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OLYMPIAN FEATS - Alastair MacDiarmid Pilots Bryan Ferry Tour With XL Support

Posted on 21/09/2011

Back in the spring of 2000, Alastair MacDiarmid was amongst the XL Video crew when the company embarked on its début tour project with boy band Five. Eleven years later, MacDiarmid’s on-the-road partnership with XL continues to blossom on on Bryan Ferry’s Olympia tour, for which the New Zealander takes the role of video director.
The Ferry tour evolved from Roxy Music’s 2010 festival shows and the subsequent For Your Pleasure tour. Originally directed by Jon Shrimpton, Roxy’s video direction was later placed in the hands of MacDiarmid who, in preparation for the band’s UK arena shows in January 2011, reviewed the technical design of the projection and moved from using a Magic DaVE digital effects unit to a Catalyst media server for effects, playback and layering.
Within six weeks of returning from Roxy’s dates in Australia and New Zealand, MacDiarmid was back on the road with the band’s dapper frontman. “We turned the existing production around to build a solo show for Bryan,” he says. “It’s a projection show featuring a large amount of playback content that has been generated by Bryan — who has a very well-informed appreciation of art and all things visual — and his son, Isaac Ferry, along with Anna Boberg [a.k.a. VJ Bopa] who also handled the content editing.”
The content ranges from filmic to graphic, while stills of classic artwork are also incorporated. For Ferry’s cover of Neil Young’s ‘Like A Hurricane’, Turner’s paintings depict ships on a stormy ocean; on ‘Alphaville’ [from Ferry’s album, Olympia], iconic imagery from the the classic 1965 Jean-Luc Godard film that inspired the song graces the screen.
Every song in the set is accompanied by some form of visual material that has a distinct style and it all comes from the Catalyst. “Upstream, I have a camera system and I manage the subtle blending of those live feeds with the content to form an arty, layered effect,” explains MacDiarmid. “To some extent, the quality of the cameras is irrelevant because their feeds are subjected to a lot of textured effects — close-ups of Bryan and his musicians often seem to be transparent as they ‘float’ over the playback imagery.”
Not that there is anything lacking in the quality department… for Roxy’s arena shows, MacDiarmid specified Sony D-50 cameras, Barco R-20 HD projectors and a Grass Valley Kayak vision mixer as part of a fully-engineered XL Video system. The band also purchased an 18m wide projection screen specifically for the tour.
But when Bryan Ferry’s production was downscaled in line with the smaller venues, MacDiarmid chose to work with a more compact, two-rack system. He also specified older D-35 camera models running on auto mode, a pair of Barco R-12 projectors and a small Panasonic AV-HS300 mixer. “This system requires very little in the way of real estate and is quick to set up; likewise, the size of the projection screen dropped to 40’ wide.
“With the R-12s, I could still load HD input cards to give me the quality of image to which Bryan has become accustomed. Any compromises that were made were ones that I chose to make, but the results have been very good in all the venues we’ve been playing. One of the benefits of touring with smaller projectors is that if we ever have a rigging issue, I can climb up and wrangle them into place, which is something I couldn’t physically do on my own with the larger, heavier models.”
Climbing? Wrangling? Is this normal behaviour for a video director? MacDiarmid laughs: “On the tour, with the exception of the camera operators, I AM the video crew — I do my own projection, engineering, set-up, Catalyst programming and the show cut. All in a day’s work! I’ve specialised in all of those roles at one time or another, and that experience comes in handy when versatility is called upon. The hard work really comes at load-out — that’s when being a ‘one man band’ becomes a lonely existence!”
The crew numbers rose when Ferry’s show at the Théâtre Antique de Fourvière in Lyon, France on July 25 was filmed in High Definition for a forthcoming live DVD. “I was using four HD cameras and two HD robocams to cover all the close-ups, and switched my projection system back to full 720p HD with R-20s shipped out to us from XL especially for this gig.
“The image quality we achieved was brilliant and I was extremely impressed with how Rod Clay’s lighting design contributed to the overall visual look. His enormous TV experience was particularly valuable to us in Lyon because his lighting balance for the cameras was perfect. We did a rehearsal on the previous night to get the levels set, and I gave Rod a matrix and an HD video monitor as a reference for running the lights. As a video director, it makes so much difference when the quality of the pictures coming to you is so good. Andy Joyes was engineering for me and the whole thing just flowed like a dream.
“I’ve been lucky with camera operators. Richie Flanagan is a rigger but he has a lot of experience as a hand-held cameraman and he has a natural eye for a good shot. Isaac Ferry has been running one of the cameras for me and, being a photographer, he can frame up nicely and he obviously knows the music intimately. Bryan’s PA, David Phelan is another who can point a camera and instinctively frame a shot.
“When we did the Lyon shoot, Ron Conley came in to run one of the tracking pit cameras for me, while Rob Wick did the same job on Roxy, and they are both excellent cameramen. The less direction and explanation you need to give these people, the more a director can focus on the flow of the cut.”
MacDiarmid, who has also toured with the likes of Roger Waters, Westlife, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and Placebo, appreciates the loyalty shown to him by XL Video over the last 11 years. He says: “I tend to custom-built my own systems and XL are used to this. They are great at providing me with precisely the right kit for every application, and packaging it reliably, but they also allow me my own space.
“The equipment is very well maintained and if ever something goes seriously wrong — which is rare because I’m fairly self-sufficient — I call them and they deal with it instantly. XL’s people know that if I cry wolf, there is a wolf! The company has earned its place in the industry by knowing what touring professionals need, and they just get on with it.”
Bryan Ferry’s Olympia tour will continue with an American leg in late September/October, supported by XL Video’s offices in Los Angeles. “Having an American operation has been very beneficial for their clients,” observes MacDiarmid. “That ‘can-do’ attitude is a great boost for anyone who does business with them.”