Vintage Mic Conceals Marshall Camera

Marshall Electronics' ultra-compact cameras have been put to inventive use on Del Water Gap's 'Chasing the Chimera' tour, as Massachusetts-based tour design studio TERLECKI // DE JONG discreetly embedded a Marshall CV228 HD Lipstick Camera inside a 1950s Electro-Voice 664 microphone to capture close-up visuals without disrupting the stage aesthetic.

TERLECKI // DE JONG Co-founder, Designer and Creative Director Maxwell Fitzgerald Terlecki, together with business partner Travis Gunnar de Jong, specialise in immersive live environments and sought a way to integrate video without a conspicuous onstage device. "I bought a Marshall CV228 Lipstick Camera because it’s incredibly small and has a very low profile on stage," said Terlecki. "People often mount them on mic stands, but I wanted to push it further and completely hide the camera inside the housing of a microphone."

The team installed the CV228 within the vintage microphone body so it could sit in plain sight yet remain effectively invisible to the crowd. "From the audience perspective, all you see is what appears to be an ambient microphone on stage," said Terlecki. "In reality, there's a camera hidden inside of it, capturing the shot. It’s kind of hidden in plain view."

Live images from the concealed camera are projected onto a large canopy above the performance area, creating a dramatic focal point. Designed by TERLECKI // DE JONG and fabricated by soft-goods specialist Sew What?, the canopy doubles as a projection surface for real-time content. "We have a projector at front of house that sends the image up to this canopy above the stage," added Terlecki. "The CV228 camera gives us an intimate shot of the performer that expands into a huge image overhead."

Terlecki said the CV228's picture quality and adaptability were as important as its tiny footprint. According to Terlecki, "What I love about this camera is how unbelievably tiny it is, but it's also extremely sharp and clear. The raw image is very versatile. It takes colouring and effects extremely well."

For the tour, the feed is run through Resolume to create a high-contrast monochrome treatment by stripping colour and subtly shaping the signal. "We remove all saturation and then just play with a little contrast and exposure," said Terlecki. "That's really it. The image coming from the Marshall camera is strong enough that we don’t have to do much to it."

Terlecki previously adopted Marshall's lipstick cameras while designing visuals for punk band Amyl and the Sniffers, deploying multiple units around the stage. "We used as many as five Marshall lipstick cameras on that tour," added Terlecki. "I already knew how small they were and how good they looked. That's what made me start thinking about more creative ways to hide them on stage."

Minimising visible production gear is central to his design ethos. "From a design standpoint, the more you can get away from seeing equipment on stage, the better," said Terlecki. "If you can hide cables and cameras — anything that distracts from the performance, you end up with a much cleaner and more immersive visual experience."

Marshall Electronics welcomed the inventive approach. "Seeing designers push our cameras into new creative applications is always exciting," said Bernie Keach of Marshall Electronics. "Maxwell's approach to integrating the CV228 into a vintage microphone housing is a great example of how compact cameras can open up entirely new visual possibilities for live performance."

With TERLECKI // DE JONG continuing to craft immersive productions for touring artists, compact Marshall cameras look set to remain a staple of the company’s creative toolkit.

marshall-usa.com