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Top British VJs Favour Edirol Video Mixers at the Big Chill
The highly successful and ever-charming Big Chill festival continues to pioneer the integration of visual arts with live performance, attracting some of the world's best visual acts to the Herefordshire fields to create the unique visual presence that has become one of the event's key trademarks.
All the video requirements of the festival, including system design, production, and VJ programming, are concentrated in the hands of creative services resource company As Described Ltd, run by Adam Seaman and Jim Horsfield. Both men are enthusiastic supporters of the professional video mixers and samplers from Edirol by Roland, and chose the V-8 8-channel mixers as the front-of-house standard mix kit for all the main performance venues, including the principal outdoor stages.
The 2009 Big Chill proposition draws in world-renowned visual artists such as D-Fuse, Labmeta, Flicker, Bob Jaroc, Myogenic, Mowgli, Visually Impaired Artists (VIA), VGEMM and Dirty Henry. Jim Horsfield, the Big Chill's VJ Programmer carefully selects and matches up VJs to create the best complementary mixture of on-stage visuals and music for those slots where bands do not bring in their own video content.
With this kind of creative pressure being placed upon VJs performing at the festival, it is vital that the technological interface for mixing and visual creation is as flexible as possible for the VJs to allow their fullest individual expression on screen. All are agreed that the Edirol V-8 fits the bill.
Video systems designer Adam Seaman, and his chosen main video contractor Pod Bluman of Bluman Associates, installed Edirol V8-based VJ rigs located at all the video mixing positions on the site. These were also linked into a broader production package incorporating live camera mix PPUs supplying the large outdoor screens on the Open-Air Stage and Castle Stage.
In his tenth year as AV manager for the Big Chill, Adam Seaman remarks on the increasing integration of the audio and visual package. "It is a harmonisation of the offering to the audience. The live camera work - with four cameras on the main stage and three on the Castle stage - includes abstract interpretations and reactions to the visuals by the camera operators; it's very different to the usual festival delivery.
"We're seeing much more dedication from the VJs now, who know what they need to do and are really focused on putting out good visual content." The small army of VJs benefit enormously from the support of the dedicated programmer, Jim Horsfield, and the overall vision of Seaman to encourage collaboration between bands, DJs and VJs.
"Edirol has been very supportive of the Big Chill for many years, initially providing us with their V-4 vision mixers. This year, we've been able to put a larger complement of 8-channel V-8 mixers in place, a very flexible piece of equipment in its workflow and set-up, and very adaptable in terms of our usage and needs. Its footprint is very small so the units don't take up a lot of space on our VJ tables. VJs can turn up, knowing they can plug into multiple channels and mix straight off."
Ever the innovator, this year Seaman collaborated with Ian Turner from GLS Lighting to create a multi-faceted video map screen install in The Coop, which is the Big Chill's club tent - with a capacity of 6,000. This is a very intricate proposition, with two large side screens framing a 9m x 4m central upstage screen which incorporates 11 independent regions of video across a 3D tiled surface.
"The format allows for two VJ outfits to play out at the same time, so the audience can see two different interpretations in visual terms of the music that's coming from the DJs or the band. We can use 11 elements of video, including pencil cameras, and also the inputs from an Edirol P-10 sampler which is used to load clips, curator logos and branding. The tie-up between the P-10 and the V-8 is a really nice package."
Seaman continues: "In VJ-ing history, I suppose the first vision mixer to be used routinely was a Panasonic MX50 unit initially intended for corporate AV market edit suites, which was adopted by VJs for their creative purposes. Nowadays the V-4s and V-8s are designed specifically for the type of visual work we do, which is why they've become a virtual industry standard. Edirol's designers have looked into what we wanted - transform buttons, effects, computer input, the nature of how we handle the MIDI interface etc - and keep on serving up better and cost-effective products. On my wish list would be the ability to mix between the VGA inputs - apart from that, they're great, and I'd love one!"
In answer, Phil Palmer, Edirol's technical guru, says: "Adam should get the V-440HD, the V-8's big brother, which has this facility!"
21st August 2009
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