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LSi talks to Mark Calvert, managing director of design studio Immersive . . .
“We realised that the potential of the Pixel Addict Server could not be fulfilled without some outside investment and R&D, so we joined forces with Avolites to create the Ai Media Server.”
www.lsionline.co.uk
Mark Calvert, MD and cofounder of design studio Immersive, is driven by a deep-seated passion for his chosen path and is prepared to take risks to ensure that each project is the best it can be. Echoing all great innovators, his attitude to his technological sector is “yes, this is great, but we can do it better”. He and his colleagues have sacrificed much to write the Immersive success story. Their compensation comes in the form of award-winning projects such as the media server implementation for video playback and mapping for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympics Ceremonies, or the Museum Of Ulster’s Window on Our World experience, or the technical production management for Arcadia at Glastonbury 2013, plus a raft of live band and DJ tours plus a portfolio of broadcast shows. At age 11 Mark met Dave Green - the boy who would ultimately become one of his business partners (see LSi July 2013). Together they started a skateboard clothing company called ‘Inside Skateboards’. “We
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couldn’t afford to buy branded skateboarding clothes,” laments Mark. “Making our own seemed the best possible course. We made T-shirts, hoodies and jumpers brandishing the slogan ‘Inside Us All’.” Mark’s entrepreneurial attitude prevailed and at university he kept busy with friends copromoting an event called Contact. He graduated with a Graphic Design degree just as Dave Green graduated with a Computer Software Engineering degree, and their third partner, Ralph Lambert, with a Camera Editing degree. “We were all into psychedelic culture and staged events called Project Ozma under our VJ name Inside-Us-All,” explains Mark. “We designed video content and VJ’d in a number of clubs. Dave wrote plug-ins for ‘Resolune’ and Ralph made the content. My role was as it is now - promoting and making it happen.” Mark and his colleagues took their VJ’ing to London, where Project Ozma attracted up to 3000 people to regular VJ mash-ups. The team shared the Ozma experiences with several up-and-coming DJ/VJs and it was not long before they were regularly VJ’ing around the globe; they were twice voted ‘No.1 VJs in the World’ by public vote for DJ Magazine. “Around that time we met our now creative director John Munro. He merged his broadcast design company with us and we started doing more commercial work,” Mark explains. Munro gave the company a strong creative direction and combined with Mark’s, Dave’s and Ralph’s existing technical expertise, this synergy drove the team’s remarkable installation, film and animation departments. Together, they established a new company, Pixel Addicts, and fast developed the big underground parties to deliver industryrespected gigs.
“We became resident video designers at Matter nightclub, owned by Fabric founders Keith [Reilly] and Cameron [Leslie], and got the contract to work with Dave Parry; at the time that was the most sought-after nightclub contract out there. We designed the video installations and video content for all three rooms with the main and second rooms housing early incarnations of what is now the Avolites Ai media servers (then called the Pixel Addict Server). Keith and Cameron were effectively the first commercial customers for this technology.” The projects kept coming clubs, museums and immersive corporate experiences. For various reasons, Mark and the team were advised to change the company name; Immersive was the natural choice. Then, he explains: “We realised that the potential of the Pixel Addict Server could not be fulfilled without some outside investment and R&D, so we joined forces with Avolites to create the Ai Media Server.” What is remarkable is that Mark and the Immersive team understood early in the 1990s that the boundaries of light and video were blurring. Mark’s desire to drive creative potential and facilitate a suitably fastpaced approach to visual design meant he and his colleagues were driven to invent the technological tools to make that happen. Mark is coy about his achievements. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone Magazine, he was typically laidback about his work as co-show designer and producer for Eric Prydz’s audiovisual EDM extravaganza, EPIC 2.0, reviewed by the LA Times as “raising the stakes for how artists present dance music live”. And the success doesn’t stop there - last year Calvert,
alongside Dave Whiteoak, technically produced the awardwinning Glastonbury stage, Arcadia, and in December 2013 Immersive signed a nonexclusive deal with London-based Partizan - twice listed as the Gunn Report’s ‘Best Production Company in the World’. “We’re over the moon with the partnership. The profile of our rosters will bring amazing campaigns to each firm’s portfolio,” says Mark. “This starts with an ambitious campaign for Bacardi, launching later this year.” What keeps Mark’s attention is the constant evolution of the industry: “LED technology is becoming so flexible,” he says. “It’s sculptural - you can make almost anything with it. This solves many of the inherent issues of projection, such as low levels of brightness and a lessthan-full spectrum of contrast. It excites me to work at the sharp, innovative edge of that design.” A determined man, Mark says his strength is in an ability to share a vision for a project and inspire people to get involved. He and his team have created one of a few companies worldwide that competently control a diverse mix of displays and at the same time design and deliver digital content to fit eclectic surfaces and platforms. “I don’t give up at anything business, friendships or new ideas,” Mark concludes. “Some people may call that ‘bloody mindedness’, I call it ‘determined’ - either way, I’m easy with it!” However, for Mark, most important of all is the inspiration he derives from his wife Miriam, and their children Max and Matilda. He says they fill his life with enough colour, positive perspective, patience, forgiveness and fun to ensure his “day job” continues to be an ever-joyful experience . . . www.immersive.eu