By Mike Paschal
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August 26, 2010
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Production
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This past Sunday we not only started a new series at PC3 but we also added a center screen element to the stage design. We have been in the current set for quite a few weeks now and have four weeks left (3 now) before we tear down and re-build. But for this last four weeks we really wanted to change something or add something to the current design. So we rented a Panasonic PT-DZ6710 DLP Projector from Audio Ethics located in Charlotte, NC.This projector is a great piece of gear from Panasonic with:
- DLP™ Display Technology
- 6000 ANSI Lumens
- 1920 x 1200 Native Resolution
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- 16:10 Native Aspect Ratio
- 2000:1 Contrast Ratio
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I was very pleased once we secured the rental on this particular model due to the fact that this is the model I am hoping to put into another auditorium once we are able to upgrade projectors for our kids space. But enough about the projector right now, back to the reason for the B&W Film effect. Knowing that we would have a center screen element during the opener on Sunday I threw out a personal idea I have had for a bit in our creative meeting last Tuesday. With an song like “Awakening” by Switchfoot and starting a new series titled, “Man School” I thought my idea might be possible. For many years I have watched either concerts live or on TV that had some type of B&W old film footage playing on large screens or LED’s behind the band. The video did not have anything concrete to do with the songs, I feel like its there just to create a different type of visual for the audience. So I threw out the idea of putting together a video to play only on the center screen with different shots and speeds of a large city like New York. The idea made it to the board and I was in charge of putting it together, which was something new in of itself.
So once I finished the video and checked it on Friday night in the room, I programed the lighting to enhance the video and not take away from it. I stuck to a dark blue on my band wash and kept all the Martin 250 spots on a hard beam with CTO color. This color combination brought out the B&W better than any other as well as kept it very “rock-n-roll” look. But once we ran through it for the first time all together seeing the IMAG feed in color was taking value away from the B&W idea, so we decided to utilize our Ross Synergy 100SD switcher and apply a real-time effect. That is where the B&W old film look came about. We add the scratches, grain, vignette, film jumps, etc. to match the center screen video content. Below is the video shown on the center screen along with the IMAG video of what was seen on the side screens. In the end I was very happy with the outcome and the overall experience of everything coming together as one look.
Tags: directing, imag, video
