“Multi-Media” has just been redefined.
Some 17,000 people recently witnessed Star Wars brought to life on stage in London’s O2 arena. The event condensed 13 hours of films and music into a 90-minute event that combined video, an 86 piece orchestra and an 80 piece choir. It delighted everyone in attendance, up to and including the creator of the film, George Lucas. “The heart of Star Wars: a Musical Journey is newly arranged music, cut by John Williams deftly and precisely to brilliant HD images,” says Patrick Stansfield, tour director/production supervisor. “These iconic pieces were performed with immediacy, beauty and presence. Director/designer Steven Cohen brought an encyclopedic understanding of the films and music to the project which enabled him to interpret the score and filmed elements together in a brilliant and accessible way.”
Everyone involved stressed the sophisticated approach. So if you want to see R2-D2 rolling across the stage or Jar Jar Binks juggle, look elsewhere. Cheap gags, which could have easily been a part of the show, were successfully avoided.
“The most important point that people understand is that this is a very classy show,” video director Mark Haney says emphatically. “One of the really incredible things that Steven Cohen did was to take what is magical about the Star Wars movies and give it pop and flash in a very respectable way. I remember doing Lord of the Dance and seeing people from nine to 90 love it, and that’s the kind of show this will be. And not just Star Wars people will love it, but everyone, included jaded rock ‘n’ roll guys like us.”
The Vision
Cohen, the Parnelli Award-winning LD, was not only the lighting and production designer, but also took the directorial reigns. While he’s certainly directed some of his rock shows (like Billy Joel’s recent tour), he says this was his first official foray into this discipline.
Cohen admits that at first he didn’t know what it was going to be. He saw a bonus feature on the Revenge of the Sith DVD that featured a compilation of scenes from all the movies with some John Williams music that inspired a starting point. A narrator was added along with incredibly high production values, a live orchestra and a choir. Everyone immediately signed onto his vision.
“Basically I started this show with the idea that it would be a classical music concert with the trappings of a rock ‘n’ roll show and deliver it all to an entirely different audience,” Cohen says. “So in one respect we didn’t approach it differently from any arena rock show. The difference is the stars were the orchestra and choir.” And, of course, the biggest star was the film. “A great deal of the lighting color palette was dictated by the colors in the film.”
Cohen and team used Martin Maxedia media servers, which gave them the freedom to take all the movies and cut them as needed.
“This was one of those projects that went from drawing table to real world with very few changes,” Cohen says. “I did a lot of preproduction. I got the right lighting company and video company, got the right equipment and had the right people. There was a lot of discovery as we laid this out, but I had a visual meeting two months before the opening, and it’s remarkable how close to that script the final turned out.”
Scenic designer and Parnelli winner Seth Jackson says that with Cohen wearing several hats, he was brought in to work on scripts and take the renderings into the shop and bring them to life. “One of the big hurdles was Steve had to leave during the middle of productions for a week to work on the upcoming Elton John and Billy Joel tours, leaving me to keep his vision cohesive and progressing,” he says. “He came back and tweaked things, but it all melded together well.”
There were a lot of details Jackson had to work out. Figuring out how the narrator would get on and off the stage, the best angle for the piano to sit, and so on, all on a 68-foot-wide by 48-foot-deep stage. “Steve pulled all the architectural elements and visual motifs found in Star Wars and made it part of the show,” Jacksons says. “The film was the artist, and we wanted ‘the star’ to be comfortable in the environment.”
Jackson adds that the Main Light Industries Soft-LED curtains were used to do some low-resolution images to complement the screen.
That Big Beautiful Video
“When we saw the screen, we all just went, ‘holy s***,’” Danny O’Bryen of Screenworks/NEP says of the 60-foot-wide by 27-foot-high Daktronics Mag-10 HD LED video display. “It’s interesting because the film portion has a soft aspect and when we go to camera and you see the hi-def close-up of the violins the clarity was such you could see the grains of the instrument.”
O’Bryen and Cohen worked with Daktronics to customize the display. “Star Wars was shot in three different ratios over the decade and then all remastered in HD,” O’Bryen explains. “When Steven Cohen and I discussed what screen to use, we looked to the one being used by AC/DC because it’s the lightest one out there. We got this one built for us specifically in under 10 weeks — a short time.”
Screenworks purchased 146 square meters of Daktronics modular PST-10 SMD panels for this event and built the screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
When meeting with Spencer Churchill, tour producer for San Francisco-based Another Planet Entertainment and Cohen, “I notated that the Star Wars film clips had a very high contrast, so you had to have a perfectly balanced screen,” O’Bryen says. “Daktronics had this process that allows you to dial it back to a true flat field.”
Haney says he was sitting with Jackson at the O2 arena in London working on another show discussing who they would like to work with late last year. Cohen’s name came up (Haney had worked with Cohen on two Britney Spears tours) and the two sent Steve a wacky email. Cohen responded in kind. “That little emailed ended up being the catalyst for us both to be involved in the Star Wars project,” Haney laughs.
As video director and content manager, Haney’s first challenge was figuring out how to keep the live orchestra and choirs in sync with the video. Two separate playback systems were employed using Doremi hard drive machines — one source feeding the Daktronics screen and another standard definition playback source that streamed elements to the conductor lectern. The lectern video mimicked the main screen elements, but with visual cues that moved across the screen which enabled the conductor to start and stop the music, change pacing and/or time and tell him where the downbeats of the music were. This was achieved with triple redundancy with the Doremi V1-UHD for the main screen elements and V1x2s for the lectern.
Working out the video playback system was another challenge. “I made the choice early on to go with a Doremi hard drive, and that wasn’t an easy process. But I wanted to create a place where everybody, including orchestra members and even crew, could look at time code and know exactly where we were” in the show. “I created the different video pieces so that each segment started on the hour,” so if one segment ended at 1:04, the next one started at 2:00, and so forth. “When you’re multitasking and dealing with a complex show, simplicity is a must.”
While he could have gotten higher-quality video in the HD format, he felt most comfortable with 4:2:2 compression at 59.94 1080i. “I had to decide what playback was going to be the most effective in an everyday situation. You can build a computer system with loads of drives and use wonderful non-linear technology that’s available these days for a lot cheaper, but I wanted a broadcast piece of gear. There are formats with better resolution, but not by much.” He adds that it was important for him to be in one format through the signal chain.
“There were two big linchpins from my perspective that were key to pulling this concept off in a live show environment,” Haney continues. One was just acquiring the mind blowing HD Daktronics screen, which he credits to O’Bryen (with special kudos to LED engineer Wally Crum for making work so brilliantly).
The other linchpin was conductor Brosse, who worked closely with Haney. “Dirk made it easy for the rest of us who aren’t classically trained musicians. Dirk also had to develop an understanding” of the visual aspect, Haney notes. “I had to learn a bit about his world, he had to learn a bit about mine.” Haney adds that the entire rock and roll production staff worked closely with Brosse. “We’re all these big personalities from the live music production business,” he says. “To get along with us and adapt was impressive.”
The Inner Child
“Everything was challenging,” says O’Bryen. “The film editor did an amazing job taking six full movie episodes and turning into 16 chapters. Doing a show that’s never been done before with a live orchestra and great content, plus all the extras and this large screen — it’s just a really great show that will do really well.” Along those lines he says he has “no concerns” about taking the screen on the road. “It’s a good product, and they packaged it so it stays in pristine condition.”
“The thing that made it so great is that we did some long hours, but everyone was just so happy to be part of it,” says Jackson. “We all felt like 10-year-olds, and our childhood merged with our professional life. Sometimes I’d get lost in the show and have to go, ‘Oh wait, a cue is coming.’ It’s a series of movies that you always wanted to be part of. It was very cool.”
Cohen reports he was surprised when George Lucas himself showed up Saturday night and sat right in front of him. “I didn’t expect to see him, but he was in London.” Lucas gave the production a rave review, telling Cohen that his team had reinvented the series in ways he hadn’t thought of.
“It was like your dad approving — and I think I’m still reeling from that moment.
Star Wars: A Musical Journey
Crew
Produced by: Gregg W. Perloff, Spencer Churchill, Steve Welkom
Directed by: Steven Cohen
Lighting/Production Designer: Steven Cohen
Associate Production Designer/Asst. Director: Seth Jackson
Associate Lighting Designer: Bryan Barancik
Maxedia Programmer: Curtis Cox
Video Editor: Jeremy Stuart
Tour Director/Production Supervisor: Patrick Stansfield
Production Manager: Michael Weiss
Video Director: Mark Haney
Lead LED Engineer: Wally Crum
Head Rigger: Michael Farese
Upstaging Crew Chief: Daric Bassan
NegEarth Account Rep (UK): Dave Ridgeway
NegEarth Crew Chief (UK): Jonathan Sellers
Stage Manager: Jeff Wendt
Gear
1 26.5’ high x 59’ wide Daktronics Mag-10 HD LED screen
20 Panels of Main Light Industries Soft LED 4x4s
2 Martin Maxxyz Consoles
1 Martin Maxedia Media Server
38 Martin MAC 2000 Performance fixtures
42 Coemar Infinity Wash XLs
16 Vari*Lite VL3500 EFX Wash fixtures
9 Vari*Lite VL3500 Profiles
24 Martin MAC IIIs
12 Robe 2500 AT Spots
6 Zap Technology Little BigLites
9 Elation Impressions
8 i-Pix BB7 LEDs
50 Upstaging Custom Bluelites
4 Sony HRC1500 HD cameras
1 Canon 72×9 HD camera lens
3 Canon 18×1 HD camera lens
1 Studio kit
3 Camera control units
2 Jimmy Jibs
1 Sachtler V-30 head & sticks
3 Sony EVI HDI POV HD camera remote hothead with zoom, focus and iris control for conductor
1 Ross Synergy 2.5 MRX HD switcher
1 Sync generator with bars
2 Sony 17” LCD color monitors for program/preview
12 Sony 8” color monitors
1 Quad B/W for playback
1 Ross Synergy video DA tray
4 EQ cards
1 1740 Waveform/vectorscope
1 Sony 14” hi-res color monitor
2 Sony quad 4” B&W monitors
1 Sierra 32×32 router
2 Doremi V1 hi def dual hard drives
1 Sony quad 4” B&W monitor
32 8’ Swingwing Intelligent Truss sections
492’ 20.5” x 20.5” truss
