Aktuelle News & Schlagzeilen

Corona: Billie Eilish Livestream Concert lit with Robe

Billie Eilish’s first arena-sized world tour, “Where Do We Go”, scheduled to run from March to September 2020, halted abruptly after three shows, so the recent “Where Do We Go” ‘Livestream Concert’ re-united many talents from her creative team.

Under the creative direction of Billie Eilish and Moment Factory, collectively they worked to script and stage this XR pay-per-view stream. Lighting designer and director Tony Caporale from Tennessee-based Infinitus Vox was working as LD on the tour, and also came onboard in the role for the livestream concert, where he collaborated closely with lighting director Madigan Stehly of 22 Degrees who was working for XR Studios Burbank in Los Angeles which staged the performance, directed by Tarik Mikou from Moment Factory.

The overhead lighting rig at XR Studio comprised 48 x Robe Esprites, Robe’s newest Transferable Engine LED profile fixture. Six of the Esprites were running on a Robe RoboSpot system. These were the only lights used for this production.

Tony Caporale and the artist are usually in communication about how to bring her live performance visions to life, so the show development followed this format again as he also liaised with Madigan Stehly and lighting programmer Joe Watrach. While they finessed the lighting, Tarik Mikou and Moment Factory production manager James Richardson focused on integrating all the video elements - cameras, content and XR - cohesively together.

Preventing light bleeding onto the video walls was crucial so they utilized specific lights that were concealed from certain camera angles in “a bit of smoke-and-mirrors”, states Caporale. The studio’s physical setup included a substantial stage/floorspace with three large Roe LED video walls, a video floor, and the overhead lighting rig with the 48 x Esprites plus a couple of additional fixtures on the floor for side lighting. On the other side of the studio was the socially distanced FOH setup with workstations for lighting, audio, video, media servers, cameras, directors, etc.

This was the first time that Caporale had worked with Robe Esprites, which were supplied by Fuse Technical Group together with the two RoboSpot systems and the GrandMA control platform. Six Esprites - five at the front and one at the rear of the studio - were controlled by two RoboSpot BaseStations which were positioned upstage right at ‘dimmer beach’ behind the video wall. The remote follow spot system was overseen on site by Fuse’s Matthew Kniss, and these six fixtures took care of all the key lighting for mainly Billie Eilish, but also her producing brother Finneas if he was mobile during the performance.

The other Esprites were utilized to add detail, texturing and drama to the different XR spaces created for the stream, from “You Should See Me In A Crown”’s spooky minimalistic monochrome set with giant spider stalking Eilish to the cinematic deep ocean blue void of “Ilomilo” which concluded with Eilish being eaten by an animated shark. For the ballad “I Love You”, Billie and Finneas appeared in a vast space perched - almost suspended - on top of a stark monolithic column, lit overhead by a single Esprite shuttered to frame them and “complete the illusion”, explains Tony Caporale.

The XR content was coordinated by Moment Factory, Silent Partners Studio, Silas Veta, Chop Studio and Pixels & Noise, Moment Factory XR content lead Aude Guivarc’h, and project managed by Michael Hernandez, real-time rendering using Notch and Unreal Engine. Stefaan ‘Smasher’ Desmedt was the camera director assisted by Brandon Kraemer.

(Photos: The Billie Eilish Livestream Concert)

www.robe.cz

© 1999 - 2024 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories