Well beyond his boy band days in ‘N Sync, actor/singer/dancer Justin Timberlake has emerged as one of the most versatile stars of his generation. Following a nearly six-year hiatus from music to focus on his acting career, Timberlake was back in the studio and on stage in a big way in 2013 with two album releases and two high-profile tours.
Following the release of The 20/20 Experience and The 20/20 Experience — 2 of 2, Timberlake hit the road on a “Legends of the Summer” stadium tour, a co-headlining series of concerts with Jay-Z, before embarking on the 20/20 Experience World Tour, which began just two months after the summer tour ended. With arena dates planned up until summer, and likely longer, the 20/20 Experience could emerge as one of 2014’s top tours, traveling across North America, Europe, Russia, Australia, South America and Southeast Asia.
Timberlake’s creative producer and lighting designer, Nick Whitehouse, head of Illuminate Entertainment, has been planning and working on the tour together with Timberlake since last January, and he was eager to get the tour rolling. “I’m really excited,” he said, following the tour’s first date at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Nov. 6. “It feels good to have created and finally launched the project after almost a year of hard work.”
Whitehouse worked with Timberlake on the pop artist’s last tour back in 2005-2007, just before the singer/actor took his break from music. Starting up with him again, Whitehouse says Timberlake didn’t want to return to music until he could create something that bettered his last album and tour. With “The 20/20 Experience” one of the best-selling records of 2013 and tour dates selling out regularly, he may just be living up to that lofty goal.
20/20 Vision
Because of the nature of what Timberlake was trying to achieve with the 20/20 project, the visual aspect of the show took on even greater importance, says Whitehouse. “Justin is very involved. He’s very creative and is his own creative director. From the start of the project, we were very conscious that everything you see up on stage works together — the lighting design, the set, the video, the lasers, etc. Everything is meant to function as one, and it took a lot of time and effort to coordinate.”
That attention to detail is characteristic of a professional performer who knows what he wants, and it requires just-as-talented professionals on the design side to help make it happen. “He comes up with the concept, and I go out and make it work,” Whitehouse explains. “He wanted to take the kind of EDM trend of projection 3D mapping and use it in an arena pop show, which no one’s really done before. People have done large scale projection on big surfaces but no one’s really tried to map it and really play with the shape.”
Together with set designer Josh Zangen and video content company Geodezik, Whitehouse and Timberlake worked on a tourable concept that tied the whole visual look together.
Set as Art
The outcome is a visual treat akin to a large art installation. The set’s main element is a 150 by 60 foot (WxH) plastic hexagon wall and overhead hexagon ceiling made up of both solid and wire-mesh hexagons. The wall and ceiling act as a giant projection surface for video content, which comes from 26 Barco 20K and 7 Barco 26K projectors working with Photon media servers.
“When you walk into the arena, it looks like an art piece rather than a stage set,” Whitehouse says, of the back wall and ceiling. “It worked out great — better than we thought. We did a lot of experimenting with shapes and testing of the material that we could put lights through and behind, from fabric to privacy glass, and came back to a basic metal grill that we project onto.”
Content onto the wall and ceiling is a mixture of 3D mapping effects and video through to live effects done with a motion tracking system. The hexagon structure makes for an untraditional surface for I-Mag from 10 cameras, with live imagery from the stage enhanced with different effects.
“The projection is incredibly bright, and we managed to do some really cool tricks,” Whitehouse says. “The cool thing is, we obviously have such a large canvas that we can play back un-compressed video at over 8K resolution. Plus, the projection system is intelligent, and on load-in will auto-align and blend itself as well. It uses a series of infrared cameras and emitters in our screen so you basically turn the projectors on and say ‘go,’ and all 33 projectors line up and blend in around four minutes. It saves us hours.”
The Justin Dance Club
Timberlake likes to connect with his audience no matter where they are in the arena, which prompted a B-Stage bar area with VIP cocktail tables at FOH known as The 901 Tequila Lounge or Justin Dance Club. Timberlake performs a few numbers here, but it is how he gets there that is one of the highlights of the show.
“Justin wanted a way to get to the B-Stage that had never been done before, so we came up with a bridge that floats from the main stage to the B-Stage,” Whitehouse explains. “The downstage eight feet of the main stage is clear acrylic and lifts up and floats over the crowd and down the aisles, where it is met by a staircase that elevates from the B-Stage. Justin and four backing singers basically surf on this 130-foot-wide piece of stage, and the trip takes about three to four minutes. The back of the room effectively becomes the front of the room, and he spends 20 minutes of the show there before he floats back to the main stage. The crowd loves it and, I think, appreciates it as well.”
Tait developed the multifaceted set, including the automated bridge. The bridge is automated by two pontoons that sit 24 meters apart and run down the aisles on each side of the venue floor. The bridge is controlled by Tait’s Navigator Control System and uses two rotary lasers to scan the room and maintain its position and speed.
The main stage has another trick up its sleeve, one that allows for fast and flexible set changes. “Another thing we can do is drop the entire band down beneath the stage deck with lids on so it can quickly become an empty stage with just Justin,” Whitehouse explains. Eight lifts are incorporated into the stage — there are six slip stages to reveal and conceal the 15-piece band from view and two additional lifts to provide entrances for the artist and his pianos. “The lids are all gloss black, so it reflects the ceiling and the wall really well. It really looks classy.”
Balanced Show
The lighting rig is hidden behind the wire mesh hexagons so that lighting can shine through when needed, or the fixtures can disappear when not on. “There are a lot of lighting fixtures hidden behind there, and it allows us to go from very minimalist, simple video with clean lines to big lighting looks,” Whitehouse says. “There are moments in the show where it’s just Justin and a followspot, and moments where there are 400 lights blazing.” The show consists of two full-length sets separated by an intermission, in what Whitehouse calls a balanced show. The first half is more visual-based with content, while the second half turns into a party and is much more lighting heavy.
The rig is made up of Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots (which Whitehouse says are still his favorites), A 1500W version of Vari*Lite VL3015 Spots are located in the ceiling behind the grill and used as main key light on the band and Timberlake. In the ceiling, for what Whitehouse calls an old-school ACL look, are Clay Paky Sharpys and Sharpy Wash 330s, in groups of four. Lining the rig is an abundance of Solaris LED Flares used as washes and blinders, while above the B-Stage sit 12 VL3500 Washes. Floor-based lighting is limited due to the amount of automation. It is also hidden from view.
In another example of crowd-pleasing innovation, Whitehouse incorporates a new technology laser that allows him to legally and safely scan the audience. “Whereas before you’d have to use diffraction grating and lenses that change the laser so they aren’t as precise, this new technology keeps the beam precise but makes it safe to look at. It looks incredible. It’s one of those moments where you look into the crowd and everyone gasps.” Whitehouse has 16 of the new lasers scanning the audience along with six traditional Kvant 20-watt lasers shooting above the crowd.
All lighting is controlled via a grandMA2 console programmed by Whitehouse, with lighting director Jason Gangi operating the show on tour. Because both Whitehouse and Timberlake are very particular about hitting cues exactly throughout the nearly three-hour show, much of the lighting and video is SMPTE time-coded. “His music has so many musical hits in it and is so intricate and synced that we wanted to hit those beats with the choreography and lighting just at the right moment,” Whitehouse says, “which means we ended up with nearly 12,000 lighting cues.”
A Solotech Assist
Montreal-based lighting, sound and video solutions company Solotech is the equipment vendor for the tour. “Every time I’ve used them I’ve had really good success,” Whitehouse says. “You can go to them with a concept or a custom request, and they’ll make it work, because it’s the right thing to do for the show. They’ve been great, the gear is well prepped and the crew really hard-working.”
» Crew
Creative Director: Justin Timberlake
Assistant Directors: Marty Kudelka, AJ Harpold
Creative Producer/LD: Nick Whitehouse
Set Designer: Josh Zangen
Lighting Director: Jason Gangi
Video Design Co: Geodezik
Video Designer: Gabriel Contu-Dumont, Olivier Goulet
Production Mgr: Robert “Hydro” Mullin
Lighting Co: Solotech
Solotech Rep: Richard LaChance
Solotech Project Mgr: Antoine Malette
Laser System Design: Emiliano Palumbo
Lighting Crew Chief: John Flynn
Lighting Techs: Tom James, Ben Timms, Nathan Ellius, Marc-Aurele “Moogly” Menard, Athan Anthoniadis
Dimmers: Dave Evens
FOH/Media Server Tech/Operator: Alex Barrette
Video Director: David Boisvert
» Gear
2 grandMA2 full console w/5 NPUs; onPC, 3D software
104 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330s
75 Solaris Flares
74 Clay Paky Sharpys
60 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
32 Vari*Lite VL3015 Spots
12 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash fixtures
6 MDG “The One” haze/smoke units
300’ RGB LEDflex
1 Solotech custom distro/networking system
1 Solotech laser control network
16 Pico 11W laser projectors
6 Kvant 25W laser projectors
26 Barco 20K projectors
7 Barco 26K projectors
17 Photon show display servers
1 10 camera HD I-Mag package
1 CCTV/Comm system
