XL Video’s history with Take That dates right back to their first touring days in the 1990’s, when Des Fallon (now a director of XL Video) worked as the video crew chief. Since then, XL has enthusiastically supported Take That and Chris Vaughan at The Production Office, and has invested substantially in new video technology each time they have hit the road, and in particular since their comeback in 2006.
Says Fallon, “Take That and their production team have always been prepared to push technical and imaginative boundaries to help deliver the very best in live performance. It’s refreshing and inspiring working with those embracing the spirit of creative audacity and adventure”.
For the “Circus” stadium tour, XL Video sourced and purchased 140 square metres of 15 mm pitch high resolution PIX LED F – 15 LED screen – a new lightweight massively bright 6000 NITS product. This was framed by a circular truss which moved up from the stage and into position near the start of the show.
XL designed custom metalwork for the panels to maximise the rigging and de-rigging speeds, and also so it dovetailed elegantly with the rigging and set design elements. The super-quick screen assembly time was a great feat for such a large surface area.
The PIX LED F – 15 was driven by inbuilt dual intelligent processors running in parallel for full redundancy. It is also IP65 rated, an essential requirement as the stage design had no roof. “It took a lot of research, but proved the perfect product that absolutely fulfilled all the criteria,” says Des Fallon.
XL made further new purchases for the playback side of the TT video equation – 4 new HD Hippotizer digital media servers. These were operated by Richard Shipman, running an array of special content produced by Onedotzero.
XL also supplied a full camera and PPU package, consisting of 8 new HD compatible Sony E30 cameras with an assortment of lenses, which were positioned around the stadiums for maximum coverage of both stages. The mix was cut by Matt Askem using a fully-loaded Grass Valley Kayak console. GVG DVE’s were used to deal with the different aspect ratios of the show’s 4 screens.
XL’s crew chief on the tour was Stuart Heaney.
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