Ladies Of Soul Dazzles With Rich Hippotizer-Driven Video

The Netherlands – The three-night Ladies of Soul show landed at Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome in April, backed by a series of LED screens and LED strips with Green Hippo's Hippotizer Media Servers belting out live camera feed and pre-made content.

Dutch singers and musicians Edsilia Rombley, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Berget Lewis and Candy Dulfer starred in the productions, with a host of international guests including legends Sister Sledge, Robin S and Rose Royce celebrating the Ladies of Soul.

"We deployed our Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers because they were the models that could handle the multiple layers, three mixes, main screen content and masks, and much more," explains Kevin Buysse from Tenfeet, which has delivered video for Ladies of Soul for more than a decade. "The show was built around the four main Dutch performers, all of whom had two solo songs, with content being a mix of camera feed and the content we created for each of them.

"We used a workflow that includes luma mattes with the content. These were sent on a separate output to a video processor that brings the live feed and content together, and Notch was used during certain parts to achieve a specific look. The Hippotizers handled everything brilliantly."

Together, the stars performed themed medleys throughout the night showcasing the best of Soul and nostalgic trips down memory lane. The team tied lighting into the video elements, to create a dynamic show. "Tjeerd Oosterhuis, who produces the show and arranges the music, loves to see lots of accents the lighting achieves alongside the video," adds Buysse.

For control, the Tenfeet team used an ETC Hog 4 console, supplied by Tenfeet. On stage, the team rigged a 2400x1120px, 15x7m screen behind the stage. Below that and behind the band there was a two-metre-high screen built into the stage, covered by voile. Five broadcast cameras were used to capture on-stage live feed for use on the screens, and 250m of Roe video strips lined the trusses above the stage and on the stage edge. "We were also running an extra mix for the video strips, and this mix was patched to the main lighting console so the lighting programmer could control the strips," says Buysse.

Pre-programming was completed at the Tenfeet studios. "Using the lighting console together with Hippotizer made this very quick," says Buysse. "The use of layer effects helped us in not needing to go back for each minor change. Generator effects were used throughout the show for the video strips, and to make some of the luma masks we used live masks. This allowed me to adapt quickly when changes to live feed size or position were needed without needing to go back to content.

"One of the coolest video moments in the show was one of the solos, where the content team used a motion capture suite to record the choreography for this song. This recording was pre-rendered into clips with particle, smoke and star effects in separate layers. The layers were played back in the Boreal+ MK2 and programmed to flow with the choreography and music."

Thomas Hendriks Boers and Ton Swaak served as lighting designers for the shows, with Boers also lighting programmer and operator. The video content was handled by Tenfeet and Het Nieuwe Kader, with Buysse on content programming duties, and Dave van Roon on programming.

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