Todd Rundgren is taking virtual touring to a new level. His “Clearly Human Live Virtual Tour” plays customized shows targeted to 25 U.S. cities from Feb. 14 to March 22, all live streamed from one venue, Chicago’s Radius. Along with a virtual audience, a limited 19 seats per show will also be sold for live spectators to attend.
Production designer/lighting designer Hans Shoop has worked with Rundgren on and off since 2009. Alex Skowron also has a history with Todd. “Todd’s always on the cutting edge and I wanted to be part of it,” Skowron told PLSN. After reading about the upcoming tour in Rolling Stone, he contacted management and was hired to assist Shoop with many moving parts. “Being local to Chicago and having a solid relationship with local vendors, I was asked to secure bids for lighting, video, staging and scenic,” Skowron said.
Pointing out creative considerations, Shoop noted that “Todd gave me a lot of latitude to put a design together. One of the big things on Todd’s list is that it feels like a regular concert experience to the band. He doesn’t want it to feel like the video shoot it is. Video shoots tend to go with video style lighting, all the musicians having nice, beautiful key light and good flesh tones and it’s static on them the entire time. We will be presenting a dynamically lit show with a strong eye toward appealing contrast levels.”
Photographs of the target city will be projected onto the video wall to personalize it. Extra efforts were also taken to make the house stage nondescript, with architectural features masked off so that audiences will only see the touring production. The customization even extends to catering, Shoop said. “Maybe someone has Atomic Wings flown in when we do the Buffalo show, for instance.”
Chris Andersen, the video producer and engineer-in-charge (EIC), has worked with Rundgren for 45 years in various roles, from touring production manager, house sound mixer, studio recording engineer and most recently, video producer/editor. “Todd creates much of the projected concert video content, not just the concepts,” Andersen told PLSN. “I produce and edit his feature-length DVD video and audio releases.”
For this virtual tour, Andersen’s company, Nevessa Production Woodstock, is supplying its Unit Three mobile video production truck, which loads in on Feb. 10. “Ten cameras will be deployed,” Andersen explained. “The truck will generate five webcast feeds, including director John Deeney’s line cut, three-camera ISOs and a special backstage program including the crew’s technical intercom communications. The home viewer can easily switch between all five. The truck will also process the live audience feed and hand it off to the crew for display on 50 small tiles in the audience area.”
Those 50 small tiles will display some virtual audience members, interspersed between live spectators. One issue being dealt with concerns ambient lighting. “We are looking at the glow from all those screens,” Shoop explained. “During the show’s dark portions, we may try to fade screens down a bit, just as the band wouldn’t see the regular audience brightly during some songs. It may be someone at the master gain for those screens. We don’t want all the monitor light to pollute the event.”
Camera direction will also be important, with Shoop ensuring that what viewers see on their screens is rich with content at all times. “It will not look like a black void from a side view, which has been my complaint with a lot of shows, in which there is a lovely background or set center stage and two-thirds of the audience are sitting off axis, seeing half of whatever magnificent set is there. That always bothered me. I’m directing it with the thought of a concertgoer in mind. If I sit off to the side, I like to see something, and the camera sees everything.”
Shooting Chevelle’s Music Video
Robb Jibson and his SoMidwest design team blazed a trail into a local forest for some creative, socially distanced outdoor work with touring client, Chevelle. The alt metal band approached the team to write, produce, shoot and edit their music video for their single, “Self Destructor.”
“We shot the outdoor scenes in a secluded part of a friend’s private estate in the northern suburbs and other parts in the Cook County Illinois Forest Preserve,” Jibson told PLSN. “It was fun to make sure that lighting and staging elements were an integral part of the overall look of the scene, from the roving camera light to the smoke and beams in the forest. We even zip tied [tube] lights to some conduit in the tunnel for true ‘run and gun’ quick shots and they looked so real. We had a blast.” View the video at plsn.me/Chevelle.
Opry Celebrates 95 Years of Music
NBC taped a two-hour special, “The Grand Ole Opry: 95 Years of Country Music” on location the third week in January for airing on Sunday, Feb. 14 (9 p.m. ET/PT). Opry LD Ken Hudson hosted the design team of Mike Swinford (scenic) and Ted Wells (lighting), with his programmer Brian Jenkins. The show mixes archival footage with live talent on the Opry stage. Show hosts are Brad Paisley and Blake Shelton, and the special includes Lady A, Little Big Town, Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini, Darius Rucker, Old Crow Medicine Show, Dierks Bentley, Marty Stuart and more. Meanwhile, Hudson said their Saturday Night Grand Ole Opry Live shows (now with limited capacity audiences) have continued on through its official network, Circle TV, and on WSM radio during the pandemic.
Moon Taxi for Titans
Tony Caporale closed out the year by heading up a project for a pre-taped halftime performance featuring Moon Taxi for the Tennessee Titans vs. Baltimore Ravens NFL playoff game. Darien Koop of Design Darko and Bobby Grey of Notan Creative were brought in to help collaborate on the design, programming and operation in early January at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium. View the video at plsn.me/MoonTaxi.
Know of any hopeful rays on the horizon? Shoot them Debi’s way. Reach her at dmoen@plsn.com.
