LMG Touring provided lighting and video gear for Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, who has been touring in support of his second album, Because the Internet, released last December. Along with a full lighting rig, LMG provided Barco 18K Projectors and AI Media Servers. The video gear supported custom content created by Moment Factory. The different projection surfaces included a back screen, two columns, front scrim or Kabuki, riser surfaces, and stage props. The tour provided the audience with animated sequences that took them on a ride through the Internet.
More details from LMG Touring (www.lmg.net)
LMG Touring went on the road with Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino, in support of his sophomore album Because the Internet. The Deep Web Tour hit cities throughout the United States and Canada for a three-month run starting in February 2014. LMG Touring, the tour’s production team, and Moment Factory came together to produce an interactive and fully envisioned experience for the audience.
Glover recorded the album in a mansion surrounded by his friends and family for three months, completely off the grid from the rest of the world. “It was the vibe that was around that made this album so special and we wanted to recreate it on the road,” explains Chad Taylor, Childish Gambino’s tour manager. “It was mostly Donald coming up with ideas, saying things like ‘during Crawl, I want a haunted mansion feel during that song’.”
After brainstorming sessions, they came up with a script of ideas, including sound effects and visuals, and put together the entire show from start to finish. The artists at Moment Factory compiled all the notes to design the video content until they had a working show. “When we first looked at the designs through the projector, we were pleasantly surprised how much more alive it looked,” explains Taylor. “Working with LMG to get the right gear in place was the only way to get this vision to come together.”
LMG provided the tour with a full lighting rig, Barco 18K Projectors, and AI Media Servers used to sync multiple layers of the set to create a sense of depth through projection mapping. The different projection surfaces included a back screen, two columns, front scrim or Kabuki, riser surfaces, and stage props. The tour provided the audience with animated sequences that took them on a ride through the Internet. The main set was the replication of the mansion, but would switch to include glitching schematics, haunted visuals, and a scene of Donald standing behind the thin scrim, which simulated ‘rain’ around him. “The centerpiece of the show, with projection on the Kabuki, turned out better than we ever could have imagined it,” says Robbie Barr, the tour’s Technical Director. The lighting aspects included Martin Auras, VL3500 Spots and Sharpys. LMG’s Tyler GT pre-rigged Truss helped ease the load in/out process and kept the crew size to a minimum.
“Working with Chad and the creative team was a fantastic experience. This was a tour de force with stunning imagery and a well thought-out creative concept that blew the audience away from the first note,” says Craig Mitchell, LMG’s Touring Director. “Lighting Designer Sarah Landau did an amazing job programming the lighting around the projection elements and everything came together for a cinematic look.”
Due to Donald’s hectic schedule, the production team only had about a week for pre-production, instead of the 3-4 weeks that is usually needed. “The show wasn’t an easy one to get off the ground, but Craig and his team bent over backwards to get the gear and knowledge we needed to put on the show,” explains Barr. “From my perspective, LMG provided us with Bryan Bukovinski and Dan Gentile, two of the most talented and hardest working lighting technicians there are.”
“From the very first show of the tour, I was in touch with Craig nearly every day… there was never a problem that wasn’t directly and quickly addressed and solved,” says Dustin Miller, the tour’s Production Manager. “The show had to be right every single night or there just wouldn’t be a show,” says Miller. “LMG made that possible by finding us the right crew, the right equipment, and the right solutions to any problems that came up on the road.”
