SNOW PATROL
Production Manager, Robin Scott; Stage Manager, Johannes Soelter; Media Server Technician, Robin Haddow; BPM SFX’s Adam Murray, Cobain Schofield, Cosmin Barbuceanu & Katie Strickland; Assistant Lighting Programmer, Jake Humphries & Show Designer Davy Sherwin.
Leading delivery of the video content was Robin Haddow, the tour’s Media Server Technician who was situated at FOH. “While Davy was working on the designs during the Sheeran tour, we held several conference calls with our Video Director, Jon Shrimpton, giving our input on what we thought would and wouldn’t work.” Haddow is well-versed in utilising the Notch / disguise combination, having familiarised himself with it on an Ellie Goulding tour some years earlier. “With Snow Patrol, we’ve moved away from some of the more stereotypical looks people tend to use Notch for, such as camera fades, opting for more generative content.” Haddow spoke candidly about the challenges of creating the ‘boxed’ video look aesthetic. “One of the main concerns was that the lighting rig might be too bright for the projectors to produce a clear image, but Davy brought down the lights to give clarity to the projection surfaces.” Four Panasonic RZ31K Projectors were used for the video box effect - two flown portrait over stage, two flown landscape, stacked at FOH. Meanwhile, the impressive LED back wall was made up of 10mm Leyard CLM panels, all of which were provided by UP. Haddow, who dubbed the vendor’s gear as “fantastic”, told TPi: “I have known Phil Mercer (coFounder, UP) for a number of years and it’s great to be able to continue our relationship with his new company.” The Media Server Technician also discussed the benefits of being situated out at FOH alongside Sherwin. “I think it’s really important as during the show, it’s difficult to communicate and there is so much you can take from a person’s facial expression. For a lot of the show, I’m riding the level of the LED to match the lighting. This means if Davy thinks it’s too bright, he can simply shoot me a look, and I’ll know what he needs.” Video Director Jon Shrimpton dealt with four manned Sony HDC-1500Rs and four Agile ARC360 Lites. “I have used the Agile cameras previously on Robbie Williams,” he commented. “They were originally developed to be used for yacht races which makes them incredibly durable for life on
the road. Their weather-proofing in particular has been incredibly handy through the years.” Shrimpton explained that his main prerogative as a director is giving fair airtime to all band members on stage. “As is the way with most bands, the singer often gets the most attention, but I always want to make sure everyone gets their face on the screen. For our second song, I set up an ISO shot of the five band members, each of which are streamed simultaneously onto the back wall. It’s a great little moment to re-introduce the guys to the back of the crowds after some time away from the spotlight.” For control, Shrimpton used a Snell Advanced Media Kula 2 ME vision mixer, with six independent outputs into the two disguise gx2 media servers. “As well as getting great support and picture toys from Universal Pixels; we’ve also been fortunate to have an incredible video crew,” concluded Shrimpton. “We have Video Crew Chief Joe Makein, Video Engineer Piotr Klymckek, LED tech, Eoin Mc Brien, Projectionists Marcus Wareham and Tony Whitehead and Head of Cameras, Gordon Davies.” LIGHTING Sherwin continued to map out the visuals by outlining the lighting rig for the show. “Originally the goal for the rear LED wall was to have lighting fixtures in between the gaps in panels,” said the LD. “However, we found it didn’t translate very well for video content.” The solution chosen by the Show Designer was to use a 10mm LED product and rig a lighting system behind the panels which could shoot through. The fixtures in question were GLP impression X4 Bar 20s along with a range of BPM SFX laser fixtures – but more on them later. Sherwin praised the X4 Bars, of which they had 130 on the rig, saying, “I tried to be quite clever with the X4s and not just produce long straight lines. I really only started using the X4s last year and it’s been great to use them in this format on an arena stage. The whole look of the show is centred around the rectangular box which is created with the 64
