Below this - upstage of the band - is a 4-screen RADLite video effects generation system. Several layers of lighting are sandwiched in between the two video systems, giving depth to Coldplay's overall visuals. Siyan commissioned the projection screen from XL Video. The semi-circular idea was initiated by Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin, who approached Leitch and production manager Derek Fudge, wanting a semi-circular thrust stage.
Coldplay's video director is Nick Whitehouse, who is running Siyan's 4-way RADLite system live from an Avolites Sapphire lighting console at FOH. This separate system is fed by four small black and white remote, discreet, miniature cameras, strategically located around the band. Bryan Leitch runs the lighting from another Avo Sapphire console. XL Video is hiring four Barco SLM G5 projectors to the tour. These are flown on the rear (upstage) half of the circular truss, which also hangs the screen on the front half. They cross and rear-project from 30 ft, producing four 12 x 9 images, side by side.
The Barcos are fed from three mini-cameras onstage, and one operated Sony D35 camera, located in the pit. The separate images are slightly overlapped in the line up, and often appear to be one seamless, elongated image. The XL system is switched, via a matrix, to a specially commissioned 4 channel fade-to-black unit, complete with Dataton (instead of having to tour four vision mixers). All the material appearing onscreen from this system is decided on in advance by Whitehouse, and executed cue-by-cue during the show by XL's Video engineer and projectionist Alan Yates.
(Lee Baldock)
