Ernesto Corti
Ernesto Corti, who has also lit The Cult, Joe Satriani, Bad Religion and Chickenfoot, was approached by Devo’s management last year after they realized they were doing some major festivals and shows without somebody doing more than video as visuals.
Devo’s Jerry (Gerald) Casale (bass guitar/synths/vocals) is chief strategist for the band and gets involved in the band’s video looks as well, Corti notes. “Yes, Gerald is 100 percent involved with all the visual aspects of the show — video, lighting, wardrobe,” he says.
“When we started talking, he wanted to have a show divided in three to four very notorious parts,” Corti adds. “We talked about making the video the most important element as the show opener,” he says. For that part, “all the video content is time-coded and designed for each of the songs. The second part has a few songs just utilizing lights with old-school looks.”
For the third part of the show, “the idea was to create some video and lighting cues to have the feel of a big political parade. Then at the end everything kicks in to have a nice mix of fun looks and colors with the video wall and the lighting rig,” Corti said.
“The first part of the show we are running the video content from the Pro Tools computer, which is a very nice way to do it when you are trying to time-code the content,” Corti says. “Then after a few songs, I take over with the Catalyst being driven with a grandMA. At that point, I programmed the video content into the lighting cues.”
Although Nocturne Productions had also been involved with the video portion, Epic Production Technologies is now providing both lighting and video support for the tour.
“The lighting package is very simple,” Corti says. “Originally, we had no lights at all, but it’s been growing little by little. With the idea being simple but effective, I have a few [Philips Color Kinetics] ColorBlazes for side washes, some ColorBlast as up-lights and some [Martin] MAC 2K washes as moving lights, which also do the strobing part of the show. It’s some old school rock ‘n’ roll looks, with additional modern visuals thrown in, and so far, it’s been a very fun experience with a lot of challenges due to different venues, stages and lighting rigs — we use whatever its available in house.”
Davy Force
Working independently, Davy Force has been doing animation/video on his own terms under the Force! Extreme Anti-Mation moniker and, separately from Devo, with the Los Angeles visual art laboratory, V Squared labs.
“I’ve been working with Devo video wise, and had done visuals for their previous project, Devo 2.0, the Disney kid version of Devo,” where kids would mime to hits re-recorded by the band. “Things went great, so when they came out with their new record and wanted concert visuals, they spoke to me about creating them.
“Having worked doing video and animation projects with band members Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale for over 10 years, I had starting with being Jerry’s animation director on the first Foo Fighter video,” which Casale also directed. “For the new tracks, I created all new visuals, working with Jerry to shoot some stuff for the pieces, and for some of their older tracks, I took their original film visuals and remixed them a bit.
“For content creation I’m all Adobe/LightWave 3D. Live VJ-wise, we have a classic VJ-like setup: Edirol V8/V4 mixers, security cameras, MacBooks running Modul8, which process live video footage of the band into crunchy computer-graphics goodness in real-time. It’s been great working with both Tim and Ernesto, definitely a team effort!”
Tim Brunet
Tim Brunet, a.k.a. “Visualante,” is a live video performer who does visuals for bands and DJs. Brunet explains how he hooked up with Devo for their current tour. “My friend Brien Rullman (a.k.a. VJ TEK), who’s worked for Devo before but was already booked for another show, contacted me about the tour.
“Davy (Force) and I work as a team. I give him visual elements I mix live with my program, Modul8, on a Mac laptop, with a second Mac loaded up and ready to go for backup if the first one crashes. That can happen with that many layers of video. I use freeframes and graphics and whatever looks good and works with a particular song. I change colors and elements on beats and changes — at the same time, following Ernesto’s color changes.
“Things evolve and change as we go along,” Brunet adds. “I came up with the idea after working the San Francisco show (photographed for PLSN) when Devo came out in these orange funky outfits for the encore. We made everything orange — the video elements, lights, along with their outfits… It worked great. I loved it because it was during the song, “Freedom of Choice.” We gave them a choice: Orange or Orange. Working with Davy is great, Ernesto works more directly with Davy him. I loved working with Devo — really great guys, and they put on a great show for the fans.”
