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DEPECHE MODE: MEMENTO MORI TOUR Straddling the two creative worlds with which Depeche Mode perform, Lighting Designer, Jason Baeri shares an insight into the creative process of lighting the band’s latest live production.
Words: Jacob Waite Photos: Steve Jennings
Embarking on their first campaign since 2018’s Global Spirit Tour, and Dave Gahan and Martin Gore’s first tour as a duo following the passing of Andy Fletcher, Depeche Mode and their crew will traverse over 70 locations – presenting 15 albums and four decades worth of material, including tracks from the band’s latest studio album, Memento Mori, to live music fans throughout the United States. Lighting Designer, Jason Baeri was brought onboard to help realise the production design, based on a concept by Creative Director, Anton Corbijn. “He’s a brilliant guy to work with,” Baeri said, highlighting the influence of Corbijn on the band’s creative output. “This is my first time working with him and the band. I am consistently blown away by their stage presence and their seemingly endless supply of energy. They go all out every single night. There isn’t an audience member there that doesn’t feel the entire band connecting to them and sharing that energy.” Baeri shed some light on the unique stage design: “Anton Corbijn had this idea for a big scenic ‘M’ on the stage. It was meant to be not only a video surface, but a monolithic statement piece on stage that would tower over the audience.” The large and imposing standalone ‘M’ set piece is the focal point of the staging design, which doubles as a video screen with content matching the back wall of video behind the
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band. The ‘M’ lends itself not only to the iconography of Memento Mori and the band’s past touring campaigns. “Anton created nine films for individual songs that were different to every audience member based on where they were in relation to the M,” Baeri pointed out. Universal Pixels provided 320m2 of INFiLED ER5 LED for the upstage wall, IMAG screens and custom-built ‘M’ at the centre of the production design. The ‘M’ stands at an impressive 8m in height, and was manufactured by TAIT. UP has also provided a Grass Valley Kula PPU, Hitachi 3G camera channels, Panasonic HE145 robo cameras and disguise gx 2c media servers. “As with all UP projects we package to occupy the least shipping volume and this is an efficient tour visually with all LED surfaces fitting within two 4K outputs from a single active gx 2c server,” Universal Pixels Commercial Director, Phil Mercer commented. “Each campaign has always had a very interesting look, and within that, each is always very different. The common denominator being that they’re always very good. There is a consistently high quality from Anton Corbijn’s creations, and it shows,” Baeri said. “We’re happy to be a part of the band’s delivery again; this new era looks unique and memorable, and we look forward to having them in the UK.” The lighting department collaborated with Video Director, Jon Shrimpton to develop a cohesive visual approach in line with Corbijn
and the band. “Lighting plays a cohesive role with video when it comes to factoring in brightness and contrast. The lighting rig was designed to accent the rectilinear nature of the screen and recognise it as a defining shape, highlighting its edges rather than ignoring them. We really had two systems, the overhead rig, and the screen surround that was meant to complement and enhance the overall picture with the video surface,” Baeri explained. To this end, the outer ridges of the ‘M’ are lit with Martin VDO Sceptron 10 LED bars. “We highlight the hard edges of the ‘M’ rather than pretending it’s an amorphous object. When Anton [Corbijn], Jon [Shrimpton], and Miguel [Ribeiro] have content on the video wall, we try to support that by being part of the same world and language,” he added. Corbijn initially presented the idea as a series of sketches, but it was up to Baeri to translate those ideas into a working drawing. Baeri’s typical workflow is drawing and modelling in Vectorworks, and going back and forth between that and Syncronorm Depence2 – the latter of which he says has ‘replaced most render tools he uses’ due to its high-quality renders. “The renders look good enough to use for presentation to artists. It’s really a game changer in the industry.” The visual team collaborated with Earlybird Visual when it came to building the show. The support service helped build the model