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DAVE: THE BRIT AWARDS Bluman Associates and Stout Studio join forces with TAWBOX’s Creative Directors, Bronski and Amber Rimell, to produce eye-catching video mapping for the British rapper’s much talked-about BRIT Awards performance.
Racking up a huge viewership on the night and two million views on YouTube [at time of press], Dave’s impassioned performance at the BRIT Awards made headlines across the nation. Off the back of the performance, TPi sat down with TAWBOX Creative Directors, Bronski and Amber Rimell. “Bronski and I have been working for Dave for a year now, first collaborating with him on his Psychodrama tour,” began Rimell, talking about TAWBOX’s history with artist. Once the creative duo were told that Dave wanted to perform his track Black, they began devising a creative concept to accompany the performance. “We suggested the idea that Dave and his Musical Producer – Fraser T Smith – should face one another, while both playing seperate pianos,” added Bronski, explaining how the surface between the two performers became the canvas for TAWBOX to explore the idea of projection mapping. “Personally, I had always wanted to work with projection as a creative idea,” stated Rimell. “I created mood boards and worked in depth at the visual aspect, aligning with and dissecting Dave’s lyrics into very small sections for the 2D and 3D world so a narrative could be seen throughout.” Bronski designed the piano for the performance – “something I never thought I’d do,” he laughed. “I wanted a projection on top of a piano, a one-shot steadycam delivery and content to be rendered from the lens, tracked in real time.” The advent of three fairly recent advances were all needed to pull of this production – namely disguise media servers, Notch real-time rendering and 3D tracking devices, Mo-Sys Engineering. “We were delighted to commission
Bluman Associates and Stout Studio to bring the vision to life,” continued Bronski. “We worked closely with SHOP for 2D and Stout for 3D visuals. Stout deployed Notch to render the dynamic 3D world and the camera tracking was handled by infrared Mo-Sys Engineering StarTracker. The result was mesmerising and offered viewers a truly moving, immersive visualisation.” Although being aware of both Bluman Associates and Stout Studios, this marked TAWBOX’s first time collaborating with the two companies. “Lewis [Kyle White – Stout Studios] has an amazing reputation for his Notch skills, and artistic style in designing 3D visuals, which were paramount for the 3D section of the performance,” Bronski added. “And Pod [Bluman – Bluman Associates] is a well-respected figure in projection and video solutions and a natural choice for this project.” Speaking of his experience, Bluman asserted that the project would not have been possible without an escalated level of help from disguise. The project presented a new application for the disguise xR software. “We realised the key to making this work was 100% alignment between the virtual worlds in disguise and Mo-Sys and the real world,” said Bluman. Another integral cog in the project was having one devoted Steadicamera Operator, John Clarke. “It was vital that we had the consistency of the same operator throughout the whole rehearsal and show as the steadicam’s movement was highly choreographed to synchronise with the artist and the content as it was projected,” Bluman commented. Bluman Associates used an infrared Mo-Sys Engineering StarTracker facing down with black retro reflective stickers placed on the stage floor. StarTracker generated off-set coordinates and tracked the position of the 20