Belgian superstar
rockers Clouseau ended the year and start 2017 on a high note with a large-scale version of their ‘Clouseau
Danst’ tour concept, staged
over four sold-out nights in December and January at the 20,000 capacity
Antwerps Sportpaleis.
Painting with Light delivered another
spectacular show design encompassing lighting, video, stage, set and automation
plus DMX controlled wristbands worn by the audience each night.
Utilizing some cool
new audio-linked software from Notch
and several other fresh ideas to keep the visuals pumping at the same pace as
the band, the show-stopping performance delivered 34 stomping Clouseau hits and
favourites, old and new, with impressive style.
In the true spirit of
this year’s album “Clouseau Danst” (Clouseau Dances), charismatic lead singer
Koen Wauters added an array of dance steps to the repertoire of things at which
he excels, which include singing, entertaining, TV presenting, mentoring, rally
driving and being adored by Clouseau fans from all generations!
Concept creation
Painting with Light’s own highly talented
team was led by Luc Peumans, with lighting programmer and operator Paco
Mispelters, head of video content Michael Al-Far, d3 programmer
Jo Pauly and associate media programmer & video content coordinator Katleen
Selleslagh who also called the Sportpaleis shows’ eight
follow spots.
Clouseau stage these
blockbusting shows every two years. The last one, in 2014, was
‘Clouseau Centraal’ with the stage running
lengthways down the middle of the arena. One of the starting points for the current one was that they
wanted an end-on stage.
The other directive
from the band – which started in the late 1980s – was that the heartbeat of ‘dance’ should permeate
all aspects of the show.
They wanted to create
an atmosphere that would engulf and engage the entire room and everyone it.
“Basically, we needed to
create an immersive clubbing experience in an arena” stated Luc, “and then
beyond that, it was left to our collective imaginations to produce technical
and production concepts that would stun and amaze!”
The band hired Ish Ait Hamou, one of the
best known and most successful choreographers in Belgium, to assist in
directing the show. For the first time, a Clouseau gig featured an 8-person dance troupe strutting their
stuff during four songs and Koen and his brother, lead guitarist Kris, engaged
in a dance battle in the second half, thrilling fans all quite a radical
departure from former shows.
When the Painting with Light team received the
proposed song running order, Luc and Michael sat down and mood-boarded the
entire set, which was also the first time they had taken this approach for a large scale rock spectacular.
They discussed at
length how the lighting, video and flexible stage layout – with various
elements automated by WIcreations – would work as one fluid ‘bigger picture’
over an epic three hour performance, together with the band and their
choreography.
Once the process was
running, the move away from devising a linear technical narrative for the show
was “an obvious and very satisfying collective way to work” says Luc.
They also decided at
this point to base the video
playback content on graphic material which could be animated to create new and
funky effects. To this end, Painting with Light also invested in new Notch software, a platform they had been considering for some time,
initially to use as a grading
tool for live camera feeds.
As the show aesthetic
evolved, the Painting with
Light team and live camera director Hans Pannecoucke (although he allows us
lazy English to use the slightly more pronounceable version of ‘Pancake’)
decided that four sub-mixes (for the live cameras) would be sent into the
primary d3 4x4pro media server from Hans’ PPU.
As more was learned
about Notch – and after attending a special training
session in Germany – they decided to harness the power of its real-time
rendering and audio-connectivity to define detailed layers of graphical content
which could have movement and other effects triggered by multiple audio inputs.
It created a succession of graphic special
effects that flowed and grooved to the music, a rhythmic animation twist to an
already vibrant and diverse array of video graphics.
This was picked up
live by the audience, effectively harmonising the whole room and creating those
immersive feelings so fundamental to the concept and vibe of ‘Clouseau Danst’.
It was a fantastic
opportunity to be experimental and although it involved a few creative risks,
once Michael, Luc and the team could see the potential results there was no
turning back!
The storyboarding
reached a certain stage where the type and style of digital graphics started to be defined, at which point Michael
commissioned three video artists to assist with core content production – Aitor
Biedma together with Maarten Francq and Batr Wincuers from Mojuice.
Extensive use of the
d3’s visualisation facilities was made during the work-in-progress period which
enabled all – including the band – to see how the ‘live’ integration between
graphics and Hans’ IMAG mix would work. Practically, this meant ensuring there
were appropriate windows and spaces in the material running across the LED
surfaces.
The result of all this
very intense work was a distinctive visual style from mixing the two raw
elements of IMAG and graphics that retained an organic and spontaneous feel
that fed into the pulse of the dance music.
Adding to the already
strong connection between band and fans, 20,000 RGB wrist bands were
distributed to the audience each night, which were DMX controlled and running
through the lighting desk. Luc has been wanting to do this for about 15 years, when it was outrageously
expensive, almost impossible to achieve and way before it had been seen at any
show!
This also worked
brilliantly. The first time the wrist-bands were fired up, Koen waved his arms
in the air and 20,000 wristbands followed, synchronised in a
single magic moment!
Video
The video hardware and
the way it was configured onstage was driven to some extent by the content and
its role in the whole design ‘shaping’ process.
All the LED screen
products were 10 mm in pitch, and upstage at
the back was a 30 metre wide by 10 metre high LED wall, rigged on tracks so it
could be split in up to five sections and moved manually into different
configurations.
Hanging upstage in the
roof were five triangular shaped pods, each featuring five trusses clad on
three sides in LED and tapering to a triangle shape at the top. The LED panels
used were specially developed for technical supplier PRG to make the joins
invisible. Combined with the graphic material, they could either pop out in a
real 3D effect or disappear and be absorbed as a backdrop to the stage action.
These video pods all
moved – subtly – into different positions
and angles on three WI moving hoists, further changing the architecture of the
stage space. With the idea of motion already an established part of the
visuality, having automation in the set was another way of connecting with the
fans and keeping up the pace and action.
Below on the floor was
a set of band risers which mirrored the triangular shape and five layers of
video from the pods above on their
front fascias.
The playback content, which appeared in all
34 songs of the ambitious 3 hour set, was stored and played back from Painting with Light’s own d3 4x4pro server with a
4×2 running the venue’s LED digital tickertape balcony border.
Hans Pancake’s camera
mix involved 10 cameras, four operated, three robo-cams and three lipstick cams
clamped onto strategic bits of backline. From these feeds he sent the four
sub-mixes to the d3 for outputting onto the LED wall and occasionally to the
pod video surfaces.
Lighting &
Staging
As the basic
structural video and stage set design and the graphic content were evolving, Luc Peumans and Paco Mispelters started
looking at lighting.
Paco has been the LD
and operator for the ongoing 2016 Clouseau Danst theatre tour which has played
throughout Belgium and the Netherlands for most of the year.
The basic idea was to
mimic the same immersive style adopted during the tour for the video, having an intense, club-style epicentre that people can step
in and out of as they wish while the hub of the action keeps pumping with
energy.
A six piece brass
section enriched and added extra groove to the Clouseau rock sound and
musicians and singers onstage alike
also needed to be well lit.
Fifteen Clay Paky Mythos were rigged on each of
the video pods, spaced to
match the shape of the video strips, with 124 x Mythos in total on the rig, 20
on the deck and the others dotted around six trusses above the stage, there
were plenty of options.
When the upstage
screen split into five sections,
it revealed six vertical lighting ladders in the gaps, each with five of PRG’s
proprietary Icon Beams and five single-cell Moles spaced along them.
There were six upstage
/ downstage oriented moving lighting trusses in the roof between the video
pods, which also flew in and out, each truss populated with four Mythos and
three VL3500 Washes, plus two SGM Q-7 LED strobes, also used for floods and
blinders.
Luc and Paco both like
the Chauvet STRIKE 4 LED blinders, so 24 were deployed across the rig, one on each of the five moving trusses and the balance
on the overhead trusses for blasting into the audience,
causing more mayhem!
The staging elements
were constructed by StageCo. There was a long runway emanating from the front
of the stage, used constantly
by Koen to get right out into the audience and then a 15 metre moving bridge –
from engineering specialist WIcreations – at the end of the catwalk which
raised up and connected to the first ‘B-Stage’ area.
Adding another WOW
factor, a large rotating arm then lifted up out of the bridge with a
platform on the end, so band members could jump onto it and journey out – just
above the heads of the audience – to the two C and D stage platforms further
down the arena.
Above each of the B, C
and D stages was a box truss containing an array of 4×4 Icon Beams creating a
Svoboda-style grid of lights.
Around the venue on
the two balcony levels, 56 x
GLP X4L LED washes were installed and clamped above each of these was a single
cell DWE blinder, all to highlight the audience and ramp up the atmosphere and
excitement. “It was very important to see everyone to create that all-encompassing club atmosphere,” says Luc.
Eight follow spots
were utilized, four Robert Juliat Cyranos on rotating truss chairs over-stage
and four RJ Lancelots on the second level balcony and Paco ran the lightshow on
a grandMA full size console, with a grandMA2 light for backup.
Production manager
Walter D’haese and lighting crew chief Filip Vanbroeckhoven, both from PRG, ensured that everything ran
smoothly on site for the get-in,
which commenced on Monday, allowing
four days for rigging and rehearsals, with the first of the first two shows the following Friday.
As the social channels
buzzed with positive feedback about the overall gig experience, the mainstream
press and media were equally astounded!
“People are used to
seeing these large Clouseau extravaganzas every two years” said Luc, “which pressurises all
of us on the creative and technical side as well as the band to produce something new, different and
genuinely special. This year there was some incredible overall teamwork,
everyone thought a bit out-of-the-box and the resulting dynamics helped ensure
a truly fantastic audience experience”.
http://www.paintingwithlight.be
Photos : Louise Stickland, Loosplat.com and Frank Lambrechts, Picturesk.
