FKJ

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FKJ @ THE ROUNDHOUSE

Production Designer Stu Dingley creates a multimedia masterpiece with projection and lighting for multi-instrumentalist, French Kiwi Juice (FKJ).

Known for his elegant loungy music and funky visuals, French musician FKJ self-titled debut album French Kiwi Juice released in 2017 soon racked up millions Spotify plays and sold out shows across the globe. For his latest Roundhouse performance in London he joined forces with Production Designer, Stu Dingley, who fused projection and lighting to generate a show full of shadows and silhouettes to balance artfully in juxtaposition with the video content.

In the initial chats between Vincent Fenton, (aka FKJ) and Dingley at the start of the design process, video content was always a priority. As a keen videographer with terabytes of content available, FKJ really wanted to have certain elements streamed within his performance. To showcase the content, Dingley opted to utilise some tasteful projection.

Dingley sourced a selection of fabrics from ShowTex which were sent to LA where they built scale models and looked at how the projected images appeared. These were recorded and sent to FKJ – who was in Asia at the time – for approval, and from this they chose the best fabric for

the application. The designer opted for ShowTex transparent silk drapes downstage for the main projections. Dingley reflected: “We wanted to stay away from white material as the concept was the screens appear and disappear in the dark without being noticed. We tried some metallic holo gauze type stuff, but it was very fragile and wouldn’t have lasted a tour especially being rolled up and deployed at speed. We ended up settling on their Voile CS fabric. It was the perfect balance between transparency and reflectiveness.”

He went on to praise the projection surface. “ShowTex have been superb with helping us on this project. They sent us a handful of different materials out to LA and we built some scale models to test with an office projector and some art mannequins.

The drapes were controlled by three 10ft Wahlberg Mini Roll Down rollers via DMX automation. “The rollers are an absolutely fantastic product. We built a custom profile for them on the MA2, each day you set the physical high and low holding flash buttons for a couple of seconds and

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FRENCH KIWI JUICE

update any position presets in-between. They weigh virtually nothing and it’s a nice surprise dropping them in for the chaotic city show intro content.”

A pair of Barco UDX-W32K projectors were located at FOH. “They are a killer bit of kit. Super bright, nice blacks and although relatively weighty, they stack really nicely in their frames. We also programmed in their ‘shutters’ (which apparently means turning off the laser now) to allow total darkness when they are not outputting.”

Four Marshall Compact mini cameras were dotted around the stage. Playback footage along with IMAG was fed via 2 Green Hippo Boreal media servers. “The cameras can feel a like a bit of cheap gag if you overuse them, but it was important to show Vincent’s hands at the piano as the die-hard fans want to see this. We also threw some Notch-esque Green Hippo effects onto the cameras for certain solos to overlay into the content. We had to drive the brightness and contrast most of the time as we were projecting everything onto black fabric.”

A custom clear acrylic upright piano housed 6 ROE MC17 panels built into a custom perspex piano in place of the strings which displayed content synced to timecode with effects linked to the music. Robe MegaPointes were positioned behind the piano. Dingley explained: “The content lads ran with some great ideas of their own such as playing in the piano notes of a solo into After Effects on their computer keyboards and generating content to line up with the keys of the piano. When Vincent plays a solo, a particle fires up the wall in line with that note. We can then add a base colour to the wall to act as a light source to throw light onto Vincent. We can then compliment this with the MegaPointe behind the piano too.”

Dingley talked TPi through the ways in which he ensured the lighting didn’t affect the projected image. “As a rule of thumb, we didn’t shine lights at the screen while video was running. The most powerful effect was a combination of the two. For example, the cameras showing Vincent

the black and white on the sides, and a US spot in white providing his silhouette in the middle. We then balanced the output of the mega pointes to match. We avoid any in-house lighting to keep the show the same over the run. The encore is a 10-minute jam, so we lose the screens completely and throw light around in a conventional gig sense!”

To illuminate the space, Dingley specified 11 GLP impression X4 Bar 20s, 5 Robe MegaPointes, 4 Martin by Harman MAC Auras. The Megapointes were arranged in an upstage row spanning around 30ft.

Supplying all the lighting and video elements for the show was PRG with the show being looked after Lighting Director Will Smith. The Director used an MA Lighting grandMA2 light to run the lighting and media servers.

Dingley commented: “Will was an integral part of the team. He has an in-depth knowledge of all the kit and has done a fantastic job keeping the show running on the road.” He added: “We have 4 layers patched in the MA and 4 layers running to code on the server. All the video is on its own timeline in the Green Hippo, but the console can force stuff over the top. A lot of the console input is for camera control. For example, in a jam section, we can toggle cameras depending on which instrument he picks up. Then store any attributes to that button.”

Also joining the artist throughout the tour was Production Manager Liam Clifford, Ableton Playback Engineer, Tom Cooksey, FOH Engineer Antoine Guest and FKJ’s Manager, Kate Cudbertson.

With a successful European run, the multi-instrumentalist now has his sights set on America with a full US tour beginning in April. TPi Photos: Kristen Dania www.frenchkiwijuice.com www.studingley.com www.prg.com www.showtex.com

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