Resistance is Futile for Colour Sound
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The 5mm Roe LED on the tour was part of a massive investment by the company - totalling over £1m in new LED screen earlier in the year.
This purchase added 230sq.mof LED to Colour Sound’s existing extensive screen stock which means they can offer a variety of pitches for all occasions, including 2.6, 6, 7 12, 20 and 30mm as well as the new 5mm.
The screen was specified onto the Manics tour by Toby Vogel who co-ordinates and manages all-things-video for the band on the road.
Says Toby, “I have known H (Colour Sound founder Haydn Cruickshank) for many years and we have worked together on Underworld for a long time, so I was aware he had made this recent screen investment and delighted when Colour Sound was selected as the tour’s video supplier.”
Toby also enjoyed working with Jo Beirne again, who has recently joined Colour Sound’s project management team, bringing serious experience from the world of touring video.
The Manics’ creative director is BAFTA Award winning film director and screenwriter Kieran Evans. He produces all their show video content, adding a visual context which is fundamental to the gigs. This is the third tour for Toby after Kieran originally asked him on-board in 2014 to run their live show video under his direction.
Toby provided all the front-end control and media servers himself - comprising Mac Pro towers running Resolume software and Blackmagic capture devices - together with a robo cam system. He worked from FOH and output everything to screen, including a raw and stark IMAG camera mix that was at the essence of the aesthetic, cut by Phil Woodhead backstage in video world.
One operated camera was positioned at FOH, fitted with a long-throw lens, with two more in the pit on a track-and-dolly system, and these were augmented with two Panasonic AW-HE60 and three AW-HE2 robo cams.
The Manics have long been known for their innovative live show video, and a 14.4m wide by 4.2 m high screen upstage brought an epic widescreen impression to the space, supported by two side IMAG surfaces each measuring 3.6 metres wide by 4.8 metres high. All of these were made out of the Roe 5mm.
Video ran for the majority of the set and was complemented stylishly with Colin Ross’s lighting, which made the most of the spaces around and ib-between the screen elements.
(Jim Evans)
