The Vamps recently completed a sold-out arena tour of the UK as
part of the first leg of their world tour, before joining up with Little Mix as
they head in to Europe. Lighting, video and rigging technology and services
were supplied by PRG XL Video – with lighting design by Peter Barnes and video
content direction by Stuart Merser, using the latest live image manipulation
tool: VideoDust.
Created by Stuart Smith and his business partner Phil Woodhead,
of Brighton based technologists Thundering Jacks, VideoDust is a user-friendly,
intuitive tool for creating original video content in real-time from a live
source. Stuart Merser has been the only video director outside of Thundering
Jacks to use VideoDust/Cat combination on touring productions, he explained why
he is such a fan: “I’ve been touring for over twenty years and VideoDust is one
of the most impressive tools I’ve worked with.”
Stuart Smith explained how VideoDust came into existence: “My
background is in gallery based, interactive visual art. In around 2011 I was
invited to create some unique content for a Peter Gabriel tour, where he wanted
to do some funky effects, with the image on-screen breaking into shards of
glass whenever he moved his hand in a certain way. Word got around and people
in the touring industry thought it would be amazing to have the capability to
do stuff like this on more live shows.
“Shortly after that I met my business partner Phil Woodhead, who
was working on Kings of Leon; I ended up joining the tour with a very early
version of VideoDust—from which the effects were great, but it wasn’t very user
friendly. I came home and overhauled the whole thing, the concept of VideoDust
is that it’s a super easy-to-use tool with an iPad interface, that can be used
as a creative tool for video designers and directors.”
The video playback surface for The Vamps was a colossal 33m-wide
ROE F-12 LED screen, with additional LED panels on the band risers. All the
content was driven through a Catalyst media server, with Stuart‘s mixing being
done on a Black Magic 2ME desk.
Lighting designer Peter Barnes is a pop show lighting virtuoso
and has lit The Vamps since their first theatre tour in September 2014.
Discussing the layout of the lighting and choice of fixtures, Peter commented:
“The band wanted a giant video screen, as they’d seen another show with
something similar – so we came up with a screen that’s around 33m wide.
“The size of the screen means that all the lighting fixtures
need to go either above or below it, which pretty much determined the style of
lighting for The Vamps, with trusses over the stage and above the video wall,
as well as lights lining the back of the risers below. Because of the amount of
video, I needed something punchy to compete with the light output from the LED wall;
I found that the Clay Paky Mythos and Icon Beam from PRG cut through the
ambient light very well.”
Additional
lighting used on The Vamps tour included Vari*Lite VL3500 wash lights; and the
B-EYE K10 LED effects light and CC LED strobe from Clay Paky. Followspot power
was provided by Robert Juliat Lancelots. Dom Crookes worked with Peter during
pre-production, programming the show lighting on WYSIWYG and during production
rehearsals – with Fraser Walker taking over as lighting operator for the tour,
running everything from a Hog 4 Full Boar. Steve Major was the lighting crew
chief.
