LONDON — Avolites Media’s Arran Rothwell-Eyre and Robbie Barr used Avolites Media’s Ai Infinity EX8 server to keep an energized Brixton Academy crowd pumped up for a show featuring rapper Childish Gambino, a.k.a. Donald Glover. The visuals appeared on a 3,000-by-1,000 pixel backdrop at the venue. XL Video provided gear for the U.K. show; LMG is supporting the rapper’s U.S. fall tour.
More details from Avolites Media (www.avolitesmedia.com):
A packed Brixton Academy roared to the visuals of US rapper Childish Gambino’s energetic show as Avolites Media’s Ai Infinity EX8 server pumped out a dynamic and interactive graphic display.
Avolites Media’s Arran Rothwell-Eyre and Robbie Barr, in control of Playback, who toured extensively with Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) in the US in early 2014, manned the Ai kit, which was serving out video files to a 3,000 x 1,000 pixel backdrop at Brixton.
“For this show, we’re running a lot of video files which are projected onto the backdrop, which is higher than HD, and the visuals have to be spot on in collaboration with the music,” says Arran. “The Ai Infinity EX8 has been incredible on the Childish Gambino tour – we’re operating it as you might operate an audio sampler, so we have different pieces of media on the Ai server, and we assign them different pieces of timecode, which means that when a certain time is reached on the timeline, that piece of media is triggered. Robbie is using Ableton to control playback of audio and MIDI control aspects of the show on Ai and for him, it was as easy as controlling any audio device from Ableton.”
All kit for the American leg of the tour was supplied by LMG, with XL Video supplying the London show with equipment including 4 x Barco HD20 projectors and a fiber network to supply the digital signal from the racks to the projectors.
The visuals are luxurious and intricate, ranging from the mansion living room scene – complete with clouds floating by outside the windows – to a forest scene with burning fire. The incidental graphics are when Ai really begins to shine, taking us on a journey through what looks like the inside of a computer, perhaps inside the Internet. All of it is beat perfect.
Chad Taylor, from Childish Gambino’s Mick Management in New York, comments: “When I watch the show it’s like I see something new each time – it unfolds in front of you. The reaction has been great; everyone is surprised at what we’ve achieved.”
Childish Gambino takes the Deep Web Tour back to the US for a handful of dates this autumn.
