Pre-Visualization...

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?