Orwellian Influence Leads to Ministry Video Towers
Oli Metcalfe is one of the new generation of lighting designers who is completely comfortable with developing video content to complement the lighting design.
He cut his video teeth on a small tour working with a then-new technology called a Catalyst media server. This experience led him to bigger and better things, including the production design responsibilities for Muse. The band is currently touring in support of their latest album, The Resistance, with an Orwellian-inspired theme, in which his video design and the set design of Es Devlin are as important as his lighting design.
Symbiosis in Design
Metcalfe has worked with Muse for about 10 years, and his design process reflects his connection with the band.
"We have constant communication on how the show will be conceived," he says. "The designs are born from an initial meeting with the band, listening to the band's new material and deciding the concept and theme for the show."
Devlin respects the long standing relationships and contributes in her own unique way. "Oli, Tom Kirk and Chris Vaughan have been collaborating with Matt, Dom and Chris (Muse) for many years and have developed a shared language," she says, "so I did my best to integrate my train of thought with theirs as symbiotically as possible."
Metcalfe then works on the ideas that come out of the meetings, puts together "sketches and storyboards" illustrating the big key moments in the show and ideas for the direction of the video content.
"The design will evolve over the course of about six weeks as we cost the production and shape it into a practical and financially viable touring show. The Resistance show needed a couple of laps around the table to bring the budgets into line (because) some of the design elements – namely the towers and lifts – became quite costly."
Ministry of Portability
The towers and lifts to which Metcalfe is referring ultimately came together as three unique set pieces that double as LED canvases. But it took a circuitous route to get there.
"The first design concept placed the band all together inside one large ministry, which then segmented to place the group inside their own structures," Metcalfe reveals. "After several versions in the design, we ended up with the three columns."
"Muse, Oli, Tom and I began work on the idea of a portable ministry in response to the central themes of The Resistance album in the context of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Devlin says. "My role was to conceive the building and model it in collaboration with them all. I followed the same process as I have been developing recently for concert tours, starting with references – hours of Googling – then onto sketches, and scale models, and then I hand it over to the CAD experts.
"My first version was very literally based on the Senate House building in London which was Orwell's reference for the Ministries in 1984. We moved on from this version to something more futuristic. I put together a range of reference buildings, Muse selected a few, and from there I put together a range of designs. Once they had honed in on the preferred version I created a 1:100 scale model and our CAD genius Malcolm Birkett took it from there."
Surround Video
"From the early stages, it was always my plan to have video on all sides of the towers with the band and performers within," Metcalfe adds. "This show concept works very well for the 360° audience too. The lifts became key in the design in order to keep viewing angles as good as they can be."
The video on the towers is made up of LED panels from PixLED on the top and Barco Element Labs on the bottom. The band members are revealed in between the top and bottom in an interesting way. (We won't give it away, but if you're curious, you might be able to find it on YouTube.) The towers were fabricated by Brilliant Stages.
"The modular way in which we are able to incorporate the (PixLED) F-LED drove the way in which we designed the tower construction and the stairways within," Metcalfe says.
In turn, the video on the outside of the towers drove much of the production design. Metcalfe has been designing video content since he first used a Catalyst media server in software version 1. Video director Tom Kirk has been collaborating with Metcalfe on the content creation for the last six years.
"It's Tom and I who create the content, along with a small team of animators and compositors, who deliver it under our direction," Metcalfe says. "I'm using four Catalysts on this show, with three servers dealing with the towers and elevators, the fourth managing the outputs to I-Mag and LED fixtures. The Catalysts are mapping the content to the structures using several mix outputs for each face of the towers, allowing content and I-Mag to be programmed effortlessly to the faces and geometry given to us by the structure."
Soft Landing
Much of Metcalfe's design work begins with blocking and programming in his studio prior to rehearsals so that his programming workload is lightened even before they get to pre-production. He says it begins in the early stages when he develops presentations to circulate to the band and management.
"These days," he says, "good software and forward thinking make for a softer landing when you get into setting up the tour, when you finally get your hands on the real system. The hardest programming snags I encountered were with the video programming and the mapping of our content to the surfaces. The trim of the main circular lighting truss makes some of the focuses quite difficult, but all in all it's a simple lighting setup on a daily basis."
For lighting, Metcalfe specified Barco High End Systems Showguns and Showbeams because "I wanted a punch light with more than just color mixing and a shutter." He also specified three custom gobos in the Showguns.
"The LED ring serves as a great asset to the fixture when used in the right way and has presence on camera too," he added. "The Showgun, with its gobos, iris and frost flags, make for some really nice beam effects.
"The Showbeams have a nice split beam that is very flexible, and I use it a fair bit. This is a very powerful light source. Because of its color temperature it's so much brighter on camera than even a BigLite or Syncrolite. The fact that there is no external ballast for the lamp makes it more practical, especially with a good number of fixtures."
Devlin and Metcalfe have worked together on several productions, the first being a tour with Mika.
"I enjoy working with Es as she often has some very interesting architectural ideas," Metcalfe says. "On this production, I worked with her to carry through the main design process for the ministry theme for the show. She was a great source of inspiration and was creative in adding her dimension to this from the early discussions with the band."
Lighting/Show Designer/Director/Programmer:
Oli Metcalfe
Set Designer: Es Devlin
Video Director: Tom Kirk
Lasers: Marc Webber
Lighting Crew Chief: Jonathan Sellers
Lighting Supplier: Neg Earth
Staging Company: Brilliant Stages
Video Suppliers: XL Video (LED displays and cameras);
Barco/Element Labs (video elements for bottom tower);
PixLED – (video elements for top tower)
Laser Supplier: ER Productions
Lighting Gear:
16 High End Systems Showgun 2.5s
16 High End Systems Showbeam 2.5s
35 Martin MAC 301s
22 Martin Atomic 3K Strobes
18 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots
17 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
Muse's New Stadium Set Designed with Forced Perspective
Brilliant Stages' new stage set for the stadium venues on Muse's The Resistance world tour, based on the design concepts of Oli Metcalfe and Es Devin, consists of a 62-meter-long video header, a suspended ceiling grid, a diamond-shaped stage flanked by projection screens, drum riser fascias and on- and off-stage rear fascias, a tracking B stage with inset revolving scissor lift and tech bunkers and screamers.
The dominant feature is the video header, which appears as a forced perspective ranging from 13.25 meters in height downstage to 4.5 meters in height upstage. Brilliant Stages' CAD team, managed by Kevin Edwards, devised the logistics to transform the design into reality.
"With an overall height of 25 meters from ground level, wind was one of the major considerations," said Brilliant Stages' Tony Bowern. "We produced numerous structural calculations to ensure the video header could withstand wind speeds of up to 20 meters per second (45 mph) and came up with a combination of steel verticals to take the wind load and aluminum fascias to minimize the static load."
The video header is composed of a double layer of 3-meter-wide panels – a random mix of 51 LED video panels behind rear projection screens and 49 projection surface panels of gray PVC. This gave lighting & video designer Oli Metcalfe the maximum number of variables on which to project 3D video effects, back-projected LED mapping and standard front lighting."
The vertical guides are secured to steel upper and lower header trusses provided by Stageco of Belgium "We worked in conjunction with Koen Peters and Dirk de Decker of Stageco, who provided all the trussing sub-structure for the set," said Bowern.
Brilliant Stages also worked closely with XL Video to accommodate the integration of the video requirements, incorporating video panel attachment points into the design before sending the completed structure to XL Video. XL Video then added the Barco MiTrix LED video tiles.
The whole video header packs into trucking carts and is deployed with each panel rising out of the touring cart on chain hoists and secured to its adjacent panel. In this way the whole structure can be assembled from ground level in a fast and efficient way.
The ceiling grid beneath the video header was constructed by Brilliant Stages' sister company, LITEC, from supplied plans. This consists of 64 ladder truss cells manufactured using LITEC' s custom Libra System.
The cells are clad with stretch vinyl, and each cell houses a Martin MAC 301 Wash moving head within the recess. (All lighting for the tour was supplied and coordinated by Dave Ridgeway of Neg Earth.)
Brilliant Stages manufactured the diamond shaped stage using their own custom decking system and gave it a non-slip surface for outdoor use. Artwork to the stage was then applied in a silver-gray geometric diamond pattern.
The stage design was developed around the sub-stage requirements, giving clear passages for the "underworld" activity, and supported on aluminum rolling frames interconnected by Brilliant Stages' Hook and Channel system.
A B-stage was created using a trucking system designed to simultaneously track, revolve and extend a hydraulic scissor lift carrying the band into the audience.
Finally, tech bunkers with viewing louvers for the crew, screamers and all access platforms were also provided by the Brilliant Stages team.
Malcolm Birkett is credited with technical realization, and Chris Vaughan of The Production Office gets production credits for the stadium set. The Muse Resistance Tour is due to continue across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia until the end of 2010.
