Holland Zingt Hazes

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HOLLAND ZINGT HAZES... AND THE 2018 HOLOGRAM

Holland Zingt Hazes, a series of concerts celebrating the life of Dutch singer André Hazes, returned for its sixth consecutive edition in 2018. Taking place in April, the concerts spanned 4 days, over 2 weekends. TPi reports on the latest technical innovations and creative vision of the teams behind ‘Holland Sings Hazes’, which was started as a homage designed to keep Hazes’ music alive...

MediaLane, an independent production company that focuses on content creation, takes each year working on this event as an opportunity to top its previous production quality. The introduction of a hologram of André Hazes in 2017 meant that this time around, audience expectations were at fever pitch. With 4 sold-out shows in front of a 16,000-strong fanbase per night, the pressure was certainly on for the crew.

“Holland Zingt Hazes is unique in the fact that the fans return annually to hear the exact the same 40 Hazes hit songs. But each time, with different

combination of star vocalists and never-seen-before technical additions,” explained Patricia Khemili-Kok, Director at MediaLane, who has been involved in the Hazes project since its first production. “I know exactly what our audiences expect - and those expectations get more demanding year on year.”

To assist in the expansion of the show, MediaLane tasked Sightline Productions and its visuals department, Prevyou, to top previous efforts, and the challenge was accepted. Sightline’s Sander Van Der Ham, the show’s Set Designer, wanted to take the show back to basics by exploring

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the idea of who André Hazes was as a person. Finding his answer in Hazes’ hometown of Amsterdam, Van Der Ham went about recreating an Amsterdam street for the set design as the backdrop for the live stage show. Khemli-Kok commented: “The mind-blowing visual effects of a 3D Amsterdam street scene in which we experience a ‘year in the city’ is the perfect example of the synergy between Sightline and MediaLane.”

To make this look as realistic as possible, location visits to Amsterdam were planned to look at the details and exact shapes in the housing and street architecture. Van Der Ham wanted to keep the buildings as close to reality as possible, while also taking into consideration the size of the popular arena venue. This resulted in a search for the best way to scale back the dimensions while still allowing the use of real doors in the physical décor.

In order to make this look and feel as if you were really watching a street performance, Van DerHam wanted to break the boundary between the physical set and the video content of the virtual set. By having the lighting of both the physical and the virtual take place at the same time, and in the same way, he created more depth which resulted in an optical illusion for the crowds. Finding the ideal vanishing point in the video content resulted in a smooth front line of the housing, and thus, the optical illusion optimal.

Once MediaLane approved the design in late 2017, the final incarnation of the physical houses

“With this show complete, we made a new step in creating something unique. We are always open to ideas and getting the right tools & people in to bring a show like this to life...”

Ton Swaak, Tenfeet

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and the look of the houses in the video content were refined. At this point, Sightline decided to integrate Notch software to allow for real-time control of the virtual environment. The show’s impressive video elements included 336sqm of Glux LED panels, and to film the various angles, 15 cameras, including 2 on cranes and 3 in recording cars, were used.

Ton Swaak of Tenfeet, the licensee of Notch in the Netherlands, commented on the video setup for the Amsterdam street: “To obtain this look, a high-res LED wall was used covering the full width and height of the stage and measured 32.5m x 13m.

For such a technically ambitious project, Swaak and his team needed the right equipment to ensure everything ran properly, as he explained: “Because we went for the most realistic look, and tweaked Notch to its maximum capabilities, we had multiple blocks with multiple layers set up on two machines; a Barco S3-4K CompactEvent Master Processor and a Barco EC-50 Event Master Controller. While one was rendering and outputting to the screen, the other was loading the next block. Therefore, we didn’t have to make any compromises to the realism of the look by loading multiple blocks onto one machine.”

The show gave Swaak the chance to be part of creating something brand new, and Notch software used in conjunction with a Green Hippo Hippotizer media server helped to make that a reality. “With this show complete, we made a new

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step in creating something unique. We are always open to ideas and getting the right tools & people in to bring a show like this to life. With the Green Hippo Hippotizer & Notch constantly developing in terms of power and features, we are getting the latest tools to work with.”

Swaak continued: “The lighting placed in each the scene was controlled by the LD from a separate lighting console, an MA Lighting grandMA2. By doing this, we created a unity within the lighting & video worlds, fully integrating for the live show.”

The show’s lighting elements saw a rig made up primarily of Robe fixtures and specified 7 Robe Robin BMFL Washes, 102 Robe Robin Pointes, 95 Robe Mega Pointes, 500m of festoon lighting and 6 Robert Juliat Aramis Followspots.

With the Notch building blocks in place, realism was top priority for Swaak focussed on creating the right shadows & reflections and finding the balance between maintaining the realistic look and the best, well-lit performance space.

With both the scenic backdrop created, and the visuals approved, Van Der Ham then had to find a way of updating the 2017 hologram for the next generation of concerts. MediaLane turned to Eisko, a company specialising

in creating digital doubles, to create and render the new hologram of André Hazes at the company’s French HQ. This was managed by using an actor, who was hand-picked by the Dutch team. MediaLane and Sightline Productions gave the hologram a special spot in one of the Dutch houses built on the stage, as well as interacting with the host for live realism, as well as ensuring constant viewing points were realised for the audience. By using live, over the shoulder shots, mixed in with real time scenes and images of the previously created hologram, the team successfully added an extra dimension, and the results received a huge reception.

With so much riding on new technologies the risks were high, but with such a proficient team, Khemili-Kok was confident in their abilities. She concluded: “Thanks to the expertise of Sightline Productions, the gamble really was worth the hard work... I have grown to trust them implicitly.” TPi Photos: J Lousberg www.hollandzingthazes.nl www.medialane.nl www.sightline-prod.com www.tenfeet.eu

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