[indyld]

With the current fashion for endless visual vomit all over the place, both on TV (saw The Magicians or something last night, eugh) and on a number of staged shows (one of which may or may not be a musical adapted from a film that wasn't that great to start with), I'm starting to despair at the endlessly bright and moving visuals everywhere at the moment.

The last Eurovision was ghastly to look at, and that style of design is making it harder and harder to discern the Turn from the endless wobbly backgrounds. It's no wonder we are craving ever and ever powerful light sources as Lighting Designers. The only way to get any kind of contrast between the visually vile background and the similar but a bit more fleshy thing vying for our attention in the foreground, is to blast 17 TeraWatts of Big Boyz at 'em and hope it pings back down the lens faster than the thousands of pixels sizzling behind.

It's no better on stage or in LE mid-shot on a Saturday night.

What happened to contrast?

This post has been edited by indyld: 05 February 2012 - 11:54 AM

[Grum]

Couldn't agree more. Thankfully I've been lucky in that my last two clients have both said that they'd rather not perform in a cinema and that they'd prefer the audience watch them rather than a movie going on behind them.

Sadly, their management have different ideas and see so many other acts using video that they feel their artist should have a video element too. I struggle to understand, one minute they want the show to be unique and interesting the next they want a great big video wall filled with stock content just like everyone else.

TV shows are even worse directors insisting that there must be moving video content in the background of every shot. Makes me mad.

[rossmck]

indyld, on 05 February 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

number of staged shows (one of which may or may not be a musical adapted from a film that wasn't that great to start with), I'm starting to despair at the endlessly bright and moving visuals everywhere at the moment.

I wonder if that's the same one I'm thinking of... there's a few points where it's used very effectively, and the rest of the time I feel it was used because it was there and traditional sets would have worked far better

[indyld]

rossmck, on 05 February 2012 - 08:58 PM, said:

indyld, on 05 February 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

number of staged shows (one of which may or may not be a musical adapted from a film that wasn't that great to start with), I'm starting to despair at the endlessly bright and moving visuals everywhere at the moment.

I wonder if that's the same one I'm thinking of... there's a few points where it's used very effectively, and the rest of the time I feel it was used because it was there and traditional sets would have worked far better

Possibly. I deffo didn't have the Time Of My Life on either the load in or the press preview which I attended to see if those many tonnes of steel and overnighters were worth it. They weren't.

While the projections and LED arrays were constantly doing something, and the floor and flattage was strewn with every ML gobo in the inventory, it was the automated set that seemed to find it harder to sit still than an ADHD 6 year old on Sunny Delight. No sooner had one thing flown, trucked and revolved into view, than it was off again to be replaced by something equally expensive, complex and dramatically pointless that whirred to it's mark.

That concludes my review.

I guess it could be argued that the target audience loved it. However, the crossover between live shows and LE television provides interesting, if not pleasant, trends and it would appear that the fidgety Directors that can't sit on a shot for more than 0.25 secs and insist on "everything happening. All the time" are everywhere these days. Next thing, we'll have live dance shows that are staged so that all you can see is a close-up of a jiggling, sweating fixed grin while the actual movement goes unseen.

OK, now I've drifted completely off the original topic of background screens on the telly...