Disguise Drives Real-Time Visuals

Dave’s first UK tour in four years, backing his album The Boy Who Played the Harp, called for a staging concept that could flex with the show's pace and narrative.

Video specialists Universal Pixels delivered a responsive visual system powered by Disguise GX 3 media servers, enabling eight moving, tracking LED screens suspended above the stage to shift position and orientation throughout the performance without breaking the illusion.

At the centre of the workflow was a real-time link between automation, tracking and content rendering. Positional data from the moving screens fed directly into the Disguise GX 3s, which continuously updated a digital model of the stage. Content was then mapped and re-rendered on a frame-by-frame basis so imagery held its spatial integrity as the rig moved. Instead of relying on fixed cues, the system persistently recalculated how visuals should appear relative to each screen's live position and angle. Programming and operation were handled in Disguise's Designer software by Richard Turner.

"We effectively had a digital twin of the real world, and the system rendered the correct content for each frame," explained Universal Pixels’ Technical Specialist James Morden. Running at 50 frames per second, the set-up provided the refresh needed for accurate real-time tracking while keeping latency low, ensuring the relationship between physical motion and on-screen imagery stayed coherent. "You're not just playing back content; you’re responding to movement in real time and making sure what the audience sees always makes sense in the space," added Morden.

The Disguise GX 3 servers unified playback, tracking data, live cameras and generative content created in Notch, allowing the visuals to react to lighting, audio and performance cues. This tight integration enabled layered effects, controlled transparency and defined lighting states, making the screens feel solid in some moments and almost vanish in others, depending on choreography and look.

A pronounced sense of depth came from the interaction between the kinetic screens, the content and the lighting design. ROE Visual Vanish V8T panels, offering 60% transparency and high brightness, let light and images pass through multiple planes as the screens moved, producing shifting levels of opacity and visibility. Two additional ROE Visual Vanish V8T surfaces served as static IMAG screens, with all LED processing handled by Brompton Technology’s Tessera SX40. The camera package comprised six Panasonic AK-UC4000 4K studio cameras, including two on Junior 5 remote-controlled motorised dollies, supplemented by six Blackmagic Micro Studio 4K G2 units for cutaways. Director and Video Designer & Show Creative Matt Askem mixed the feeds on one of Universal Pixels’ Kula PPUs, piping real-time pictures into the media servers and onto the screens.

Shooting in v-log preserved wide dynamic range in an environment with constantly shifting lighting levels and colour temperature. That flexibility made it easier to align camera feeds with rendered content and LED output for a consistent look across live and generated elements.

The result is a touring production that demonstrates how real-time rendering, precise tracking and live colour management can operate as a single, cohesive system that supports the creative without drawing attention to the technology. The wider team included Video Crew Chief Al Bolland; Server Programmer/Operator & Colour Wizard Richard Turner; Video Engineer Briony Margetts; Lead LED Al Wright; Head of Cameras Patrick Hall; LED/Camera Crew Jules Blagg, Paul Borthwick, and Oscar Winter; Lighting & Show Designer Tim Routledge; Production Manager Paddy Hocken; and Rigging & Automation lead Sam Ridgway.

www.disguise.one