International

1 Mar 2021

Puscifer in Acrosanti


The arid, exquisitely cinematic beauty of the Arizona desert and the paranormal charm of the Arcosanti community united for the staging of “Existential Reckoning”, an ambitious and extraordinary site-specific streamed concert of the new album by ‘supergroup’ Puscifer initiated by Maynard James Keenan.

For all the incredible works we are seeing created with VR, XR and AR, there is nothing to beat the ethereal heartbeat of nature and the concept of experimental living as a surround environment.

Lighting designer Sarah Landau was thrilled and intrigued to be asked to light the concert livestream, having been fascinated with the idea of Arcosanti for some time but not yet visited.

Advertisement

Sarah has worked with Puscifer since 2016 and lights A Perfect Circle, another of Keenan’s cerebral and highly creative music projects.

Keenan lives about an hour’s drive away from Arcosanti, the ‘arcological’ postulation of Italian American architect Paolo Soleri, designed to connect architecture and ecology as a philosophical base for democratic society.

The album backstory involves an alien landing on earth and trying to assimilate. As Keenan declares in the mysterious concert movie trailer, Arcosanti would be a perfect place to achieve this goal! The settlement itself is made from the materials of the desert with the first structures built in 1970 and the community still ‘under development’.

Advertisement

The “Existential Reckoning” video shoot was directed by Adam Rothlein of Ghost Atomic Pictures together with the band’s manager Dino Paredes, and took place in three different locations around Arcosanti – the central amphitheatre, the vaults (two large barrel-shaped structures above ground), and in the desert overlooking a canyon and the Arcosanti buildings.

The set was designed by Mat Mitchell, guitarist, and producer of the album, who also mixed audio for the stream. He presented the overall concept to Sarah when they first discussed the project in early August.


The scaffolding and trussing set structures also provided anchor points and positions for both lighting and video elements. A key to the show’s ambience was the visual and sonic flow from one location to the next, ending with a spectacular sunrise.

The different positions of the vocalists and evolution of camera shots was also fundamental to the narrative, which started with close-ups and lots of shadows and visual trickery, gradually revealing more of the stunning landscape, location, architecture, and context, as the album progressed.

Lighting was left entirely up to Sarah’s vision and interpretation, and the six cameras then had their shots adapted and positioned according to her lighting layout.

Once the initial lighting renders received the green light, she started collaborating closely with Mat and his colleagues who were producing the video playback content.

They shared rough drafts of the materials being prepared for each song, which in turn inspired some of the colours, textures, mood, and lighting cues of the piece.

The colours were then further refined and optimised for the medium-resolution mesh screen product and discussions shifted to specific accent and focus points.

A week of band rehearsals in Burbank allowed Sarah to pre-vis intensively, which was followed by five days of technical rehearsals with the full rig set up at the Yavapai College Performing Arts Center in Prescott, Arizona, where they finessed the interplay between lighting and playback video.

For sites one and two, the desert and the barrel vaults, an industrial scaffolding tower was in the centre of the action with 12ft wide by 8ft high video panels emanating from the four corners, splitting the playing area into quadrants, each of which was completed with a stand-alone vertical trussing tower several metres further back.

Lights were rigged on the centre scaffolding, on the four trussing towers and at the ends of the video panels with additional fixtures on the floor.

For site three, the amphitheatre, sections of video screen were deployed in the tiered seating and acted as a backdrop while the band faced upstage.

At site one, four Robe MegaPointes were positioned at the edges of the performance space at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock and four feet back from these were another four, one on top of each of the trussing towers.

In the barrel vaults, only the Robe MegaPointes on the truss towers were used, while in the amphitheatre location, all eight MegaPointes were sat on flightcases behind the band in the venue’s pit area, in front of what would normally be the downstage edge of the stage.

Four of the eight Robe PixelPATTs in sites one and two were also rigged on the vertical truss towers, with the other four on the centre scaffolding structure facing into the four quadrants where the band members were playing.

The MegaPointes were used for piercing beams blasting into the night sky “when the wind gods permitted the fog to hang,” elucidated Sarah, or for shooting across the performance space creating bold symmetrical patterns that looked very cool for the drone shots!

The PixelPATTs were utilised for eye-candy effects, filling the back-of-camera space with colours, textures, and visual impressions harmonious with the video content.


Sarah has used MegaPointes in several previous designs and knew they would be “reliably bright, fast, and easily stretch infinitely into the sky”.

The PixelPATTS were suggested by Ryan Knutson at Thornton, Colorado-based Brown Note Productions, who delivered sound, lighting, and video. Sarah had never used them before and initially ordered four. However, when she saw the fixtures in action and the effects they could produce, another four were requested and hastily driven out to site!

when she saw the PixelPATTS in action and the effects they could produce, another four were requested and hastily driven out to site


“They were a perfect fit with the retro sci-fi ambience and sacred geometric vibes of the album art and video content,” she stated, also pleasantly surprised at their light weight and durability.

“They’re definitely coming on the upcoming tour!”

Eight Elation Proteus Maximus LED Profile moving heads were used as key/front lights from trusses outside the playing circle in the vaults and desert, while four floor-positioned units worked as low sidelights in the amphitheatre.

Landau said she “required lights that would stay bright even in very saturated colours, and that had precise rotatable shutters to minimise spill.”

Some 42 Proteus Rayzor 760 LED wash moving heads were the main workhorses of the rig, used for backlight and eye candy. The fixtures were positioned on the floor in rows up the amphitheatre’s seats with five used as individual floor backlights for band members.

In the vaults and desert, Rayzor fixtures hung from the scaffolding and truss and also served as band floor backlights.

“The Rayzors sold me with their sparkle LED element, as well as the 360-degree pan and tilt,” she states and says the look of the song ‘A Singularity’ was built to showcase the Rayzor’s unique SparkLED background sparkle system.

“I matched the palettes of all the other fixtures and the video content to the SparkLED’s CTO, and used a breakup gobo for key light with the Maximus fixtures.

“The twinkling of the SparkLED, glittering video content, and rotating gobos made it my favourite look of the show -cohesive, simple, and classy.”

Twelve Elation SixPar 100 IP LED lights were used as uplights for the arches in the vaults, and for the buildings in the distance in the desert. Six tiny battery-powered Elation Volt Q5E LED wash lights provided uplighting for trees in the vaults, and for the low brush and bushes in the desert.

“The Volts were helpful for flexibility and changing placements without having to worry about cabling,” Landau said.

The Elation IP-rated luminaires were outside in the dust and extreme heat of the Arizona desert for three days yet Landau reports there were “zero problems” on site and that “nothing needed switching out or repairing.”


She is grateful to Ryan Knutson at Brown Note Productions for suggesting the Elation gear and adds that they were also budget-conscious when choosing equipment.

“I’m thankful for the lighting team of Joe Casper, Parker Wall and Kyle Wolfe for working hard and bravely in 100-degree days and rattlesnake nights.

“I am also appreciative of programmer Joe Watrach, who made the best of every fixture’s parameters with speed and precision.”

The lighting cues were initially programmed and timecode recorded by Joe Watrach in Burbank. “I very much appreciated his speed and organisation skills,” explains Sarah who took over for the updates during the Arizona production rehearsals and also operated herself during the filming.

No camera rehearsals made delivering this imaginatively ambitious and unique show even more of a challenge as the first time Sarah saw any screen previews of the lighting looks was while filming the takes!

Having that showfile created so tidily and with the ability to make swift and clean adjustments greatly assisted this part of the process.

The first ‘day’ was a grueling 38 hours with a short power-nap break for the crew. The desert site rig was built, programmed at night and filmed in the early hours, then broken down and moved to the vaults for another recording session to start as soon as darkness fell.

During the days they contended with 100 degrees plus desert heat and searing sun, and during the nights rattlesnakes and scorpions kept everyone company.

They also had to ensure the site was operated as COVID-safe, with regular temperature checks, sanitising, social distancing and masking.

Despite all these demanding conditions, the results were truly spectacular, and the sounds and visual integrity of the concert have been highly acclaimed and enjoyed as an integrated opus of music and art.

Ryan Knutson and Brown Note Productions have worked with the concert’s producer Danny Wimmer Presents since 2014, and relished this opportunity to be the technical partner “for this incredible and particularly fun project”.






CX Magazine – February 2021   

LIGHTING  |  AUDIO  |  VIDEO  |  STAGING  |  INTEGRATION
Entertainment technology news and issues for Australia and New Zealand
– in print and free online www.cxnetwork.com.au










© VCS Creative Publishing




Subscribe

Published monthly since 1991, our famous AV industry magazine is free for download or pay for print. Subscribers also receive CX News, our free weekly email with the latest industry news and jobs.