XL Video’s
first HD tour
with Queen & Paul Rodgers
AV
Product Stories Published: 13 January 2009
XL Video UK is supplying video equipment production and crew
for the Queen & Paul Rodgers tour.
The tour is project managed for XL by Phil Mercer,
who comments, “This is the first tour for us that has
taken a high definition camera/PPU/recording package for its
duration, and so it’s a significant milestone for everybody
involved”.
The show’s visuality is clearly defined
by an 85 square metre upstage screen, made up from a total of
2500 Barco O-Lite 612 blocks in asymmetrically populated panels
with a solid block of O-lite in the centre, giving 1278 x 396
pixels across the whole surface. The screen was designed by
Mark Fisher. It weighs 7 tonnes, splits horizontally via a 24-way
Kinesys automation system, and also contains 304 ACL bulbs,
which are under control of Lighting.
XL is supplying six GV LDK 8000 cameras, 2 positioned
at front-of-house, 2 on hot-heads in the pit, one focussed on
drummer Roger Taylor and the final one hand-held onstage.
Show content has been produced by Aubrey Powell
(Po) of Hypgnosis, playback is via a Catalyst digital media
server and is output to screen by live director/vision mixer
Stuart Rowsell.
Rowsell cuts the mix using a GV Kayak switcher,
engineers are Wolfgang Schram and Dave Rogers; there are 6 ISO
and TX HDCam records of each show.
The touring camera operators are Saria Ofogba,
Sacha Moore and Gordon Davies, and LED techs are Stef van Besien
and Chris Isaccson.
For the first show in Kharkov, Ukraine a second
HD PPU and 7 extra cameras were integrated into the touring
system for a shoot, directed by David Mallett, for Serpent Productions
which was broadcast live on Ukrainian TV