Video Walls rock

[fALk]

Have been entitled to play with a 3x3 tube monitor video wall at the Berlinova Festival last Friday and Saturday and have to say for my visual style there is no better projection system :) The brightness and contrast of a tube video wall just rocks everything else..... :)
The festival at large was pretty ok... not what I was expecting but ok. Not much Electronic stuff besides the Electric Kingdom (Westbam and friends) stage. I played with the HipHop Band Klartext with who I tour and I am converting over to hiphop as my visual background more and more... its just more fun you get better recognition from the artists when you tour with a band... you can develop a concept together... I am rapping with visuals and that is quite an experience...

[vjrei]

I said it like a year ago already, the future of vjs are with the rock bands.

[hamageddon]

@falk how big were the tubes?

i second that: yes the future lies IMHO in well prepared cooperations with audioartists or AVArtist acts, even if i don't think that the main vj targets are rock bands

[Pesh]

Originally posted by vjrei
I said it like a year ago already, the future of vjs are with the rock bands.

no chance.

if anything 'rock bands' will bring about the death of VJing.

IMHO VJs will work with bands (by this i mean big name, stadium fillers) to produce content to the bands vague specifications, it will be produced to run in sync (or as well as possible) with the individual tracks being played, and will be loaded into a media server such as Catylist, triggered by the LX boys most likely.

what i'm trying to say is, most big name acts want total control over their shows, they want to get it right, and once they have perfected it, they want it to be the same every night.

on the other hand, DJs will always want to have VJs as their set changes from night to night and will want the visuals to be able to keep up.

just my 2 cents worth

[Esotic]

Obviously, some bands already travel with VJs (like Chicks On Speed)

The future of VJs is the world.

Video is already becoming ubiquitous. I'm already doing shows in multitude of formats, and every couple months somebody comes up to me with a collaborative idea I haven't done yet. DJs, bands, art installations, prepackaged reels for clubs, stylish documentary, VDJ music remixing, projetionist, atmospheric video for sound collage with live accompaniment, and just straight up playing a bunch of kickin' videos...

Hopefully the list will continue to grow as every avenue has it's own pleasant features (and annoying ones, too).

I would suggest collaborating with as many different (styles of) artists as possible. At least until you find one you really like and want to dig into for awhile. There is only so much time in the day, after all.

Peace,

-Esotic

[LEVLHED]

and video walls DO rock

[syzygy]

The LED screen on one of the stages at the Big Chill was nice - properly saturated colours which really showed off the work of people who use colour well.

The downside seemed to be that greys really suffered - they all sort of ran into a single shade.

The screen really showed up any content that didn't have a high enough colour depth too - 16bit banding was very evident.

Dan.

[cat]

Actually the banding was on 32 bit as well, all my stuff looked banded and pixelly despite not being so at all. After chatting to a friend he says they run the walls at about 10% intensity to preserve the image, at the chill it was around 30% ( I did speak to the tech about it), I think it could have done with being set up with some colour bars! The output level form the mixer had to be pulled down to half way which probably didnt help the percieved resolution
Ive never used an Led display before, next time I'll take a setup screen, to check it before playing, or go abstract, the only abstract I used looked lovely!

[many2]

About LED screens : All LED screens I've seen or used myself have problems with shades of grey and dark colors in general.

About working with bands : With the DJ craze going down (even here in Montreal, where we are usually a couple of years late in musical trends !) and the VJ concept gaining a wider recognition moving to other musical forms only make sense. It's fun too : if you've never VJ'ed for classical music, or for contemporary music, try it and you'll discover a whole new language to match your visuals to.

As for bands wanting total control over their image and thus not needing a VJ this is only part true. If the only skills you've got are an ability to mix samples randomly with random music you can be sure no professional band will ever hire you. In a good show everything (music, dancers, lights, visuals, etc) fits together. But bands don't know a thing about content, about syncing procedures, about all those things we do : they will hire you to come up with great ideas and great concepts and the ability to tell if a particular concept is realistic and how much it would cost. The final stuff might end up being played automatically by a media server like the Catalyst or the Hippotizer, or they might actually hire you to mix live if you can prove you can do better, but that doesn't mean they don't need someone with the skills to create something for the screens tha fits with the whole concept : that person could be you.

[Optrix]

Most of the big bands ive done Video Engineering for have VJ`s
that`d be Peppers, Springsteen, Cliff Richard, Coldplay, Bowie, Underworld, to name a few... So im sure we dont have to much to fear from the bands. :cool:

[littlecatalyst]

cliff richards has a vj??????

[InsideUsAll]

come on then own up, who's cliff richard's VJ? :jump2:

[wellREDman]

one of the things i do to bring in extra pennies is local crew at the big shows that come in,
I generally get assigned to the video stuff when there is any and if its interesting i often watch the show from the video control area

most big bands dont really have a vj per se,

they have a design house that makes them graphics then they tour with a VT operator who plays the stuff at the right time from a media server like a catalyst, or a hippo

for me the term VJ implies performing with video rather than simply triggering to cues like an LD does,

many VT boys are also VJs tho something ive often heard is "yeah im a vj as well , but this isnt really vjing is it "

[videoking]

big videowalls are my fav. medium too. their response (in color space, milliseconds/whatever)
is so much better....in the click here in Hamburg, (www.click808.com) we've around 9 Barcos (the big ones), once you get used to play on them, youre never happy again with beamers...the best thing is that the classical AV rental services now sell (out) them for really low money, cause in times of "plasmascreenhysteria" on trade shows, no "normal" client wants them anymore. Even the splitcomputers go for low money (30000$ down to 1000?).
only bad thing that keeps me away of owing a wall myself is the need for a big garage storeroom....

[turkish]

Havent heard that name in a while being over here.

That bloke is a top geezer. I met him at Turnmills when he was playing there about 5 years ago.

I was completely spanked and gabbled at him incomprehensibly in German for about 10 mins. I asked him his name and he said.."Westbam, I'm playing here tonight'

Thats about all I can remember cos it was about that time that I started majorly coming up.......had 2 make my excuses and leave.....

Gentleman. Nuff said.