Pre-Visualization...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Back when I was thinking about maybe getting in to maybe possibly playing live one day, I used to fill reams of notebooks with pencil drawings of stage set-ups. I think I visualized how the stage would look long before I ever set foot on one. As my career progressed, I continued to do this, getting gradually more sophisticated. While I’ve never been one for extravagant staging, I’ve always had a good idea of what I’d like things to look like for whatever context we ended up doing that tour/show/whatever.
Flash forward to today. As in right now. My PC is tied up for the next several hours as it renders a 3DS Max file out in to a 30-second MOV of the RT60 staging, with music, moving lights, and the backing video playing. The only thing missing are little polygon flavored versions of Jeremy and I. (And really, I’m not any good at character modeling or animation, or I’d probably have done that too.)
I’d show it to you guys once it has rendered, but (a) it would spoil the surprise, now, wouldn’t it? And (b) it’s a pie-in-the-sky production idea that probably won’t survive a meeting with my American Express card, nor the dives we’ll likely end up in. But a boy can dream.
In any event, am I the only one that does this? Obviously the laptop jockeys don’t really get to play in this particular party, as there’s not much to grabbing a cocktail table and putting your MacBook Pro on it. But for those of you with bands, do you pre-visualize your stage show in some way? If not, why not?
10 comments
Thats funny I always sort of thought that I was a huge dork for obsessively doing just this...
haha pencil drawings, totally do that too!
I still have a dream of performing with two VJs. One projecting onto an infinity cyc behind the band, and the other projecting onto a scrim in front of the band. I can barely draw, but I have reams of paper scrap all over my studio with notes and sketches of ideas that go back to my early teens. One day I will find myself flush with cash and make some of these ideas a reality.
But until then I just try to find locations to play that look kick ass already yet have enough sockets to drive all of the gear. I call it the "Rap Video Paradox". To make a gangsta video, one has to find an alleyway dirty and gritty enough to say "street cred" yet wide enough to fit a Cadillac Escalade on 24s into the shot.
-wgp
You know I made my dream a reality, as it were and we played one show and promptly broke up.
I was stuck with all these things I couldn't do anything with and right when the market blew up.
yay for getting 3k for my 10k investment....
I perform alone, play guitar and bass on a couple of songs and keys on the others + sing ofcourse. I use ableton live but i don't use it the same way like 70% uses it. No fake knobbing tweeting or effects from that program.
i have made a stage plan, only aspect of the show that is done. All the materials except stands to put my screens on are bought. I'm working on the visuals now. It is really well thought out.
A big investment but i can use this material for future shows ofcourse.
3 screens, 3 visual computers, isadora software + ableton live , 1 music computer, mindprint preamp, kaos pad, juno-g (great sampler keyboard and easy to program sounds that are on the record), jomox resonator, vg-99, parker, special made bass, ensemble and big ben, novation SL25 (live controller).
I did not want to perform with several synths, the setup still had to be minimal but can do everything i want.
no 3D plans here, but i have it setup at home, except for the screen.
Yay, another Parker player. I actually gave them up in favor of a specific tone (the Parker has none to speak of, which is one of the two reasons it's an excellent driver for a VG-99, or a VG-8 in my case) but I used them for years, and have gone through eight in all. I still have two.
I'll have a full explanation and breakdown of the RT60 live rig when it is all built. We're still pondering how to pull this shit off, as it is _extremely_ analog. Of the three songs we have mixed, every sound on them is either a recording of an electromechanical instrument done with a mic, or an analog synth, and everything was recorded to tape. So it's a tricky proposition.
But the harder part, by far, is the visual aspect. I'm actually either building myself or having built for us several custom-designed LED lights that will respond to MIDI rather than DMX. That'll be the interesting part to pull off.
But I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only nutjob that does this sort of thing.
-CR
Once I planned to put a kiddie pool on stage and fill it with ramen noodles and corncobs and go for a swim while wearing a prom dress as part of a major (for us) performance. I purchased all of the necessary supplies and brought them to the venue in the back of my pickup. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your perspective) the venue informed me that they wouldn't allow a kiddie pool filled with ramen noodles on stage. Oh well, they still let me wear the prom dress, and the guitarist got to use his stage prop, which consisted of an elegantly framed picture of cats, rested on a large easel next to him.
Later, being the absent minded person that I am, I forgot the corncobs in the back of my truck for a few weeks and they got rained on and became infested with maggots. I gave the hundreds of packages of ramen noodles to a girl I fancied as a birthday present. She liked them.
I guess that's kind of like "pre-visualizing a stage show" ...or maybe not.
Well, I can really reflect on this as my band played its second official show last Monday (at the very rock blah Whisky). Though I like to think that a small modular and a Prophet-5 are the world's coolest stage props, the reality is that the girls playing them are probably the most-noticed stage accoutremounts.
Lucky for me, I'm pretty good with electronic stuff, and my drummer has much movie industry prop building experience, and we both share a great love of Kubrick-ian minimalist design, so he's begun 3D rendering crazy white custom keyboard stands. We're also going to do a hybrid acoustic/Simmons electronic kit, so we'll be state-of-the-art, circa 1983 (just like our synths).
Roundabout answer... YES, other wackies draw stages and dream up goofy stuff.
Sorry Chris- but I don't see how laptoppers should be excluded from this... what makes a "band" need a stage plan any more than anyone else? It's not that hard- drummer in back, bass on left, guitar on right, singer in front, keyboardist lucky to even be allowed on stage. As for having a bunch of analog gear- there isn't much difference from needing 1 cocktail table to needing 4 cocktail tables.
Plus- the best shows I have ever seen didn't need any of this- they just got on stage & played.
Chris what are these magical venues you are playing where it's possible to 'plan' your stage setup in any detail and not have 'plan' thwarted by venue's/ fellow act's/ venue owner's horrific shortcomings?
Comments are closed on this post.