Superbowl and G-Force/Aeron? Coldplay Favorite?

[bnh]

When I saw some promos for Coldplay's appearance at the superbowl, I couldn't help but think that SoundSpectrum had some part of the contract to provide the visuals. It's easy to spot graphics that are generated by standard video production technicques because the patterns don't respond to the audio stimuli. But in Coldplay's stagging, the visuals--or at least some of the visuals -- were responsive. Hence SoundSpectrum.

The give-aways I noticed in Coldplay's teasers were the geometric graphics, i.e. the ones that responded to audio stimuli, seemed to have the limited color pallet associatged with GForce. The patterned-images that didn't repond to audio stimuli, although they were animated in the sense that there was movement, looked very much like Aeron products.

Yes, I've seen the promo via G Michael (so he doesn't like purple) and all the other groups on SoundSpectrum index page. But what I can't find is that experience being written about in any "behind the scenes" articles or blogs. There's a lot going on here that could advance the learning curve. And please, no more promo/PR pieces about how X contributes to the overall design, and the three meetings before the show to involve contributions from various factions so no one's feelings are hurt. Enough. Enough. Technical details please for this forum.

How about some of the things that didn't work? How about some of the problems not predicted?

So, if I'm right, one quick question is: Has experience evolved to the use of a video mixer where one computer generates patterns from Aeron mixed with another computer generating patters from G-Force? Or -- and this I ask because I'm not that familiar with Aeron -- was everything coming just from Aeron? I did notice in the superbowl that there didn't seem to be a great load on the computer for these graphics, e.g. no bit-mapped images keying, etc., none of the complex images with flowfields that tend to introduce the hiccups we've all experienced in programming with G-Force.

At the superbowl, I'm referring of course to the stage platform rather than a backdrop screen.

Another quick question involves the use of lip-sync verses live micing. If Coldplay's appearance was basically lip-synced, which is the norm for such large staging events, then perhaps a config script was used for all the graphics. That would answer another question about micing just certain instruments, e.g. drums. There was one moment in the Superbowl where it was apparent that the drums were miced independently ... unles the entire performance was lip synced. So maybe the drums are tied to the G-Force generaterating computer? That would make things much easier.

At the superbowl, I could sense that someone -- or perhaps several someones-- had their hands on various switches so that the graphics did not have to be set to a config script, i.e. the kind of script with which members of this forum are acquainted. Knowing the hetic nature of these events, it would make sense that as little scripting as possible would be used to maintain maximum flexibility.

At one point, it appeared that jerohm had provided one of his config scripts. Eh jerohm?

And, of course, I couldn be wrong. SoundSpectrum products have never been used by Coldplay and did not appear at the superbowl. Have some of the European products captured this market? Did Roland dump a ton of money to improve their offerings?

Now watch this post get zero response.

[FrankN]

Hi bnh,

Surprise! Since I'm a big nerd, I didn't watch the Superbowl yesterday, but I'll check out the halftime show as soon as I can.

If Coldplay was licensed to use SoundSpectrum visualizers, I don't know about it. They may have ripped us off, but usually big productions like that don't take any Commercial Licensing risks (which you need for ANY type of public display or recorded use, even if you make no money from it).

Perhaps you can contact someone from the company that produced the show? They may have some insight for what they used/did. As for any specific questions, I'm happy to answer them for you.

I assume if you wanted to have the visualizers overlap each other, you'd use a VJ mixing deck, and use a crossfade to switch halfway between them. Then again, I didn't see the show, and I'm an amateur VJ at best.