Oasis video encourages new blood

XL Video supplied Oasis with a seven-camera DPU including one of their new GV Zodiac vision mixing desks, three ‘Magic’ DVE’s, a matrix switcher and Dataton control for their UK stadium tour.
XL also supplied a Catalyst digital media server used by the show’s artistic director and lighting designer Andi Watson.
The band’s overall video production was co-ordinated by video director Dick Carruthers’ company, Cheese Film & Video Productions, with touring video production manager Dave Wright overseeing the 35 hand-picked video crew.
The show was a dynamic, pacey mix of live camera and specially created playback sources onto six LED screens – four onstage that moved up and down on a Kinesys vari-speed automation system, and stage left and right side screens.
Carruthers and programmer Richard Turner also maximised XL’s pre-programming facilities for prepping the show at their Hertfordshire HQ, once again working with XL’s project manager for Oasis, Des Fallon. XL’s Dickie Burford engineered the DPU at FOH, alongside Carruthers and Turner.
Des Fallon said: “It’s been very interesting working with two different but each highly creative individuals like Andi and Dick.”
Oasis have a long history of embracing innovative video in their live shows. For this one they wanted a coherent visual aesthetic across both mediums of lighting and video explains Andi Watson. Watson brought his own visual ideas into the equation as well as being given some definite directions by the band, Noel Gallagher in particular.
Watson, renowned for his amazing and inventive designs, collaborated with Carruthers, who’s worked with Oasis since 1995 to develop the show. He also brought video producer Justine Catterall onboard for some fresh input, plus Pip Rhodes, who was asked to work specifically on generating Catalyst content.
For the show, he kept many of the playback sources under his direction, triggered from the WholeHog II lighting desk via the Catalyst, leaving Carruthers free to develop the live camera mix each night – an appreciation of the fact that although working together, playback and the live mix are also separate visual entities with their own distinct requirements.
(SP)