crystal - lighting & sound america · 2018. 8. 31. · crystal formation,” stinebrink...

52 • September 2018 • Lighting&Sound America

CONCERTS

Dave Matthews Band’s design team experiments with projection mapping and unusual shapes By: Sharon Stancavage

CrystalClear

Copyright Lighting&Sound America September 2018 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

or this summer’s Dave Matthews Band tour, produc-tion and co-lighting designer Fenton Williams con-sulted with both Matthews and Aaron Stinebrink,who shares the job of lighting design. This time out,Williams says, “I really wanted to get into the realmof projection mapping.” Stinebrink adds, “It’s out ofour comfort zone in terms of the set piece, projec-tion mapping, and trying to make the set be an

overarching structure for the audience. This is somethingthat the band hasn’t done in the past.” Projection mapping on this tour is done on a 25'-tall-

by-40'-wide custom surround fabricated by Torrance,California-based All Access Staging and Productions, Inc.,the band’s longtime scenic vendor. The shape of the pro-jection surface, Williams says, is “based on the rock for-mation of geodes; I drew a 3D shape that I thought wouldbe fun to play with.” The surface is flat, although it doesn’tappear to be. “Basically, we’re trying to invert the look of acrystal formation,” Stinebrink explains.Describing the layout, Stinebrink says, “All Access built

a custom truss skeleton; each crystal is applied separatelyto it. Each has its own aluminum frame.” Erik Eastland,president of All Access, adds, “Making the screen sur-round [with its unusual shape] manageable on a dailybasis was a challenge—if you don’t engineer it right, they’llall hate you on a daily basis—but we worked it out.” The surface, Eastland adds, “is a white, heavy-knit-type

material. You don’t always need a high-quality, high-gainscreen; you have to consider the daily abuse, fingerprints,and reflections. With this in mind, we used somethingthat’s not a screen material, but which checked all the

Opposite: The crystal-formation scenic surround with the ROEVisual MC-7H video screen in the center. Above: The 12 mid-stage pods are filled with SGM Q7s.

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • September 2018 • 53

Photos: Todd Kaplan

F


boxes and looks great.” Projectionist/media server techBrett Gardner, of Chicago-based RGB Lights, adds, “Alight-blocking layer of opaque black fabric is applied onthe backside, so we don’t get bleed from lighting on thebackside and video wall.” In addition, Stinebrink says, “The structure has to with-

stand 40-mile-per-hour winds. One reason we wantedsuch a high strength is that that’s the cutoff point atamphitheaters; once you hit that wind speed, the show isshut down.”He adds, “We’ve used All Access and Erik Eastland for

years and, by far, they are the most professional peopleI’ve come across in terms of taking a designer’s vision andmaking it a reality. I fancy myself a drafter, but the engi-neering work they do is really impressive to see.”In addition to the eye-catching projection surface,

Williams says, “Aaron brought up the point that as thesummer goes on, it would be light at the beginning of theshow, so it might be nice to have an LED element. Thatbrought me back to a conversation that Bruce [Rodgers,

the noted production designer] and I had about mixing ele-ments, and I thought it could be fun to mix LED with pro-jection mapping.” Consequently, there is a 7.2m-wide-by-4.8m-tall, 7.5mm ROE Visual MC-7H LED screen that fitsinside of the geode-shaped projection screen; it’s providedby Charlottesville, Virginia-based Filament Productions.Creating projections for an amphitheater tour is, at best,

challenging, starting with the issue of ambient light. “Wefight it every day, whether it’s the sun or worklightonstage,” Gardner says. “We’re projecting on a materialwith a decent amount of gain, but it up a lot of ambientlight. It’s probably not the ideal material, but it is certain-ly better in terms of traveling well and breaking down.” Projections are delivered using four double-stacked

Barco UDX-4K32 laser units. “Our truss is suspended fromthe downstage lighting truss, which gives the riggers fewerpoints to hang and generally less stuff to bring out on adaily basis,” Gardner says. “This comes with ups anddowns, but we basically sub-hang our truss so wecan lower it independently for service and not be rushed to

The combination of the center LED wall and scenic surround form the production’s nexus.

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fly to trim. We hang after the lighting is up, and we get itdown before they need to bring their stuff down. Thebiggest trade-offs are that we’re more susceptible to wind,being lower and lighter-weight; we are also more prone toimpeding sightlines below the downstage truss.”

The images are overlaid for brightness, Gardner adds:“Our shows can start when the sun hasn’t fully gone down,and sometimes, when we use projection, we are fightingthe daylight. We’re also playing in conjunction with a videowall, so we bring its intensity down—not a ton, but enoughto where we get a good level balance between the two sur-faces. It’s a bright stage, and there’s a ton of moving lighthorsepower in that rig, so you’re constantly competing withbright light. Because of the horsepower in the projectionrig, it competes well in terms of the ambient light level.” Also, Gardner says, “If we think it’s going to be too

windy, we’ll have to ground-support the projectors near thefront of house. Typically, things die down during the show,but we don’t have any way of controlling that.”Shape, a feature of the Green Hippo Karst+ media serv-

er used for content control, is one of Gardner’s primarytools for mapping: “When applying projectors to a complexsurface such as this one, or a sphere, or any oddball sur-face, you use Shape to place your projectors in 3D spaceand relationally map them and blend them to create largerimages. With the masking feature, you can draw shapeswhere you don’t want to see content, so we can basicallyshutter off the overspill. If our physical surround was dam-aged and we needed to modify the object we were workingon, we would do that within Shape, and the projectionwould morph to whatever changes we made.“Quince Imaging [based in Sterling, Virginia] worked with

us on the initial 3D mapping setup,” Gardner says. “They sentMatt Hayes, one of their programmers, to the first coupleweeks of rehearsals in Charlottesville. They were instrumentalin helping us get set up and comfortable with the process.They created the initial Shape files and a bunch of test pat-terns; some might work better on days when you can see, orwhen you can’t see, or for different phases of the setup.Some have big, blocky colors for each crystal in the sur-


The floor package includes Robe MegaPointes and High End Systems SHAPESHIFTER C1s.

round; each has a different solid color, or we’ll do solid coloroutlines. The goal is to make sure that the content lines upwith the shape and the outlines within the content line upwith the edges of the crystals; it needs to be spot-on.”The Barco projectors also play a role in alignment, he

adds: “We were lucky enough to get the new release ofBarco’s Projector Toolset [software], which allows you tochange the warp color lines, and that’s been really helpful.Without it, projection mapping would be a lot harder.”IMAG is provided via a manned and robotic camera pack-age—including a Ross Carbonite switcher—from FilamentProductions. Content is provided by Aaron Farrington, ofTo the End of the World Pictures.

LightingThe lighting rig, supplied by Omaha-based TMS, features12 midstage lighting pods, fabricated by All Access, thatextend the look of the crystal formation. “The pods arelightboxes with SGM Q-7s illuminating them from theinside,” Stinebrink says. “On the bottom, we have GLPJDC1s [hybrid strobes] and Robe Spikies [small, fast LED

wash-beams] hanging off each piece.” Eastland adds,“The lighting pods came out really well; we came up with away to fly them in, drop them into a cart, and disconnectthem. The lighting guys don’t need to do much at all.”The Q-7s are ideal for the 6'-tall-by-5.5'-wide pods.

“They worked out really well because the pods are prettycontained spaces, so we used as much beam angle aspossible,” Stinebrink says. “We shoot each one from thebase of the pod up to its ceiling, which is, probably, 6" or7" away, and it reflects back into the entire lightbox.” Stinebrink also notes that the rig features several Robe

products. In addition to the previously mentioned Spikies,these include eight BMFL Spots and 14 BMFLWashBeams. “When not being used as wash fixtures, wecan add gobos to the WashBeams, and those have been alot of fun too,” Williams says.Also featured are 40 Robe MegaPointes, about which

Stinebrink says, “They’re really versatile, with a fantasticset of gobos and animation wheels that I like. TheMegaPointe has an animation wheel, it has CMY colormixing rather than a color wheel and has a little bit more

Williams mixes and matches looks on stage in terms of projection, content, and IMAG.


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punch than the [Robe] Pointe.” Many of the MegaPointesare placed on the deck, upstage of the band, along witheight High End Systems SHAPESHIFTER C1s, the latterplaced on road cases.The rig also includes 30 Elation Professional Chorus

Line 16s, which light the backdrop. Stinebrink explains:“It’s similar to a GLP [impression] X Bar 20, but a littlebrighter and with a zoom that is a little bit tighter. They’relocated on the floor, just downstage of the backdrop, andon the backdrop truss. Because they tilt, we can shootthem back at the band, into and over the audience; wecan use them as dynamic lights as well. It’s our first timewith them and we’ve enjoyed having them.” Also usedonstage are an additional 26 GLP JDC1s, eight Martin byHarman MAC Viper Wash DXs, and four Martin MACQuantum Washes. Atmosphere is provided by two MDGATMe and two MDG Atmosphere APS haze generators. The production also uses the Follow-Me remote fol-

lowspot control system, distributed in North America byAC Lighting. “This is our first time with it and I like it,”Stinebrink says. “It’s a dynamic system that you can usewith any fixture. We are still using local operators, but noone has to go up in a catwalk or climb a rope ladder any-more, which is pretty nice.”Lighting is controlled by an MA Lighting grandMA2 con-

sole. “We have a bunch of songs preprogrammed,”Williams says, “probably have more than 110. So far, theyhave played six or seven—maybe even ten—songs thatwe don’t have anything programmed for; I’ll find some-thing that works for them. They’ll probably play 150 songson the tour this summer, and 30-plus of those won’t havebeen programmed. It keeps you on your toes. I think itwould be monotonous if we had the same set list in thesame order every night.”To deal with the changing set list, Williams has the pro-

duction sectioned off into six mix-and-match phases.“Initially,” he says, “we start the show with just lighting.Around the fifth or sixth song, we’ll drop the Kabuki [pro-vided by Rancho Dominguez, California-based SewWhat?] to reveal the video elements and soft goodsbeyond the video wall. As we progress, there are six phas-es, but not necessarily every night in order, not one to six.They’re six different configurations of how my console willbe set up, and which elements it allows me to play with inthat given phase of the show.” Each phase mixes lighting,projection, and the LED wall, as well as color, content, andIMAG. “The first show of the tour, I did the phases straightin order and that was intentional,” Williams says. “On thesecond show, I mixed it up a bit, to figure out what worksthe best.” He found that it was best to use IMAG, lighting,LED, content, and projection combinations in randomorder; some songs have IMAG in the center, some haveprojection in only certain areas, some are just lighting andso on. “It works best to mix and match. Ten songs go by,

and then you go back to a phase that you’ve used, and it’sfresh again. We can also change textures and colors andcontent to make it feel different.”

SoundThe tour’s sound-reinforcement system features a MeyerSound LEO PA provided by Martinez, California-basedUltraSound. Tom Lyon, audio system engineer, says, “Wedo main hangs at left and right and side hangs at left andright; each hang can do 16 Leos, which is a total of 64across the board. Most venues get the four-hang treat-ment. In narrower amphitheaters, I can’t hang a main and


Matthews and the band are using Sensaphonics in-ear monitors.

a side down, so we’re limited down to normal left/righthang.”Also employed is a sub-hang comprised of 16 Meyer

LFC-1100s. “They’re usually flown right behind the PA, sothere are no ground subs to blow out the front rows,” Lyonsays. “That means I can drive them nice and loud, havingan even SPL from front to back. In some places I can’t dothat, because they’re too heavy; if it’s a weight issue, I’lldrop the subs down and stack them beside the band.”To make sure the PA sounds great every night, Lyon

uses Rational Acoustics’ Smaart analyzer. “It is theacoustical analysis we’ve used for many years now,” hesays. “We tend to be a bit more in depth with it; a lot ofpeople will lay out mics during the day, do the systemalignment, and pull the mics in for the show. We actuallydeploy mics in the audience—that stay in the audience—so we can see the acoustical analysis live in the systemand how it performs in a full room, to make the system asconsistent as possible from night to night. A typicaldeployment involves mics placed around the mix positionitself, but we wire up mics in seats in the amphitheater, infront of people.”Lyon says he uses three measurement microphones

with Smaart: “It’s a mix of wired and wireless [B&K 4006sand iSEMcon EMX-7150s], depending on what makessense for the day; sometimes, when there’s not a cableroute, we’ll use wireless. They’re usually placed in front ofour right stack; we tend to put the mics out so that theyhave slightly different responses. They’re in opposingplaces in comparison to the other mics. Amphitheaters arebasically symmetrical, so anything that happens on theright should also happen on the left.”During the show, Lyon is alone at the front of house;

when possible, sound engineer Jeff Thomas mixes frombackstage. Lyon explains: “We came to the realization thatwhen the show is in a challenging acoustic environment—where it’s highly reverberant and loud and not a good-sounding room—when we were both out front, we’d chaseeach other’s tails. As a result, both of us would have badnights and the show would suffer. We thought if Jeff couldmix the band from backstage, or somewhere in a con-trolled room, he could focus on the sound of the band andsend me a really high-quality mix. Consequently, Thomasis mixing the band from backstage, while Lyon is handlingthe PA at the front of house. It’s worked out really well.” Headds, “The first time I ever experienced [this way of work-ing] was working a Faith Hill/Tim McGraw tour, whenBuford Jones was mixing Faith Hill.”While Lyon and Thomas focus on the PA, DMB’s long-

time monitor engineer Ian Kuhn has different concerns:“The room acoustic is one of the biggest battles in soundreinforcement for anybody, but many bands will do thesame set list every night—or a similar set list—and, atleast, will find some consistency that way. Our biggest

struggle is to find consistencybecause the dynamics of everyshow are vastly different nightto night. So far this year, we’vedone 36 shows, and the bandhas played over 86 differentsongs.”Fatigue is an issue as well,

he notes: “When we do threenights in a row in three differentvenues, that’s nine hours ofintense concert performance.One of our primary concerns ispreventing ear fatigue for theband, crew, and audience.”Also, Kuhn explains: “We

have a pretty elaborate intra-band crew communicationssystem. Each musician has apersonal microphone; each canhit a button and talk to every-body, or he can give a signal ifhe just wants to talk tome. Between songs, I automat-ically turn on Dave’s micro-phone; it’s a lavalier [ShureMX150B/C-TQG] that he wears;for Carter [Beauford], our drum-mer, we have a [Shure SM89]shotgun mic mounted betweenthe toms, pointed at his face.”The push-to-talk mics—ShureMX418D/S cardioids with 18"goosenecks—are located ontables behind the band. “We have, over time, massagedthis very specific system very well and the band loves it.”Kuhn controls the push-to-talk system via his monitor

console, an Avid S6L; it’s his first time out with it. “It’sadded a whole new layer of things I can do to automatethe system,” he says. “It’s a very automatable board and isfun to use. It sounds great, and with the automation it’sreally helpful.” It has one drawback, he notes: “I think itwas designed by twentysomethings, because everything isreally small and close together and, with my eyesightgoing the way it is, that makes it difficult. But they’ve builtit into a nice small form factor.”The automation feature is particularly helpful, Kuhn

says: “If Dave does a finger-picking part on his guitar, I justhit one button that boosts it 5dB really quickly. When hegoes back to strumming, I hit a button that restores it towhat it was. When I turn on the drummer’s vocal, the over-head mics automatically drop down by 10dB; when I turnhis vocal mic down, the overheads come back up.”Kuhn adds, “I wanted to use the stock plug-ins in the


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S6L; the only thing I couldn’t find was a proper dynamicequalizer built in, so I went with the McDSP AE600. It’s amultiband dynamic equalizer; they call it the Swiss armyknife of equalizers. I put it on the vocals and mix outputs.It’s very sweet-sounding, better than any I’ve used.” The band uses Shure PSM 1000 personal monitor sys-

tems, although, Kuhn says, “I think it’s about time forShure to do a digital system for monitors. With the RFcrunch we’re under—with the FCC selling the bands—everything has to go digital, eventually.” However, hewarns, “I fear the issues that will come with that. Latencycomes in anytime you do a conversion from analog to digi-tal and back again, so the fewest number of times you dothem, the better off you’re going to be.“The band wears Sensaphonics in-ears,” Kuhn contin-

ues. “Three of them use the 3D AARO, which has built-inmics that allow ambient sound to be heard by the musi-

cian at the desired level. If somebody walks up and talksto them, they can hear it out of their respective ears.”Matthews, Beauford, and bassist Stefan Lessard are onthe 3D AARO. “Everyone else is using the [Sensaphonics]2MAX [custom silicone] system, except for Tim [Reynolds],our guitar player, who doesn’t use in-ears; that’s typical fora lot of electric guitar players. He has a Meyer SoundMJF-212A wedge. Part of an electric guitar is the acousticrelationship between the musician’s ears, guitar, and amp;that triangle is the instrument, and Tim has always hadthat same relationship with his sound. I wouldn’t want tocome between him and his amp.”Kuhn says. “Dave is the most down-to-earth, real guy

that I know. Everybody really cares a lot, from the band ondown.” It’s a sentiment reflected by the rest of the team aswell. The Dave Matthews Band continues on the road inthe US through the second week of September.


Williams controls the content via the grandMA2 console, working with a Green Hippo Karst+ media server.

crystal - lighting & sound america · 2018. 8. 31. · crystal formation,” stinebrink...

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