu of camera effects and can operate downstream of the DVE effects. An onstage Polecam – one of Leach’s favourite devices – is used to achieve different looks and angles from upstage. Then there’s three Toshiba minicams, all with different qualities, feeds and looks, and the camera package is rounded off with three of XL’s broadcast quality Sony Digital D50s, one at FOH and two in the pit on track and dolly, one on a ped and the other with a Cartoni 'Dutch' head.
VT content is stored on three Doremi V1D hard drives. This changes daily and is shot by Leach with his own DV cam, so it’s a fluid and organic element of the show.
The miscellany of screen looks and ideas from Leach’s head were programmed by Richard Turner onto a series of E-Mems on an I-Book for playback. The DaVE camera effects sit on the same user-friendly page as the Dataton controlled screen looks and VT triggers.
This enables Leach to select the specific effect or look from a touch-screen palette specially optimised for instant access and to suit his highly improvisational method of live operation, more resembling a lighting desk in operational architecture than a video mixer. He also has a GVG1200 mixer/switcher for the camera feeds.
(GB)