IN PROFILE
OBSERVATORY A company born out of a passion for VJing, Observatory specialises in bringing visual experiences to life. TPi sits down with Founder, Ben Sheppee and Director of Production, Simon Harris to get their take on content creation for the live entertainment industry.
Words: Stew Hume Photos: Observatory
The use of video within the live events space has arguably seen some of the biggest leaps when it comes to technological innovation in the past decade. With more artists and set designers opting to utilise LED screens in shows, the increase in the sophistication of media servers, processors and the LED surfaces themselves has been remarkable. Even throughout lockdown, the speed at which software such as Unreal Engine progressed was nothing short of jaw dropping. Not only that, but with the rapid progression of techniques such as xR, video technology now takes the lead when it comes to the entertainment sphere. Of course, it’s worth remembering that no matter how outstanding the technological innovation, content is what drives this technology. It’s for this reason that TPi was keen to chat to Observatory about this very topic and learn from the content creators,
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how they approach a live tour and some of the changes they’d like to see in the industry. While the company has featured in the pages of TPi several times in the past year due to its work with Andy C and Enter Shikari at the cutting edge of content creation, Founder, Ben Sheppee, explained that the roots of the business date back to the glory days of VJing for nightclubs. “I remember back in early 2000s when I used to borrow slide projectors from college and use them to decorate DJ backdrops in nightclubs on Tottenham Court Road,” he reminisced. Over two decades later, at the company’s London HQ, he still keeps a few of the heavy projectors behind his desk on a shelf. While looking around the office, particularly the massive render farm that is busy processing content for several projects, it’s clear to see how far this side of the industry has come. Observatory was founded in 2018, building
from the foundation of Sheppee’s previous company, Lightrhythm Visuals, established in San Francisco in 2003. “Lightrhythm was born out of VJing and we published VJ artwork.” Essentially, the company sold DVDs with VJ content that would then be sent to event spaces. However, as the DVD market began to fade away, Sheppee opted to pivot. “The ability to roll with the changing technology has become an integral part of Observatory’s attitude.” As content creators, although working on a range of projects for big brands such as the BBC, Sky and Adidas, a clear passion for the Observatory team is music. “Creating a visual response to music is somewhat a unique set of skill,” said Sheppee. “I used to play piano; my colleague Simon and I were in a band together in the ‘90s and having an understanding of music and song structures definitely helps. When creators don’t have that background it
