Oasis Video encourages new blood


UK - XL Video supplied Oasis with a seven-camera DPU including one of its new GV Zodiac vision mixing desks, three 'Magic' DVE's, a matrix switcher and Dataton control for its UK stadium tour. XL also supplied a Catalyst digital media server used by the show's artistic director and lighting designer Andi Watson.

The band's overall video production was coordinated by video director Dick Carruthers' company, Cheese Film & Video Productions, with touring video production manager Dave Wright overseeing the 35 video crew.

The show is a dynamic, pacey mix of live camera and specially created playback sources onto six LED screens - four onstage which moved up and down on a Kinesys vari-speed automation system, and stage left and right side screens.

Carruthers and programmer Richard Turner maximized XL's pre-programming facilities for prepping the show at its Hertfordshire HQ, working with XL's project manager for Oasis, Des Fallon. XL's Dickie Burford engineered the DPU at FOH, alongside Carruthers and Turner.

Oasis wanted a coherent visual aesthetic across both mediums of lighting and video explained Watson, who brought his own visual ideas into the equation as well as being given some definite directions by the band, Noel Gallagher in particular.

Watson - renowned for his amazing and inventive designs - collaborated with Carruthers - who's worked with Oasis since 1995 to develop the show. He also brought video producer Justine Catterall onboard plus Pip Rhodes, who was asked to work specifically on generating Catalyst content.

For the show, he kept many of the playback sources under his direction, triggered from the WholeHog II lighting desk via the Catalyst, leaving Carruthers free to develop the live camera mix each night.

Watson wanted to pull new talent into the creative melting pot, and approached - among others - students at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) via Theatre & Performance Design tutor Kathy Sandys. They were offered the chance to produce video material for consideration as show footage, and ex student Julia Hesselberg's work was incorporated into two songs.

In total, Watson's team produced content for about 12 songs, all but two of which were run through the Catalyst, controlled with PixelMAD software triggered from the lighting desk. Footage for two songs was run directly from the hard drives.

Playback video was beamed onto the four moving onstage Barco D-Lite 7 LED screens. These were used as a constantly moving montage of coloured and textured lightsources, graphics, abstracts and some more literal video images.

It was Noel Gallagher's initial idea to record the band during rehearsals. For the show, this footage was beamed in black and white across all six screens and skillfully interwoven with Carruthers' full colour live mix, creating some of the show's most memorable video moments

Carruthers explained how he enhanced each show with a real-time filmic quality via the live mix, with the artful application of some electronic aids including two six channel EVS LSM-XT live production servers which he used as slow motion devices. The LSM-XT is a six-channel instant access server capable of simultaneous recording and playback and also an efficient non-linear editor for live event recording.

Richard Burford ran the Dataton that talked to the DVEs and the master matrix switcher. Their 'Monster mix' allowed the routing of any video source to any destination, complete with a number of recalls. The Catalyst material was also input into one of the DVEs so Carruthers had it there at his disposal if desired, as well as it being run direct from the lighting desk.

Ultimately the show was a fast moving, multi-faceted collage of images, lighting effects, music, sound and imagination that worked brilliantly.