HANS ZIMMER
Above: Lighting Director Dietrich Juengling; Production Director Jim Baggott; Video Crew Chief Ian Haywood; Technical Production Manager Chris Coffie; Beat The Street was tasked with getting the crew from venue to venue.
including clips from the films themselves. “I think that would have been a little too cheesy,” chuckled Juengling. “We also have no IMAG as Mark can’t stand it. We don’t really need it in these venues and it would detract from the way the way the content and stage look together. It’s more holistic without it and it allows you to look at the show as a whole.” The main upstage LED wall measured 63ft wide x 27.5ft high and was made up of 188 tiles of Winvision Air 9mm, masked into a ‘half moon’ shape. The screen, along with the projection mapping, was driven by a pair of d3 Technologies 4x4pro media servers with VFC HDSDI output cards installed. The content for the wall was rendered at 2048 x 896 pixels and was fed to the wall via 2 HDSDI 1920 x 1080i 50Hz lines. Video Crew Chief, Ian Haywood, explained: “The trickiest part of our gig is the stage projection. We have 3D content that maps to the three tiers of band risers. With all of the backline gear on stage we can’t actually see the floor of it properly to line the projectors up or map the content to the risers. We use 8 Barco HDF 30k projectors, configured into four stacks of two to cover the width of the stage, which are all running hot and with each ‘double stack’ being needed to cover a particular portion of the stage. It’s a couple of hours of work to get it right every day. This is first day lead we’ve had, which has made everything much easier.” While there were indeed no IMAG screens or camera PPU, the team shot close ups of the principle musicians in advance to use as ‘artificial IMAG’ on the upstage wall. Thanks to the timecode and intelligent camerawork, this technique syncs up perfectly with the performances on stage and effectively gave the crew the best of both worlds when it came to the show visuals. Haywood explained: “It was all shot in LA at a studio but it works in a way that you can’t tell how or where it was shot. The shots are so close and there’s so little background that the audience have no reason to suspect it isn’t live. Even when we’ve had to use IMAG, like at the stadium in Hamburg, it still looks amazing.” He continued: “If we had a PPU I would also have had to ask for different lighting from the guys so that’s another bonus.” Although more accustomed to working on shows for superstars like Jay-Z and Rihanna, Haywood was relishing the time spent outside of his comfort zone. He concluded: “It definitely does feel more theatre than rock ‘n’ roll, but the first time you hear the full band playing those powerful
songs it really does make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. To be honest, I still get that sometimes now. It’s a great show and it’s surreal to see how the audience react to it. People love the soundtracks to these films and the reception has been incredible.” The video crew was completed by Media Server Tech Ken Delvo, Projectionist Bjorn Parry, and LED Tech Fionn Finnie. NOW WE ARE FREE It’s an unorthodox performance for sure; the orchestra follows a teleprompter rather than a conductor, the infamous Buggles tune makes an appearance, and Zimmer repeatedly regales the audience with behindthe-scenes tales from some of modern cinema’s greatest works. Part ‘an evening with...’ part full-on rock show, the thousands-strong crowd in SSE Arena were enraptured from start to finish. Whether this is the emergence of a sleeping giant into the world of concert touring or a one-off that simply allows a venerated composer to look his admirers in the eye, the end product is a powerful and virtuosic evening of live music. All aspects of the production work together, both powerfully and subtlely, to accentuate the on-stage perfromance. The tour is currently visiting its last few cities in the US before reaching its climax. Followig this, and accounting for the fact that Zimmer has already added another blockbuster to his repertoire with Dunkirk, hopefully this is not the last we will see from the maestro and his all-stars. TPi Photos: J. Norppa, Joe Eley, Maria Zhytnikova & TPi www.hans-zimmer.com www.britanniarow.com www.clairglobal.com www.prg.com www.ver.com www.taittowers.com www.flybynite.co.uk www.beatthestreet.net www.loadcellrental.com www.snakatakcatering.com 42