Tinie Tempah- May '14

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL

WWW.TPiMAGAZINE.COM MAY 2014

ISSUE 177

LIVE EVENT DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY • MAY 2014 • ISSUE 177

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

SINGER. DANCER. ACTOR. DECONSTRUCTING THE TECHNICALLY AMBITIOUS CREATIVE DESIGN OF THE 20/20 EXPERIENCE CRY ME A RIVER....

TINIE TEMPAH • IN THE SPOTLIGHT: SILVER STAGE • MANIC STREET PREACHERS • OUTBACK RIGGING ON KINESYS MILEY CYRUS • POWER GENERATION MARKET FOCUS • ROBE’S POINTE: ONE YEAR ON • IN PROFILE: WICREATIONS

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Tinie Tempah

TINIE TEMPAH

25 YEAR OLD BRITISH COMMERCIAL HIP-HOP RAPPER TINIE TEMPAH’S EXPLOSIVE 11-DATE UK TEMPTATION TOUR BROUGHT TOGETHER THE MUSIC OF HIS MOST RECENT ALBUMS, DISC OVERY AND DEMONSTRATION. REPLACING CANCELLED DATES FROM 2013, THE RELATIVELY SHORT UK ARENA CIRCUIT FEATURED A NO COMPROMISE, TWO-STOREY SET DESIGN, FAST-PACED LIGHTING, CRYSTAL CLEAR AUDIO, AND MULTIFACETED VIDEO ALL DELIVERED BY A DREAM DESIGN TEAM LED BY ARE PRODUCTIONS. SARAH RUSHTONREAD DISCUSSES BUDGETS, DESIGN AND TECH REALISATION AT LIVERPOOL’S ECHO ARENA. ARE Productions’ Show Producer / Production Director Antony Randall and Production Designer, Patrick Dierson have always believed in working collaboratively.

Said LA-based Randall: “This can seem foreign to some in the world of live music, but as ARE works across multiple production formats, we continue to try and push our touring colleagues into trying new ways of working, thinking and creating. For the Tinie Tempah tour we really lucked out with a number of our key players. Dave Davey was recommend by our good friend Mike Oaks from HSL. Not only is he world-class, but he was also a great collaborator across the board and took our ideas to really help create an amazing show.

“On the video side, VER came through on so many levels. Behind the scenes, Paul Gilzine was part of the glue that held this together and Steve Price really helped to bring the show to life. The main task that I had was trying to come up with a show design that was iconic in stature, dynamic in design, could fit into 34

multiple venue sizes and was also cost effective.

I spent a lot of time working with LS-Live on the design to make sure that the set was mostly made from stock equipment. I wanted this to be quick and easy everyday. The great thing about the Tinie Tempah project is that it’s always been a very collaborative effort between Tinie Tempah, his long time collaborator DJ Charlesy, Dumi [Tinie Tempah’s Manager], JP Firmin and the whole creative team, so we try to make sure that flows throughout the production,” he commented.

On the road with Tinie Tempah this year was a stellar touring crew led by Tour Manager / Director JP Firmin, assisted by Production Manager, Phil Broad and Marie Gallop, awardwinning concert Lighting Designer Davey Sherwin, FOH Engineer Mark Kennedy, Monitor Engineer Raphael Williams, Video Director Steve Price and Video Engineer, Mark Wynn Edwards.

Respected Show Producer / Designer Randall teamed up with Dierson, and Sherwin to deliver a show concept evocative of the atmosphere and feel of an edgy, urban, underground car

park. Reflecting Tinie Tempah’s varied back catalogue, the production feel is inner-city and utilitarian, a look bolstered with fast paced, epic lighting effects, crystal clear sound and a mix of live and pre-recorded video content that set the pace and mood of the show throughout.

LIGHTING UP THE STARS Lighting physically carves up the ‘V’ shaped set to deliver a series of multi-layered, multifaceted lighting looks. Dierson’s thoughtfully selected and positioned fixtures sit at a number of heights and angles ensuring the set works equally well in tightly focused zones and in fullsize epic stage mode.

Programmed on a new High End Systems Hog 4, Sherwin uses a mix of pre-programmed and on-the-fly cues: “I decided it was time to make the jump from a Hog 3 to a 4 and this tour presented me with an ideal opportunity as the rig is relatively large.”

These days Tinie Tempah’s repertoire is diverse - ranging from vast, full on arena rock style songs to emotionally intimate ballads.

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Tinie Tempah

Opposite: Tinie Tempah in full swing. Below: The HSL team; Phil Broad, Production Manager; Lighting Designer Davey Sherwin; Chef, Nick Jones; Video Engineer, Mark Wynn Edwards; Tinie Tempah’s lighting rig comprised Philips, Clay Paky and Martin by Harman fixtures.

Each song demands considerable dynamic shift from the one before and Sherwin provided an intriguing mix of epic open looks and intimate moments, each delivered with a varied palette of fixtures and effects, supplied by rental operation HSL. High overhead, Dierson populated a ‘V’ truss with the latest LED strobe fixtures from the Philips Showline range - the SL NITRO 510Cs. These were interspersed with Martin by Harman Vipers and Clay Paky Sharpy Washes, which collaborated to provide dramatic downlight and striking audience effects. Lower key light and band lighting was achieved with Martin by Harman MAC Auras and MAC 101’s.

“The NITROs are punchy, reliable, and offer fantastic effects and colours,” said Sherwin.

“They’re surprisingly controllable almost like a video tile. The great thing is you can map them in sections, six per unit. I can then put effects on top of that as a separate entity.”

Sherwin is also a big fan of the Martin by Harman MAC Viper: “The Viper has brilliant light output and offers an exceptional feature set. It’s basically brighter, faster and more compact than most other fixtures in its class - I rely on

them for many of the looks in this show.”

At the same time, Sherwin uses the Martin by Harman Auras as backlight, to bring key looks to the stage and the band members, plus reach out into the audience. He continued: “The Auras have an excellent, homoginised colour output. The beam is smooth, which is crucial as a lot of these fixtures point out into the audience,” he explained: “The base looks for each song are programmed then I add in bits over the top. I tend to pre-build the looks, the colours and fixture positions, then ride the intensities.”

Lighting equipment was supplied by HSL, account managed

by Mike Oates and managed on the road by HSL’s Crew Chief, Chris Roper. “This show came along rather last minute,” admitted Roper. “However, it has been a great show to tour. We’ve overcome some sticky moments including getting the Hog 4 to talk to the SL NITRO 510Cs, but once we built the personality into the console, those issues were solved and the show is looking stunning.”

Mike Oates was introduced to Showline’s SL NITRO 510C at Prolight+Sound, and was that impressed that he invested in them on the spot. They arrived 35

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Tinie Tempah

Below: Tinie Tempah on the LS-Live designed stage holding his usual Sennheiser microphone - a 935 capsule with a 2000 body; FOH Mark Kennedy; VER supplied the stage-wide band of LED screens above the stage.

on the day HSL was loading the kit in for this tour. “We’re delighted,” said Oates. “The NITRO colours are super bright, extremely flexible as an effects light and exceptionally punchy as a strobe or wash effect. These colour versions are just as bright as the white ones, which HSL also stocks, and I have been hugely impressed to see how Davey has employed them in this show.”

HIGH PRODUCTION VALUES Production Manager Phil Broad has been with the Tinie Tempah production since November last year and joins a tight-knit core team, many of whom have been with Tempah since the beginning. However like the other newbies, he has been warmly welcomed and has slotted in quickly, bringing his own knowledgeable insights to the table. “The thing about this tour is that it is relatively short, which means that the budget had to be strictly adhered to,” explained Broad.

“Much time was invested into the show during rehearsals,” he continued. “My role was to ensure that as much of the stage design could be pulled together from stock, off the shelf equipment. In fact 95% of the structure came from LS-Live’s stock. They pulled out all the stops to help us, as did the other suppliers.

HSL has been brilliant, as has [audio vendor] Britannia Row. Everyone has definitely enjoyed the tour and after a few minor teething issues it 36

has gone very well indeed.”

STAGING THE ILLUSION This is not the first time LS-Live has been involved with the Tinie Tempah team. LS-Live Designer, Gaz Mallon worked alongside Randall and Broad: Said Mallon: “The creative team wanted to create the look of an underground, grimy car park but did not want to build it totally bespoke due to the short length of the tour.”

The result is a striking stage design built almost entirely from standard stock components including LS-Live’s raised ‘V’ shape stage.

Although the performance platform could mostly be made up of standard eight ft long by one ft, two ft or four ft wide LiteDeck, the point of the ‘V’ were manufactured as specials at Prolyte.

LS-Live also devised a number of custom solutions as Mallon explained: “Each side of the ‘V’ shaped set was at an angle, but all the supporting trusses had to face forward because they held video screens in place. We developed a truss adapter for this purpose, which allowed us to sit our LiteDeck on top of the truss using truss locaters.”

Mallon and his team also designed and built a custom slider system for the DJ riser, which formed the second level of the set.

Perry Scenic supplied most of the soft goods

and creative elements and created much of the concrete-look fascias. It also supplied the Kabuki drapes and the three silk panels used cover other areas of the set at the beginning of the show.

INVINCIBLE VIDEO Video direction was provided by prolific and well respected Video Director, Steve Price with Mark Wynn Edwards running all the video content to screen via his own High End Systems Road Hog 4 console.

Price discussed: “The biggest challenge for me was shooting live video for a screen that was about 50 ft wide but only 1,280 by 192 pixels.

This meant only a very thin horizontal section of the overall camera picture actually appeared on the screen, which limited what I was able to do in terms of composition and spontaneous camera shots.”

This was made all the harder by the star’s huge, bouncy energy which takes him all over the stage, all of the time! “I had to convey the energy, and keep everything contained inside this ultra-wide letterbox. I used five cameras, and as it turned out, this restriction lead to us setting up some carefully composed sequences which actually looked very cool, almost cinematic, on the screen,” he said.

“To be taken out of my comfort zone like that and forced into directing the cameras in a

PRODUCTION PROFILE: Tinie Tempah

completely new way was quite an education, and very fulfilling, creatively. Anthony [Randall] is very good to work with from that perspective, he really understands video and cares deeply about how the show appears on the screens as well as on the stage. He’s also accommodating when I ask for unusual or inconvenient camera positions.”

“Video was originally planned to run Timecoded but ironically, there was no time to set it up!” explained Wynn-Edwards. “I was called in quite late by Jamie Baker of Creative Video Design who was originally contracted to set it all to Timecode. Time restraints meant that a new plan had to be formed, and that’s where I came in. I found myself on a very steep learning curve. With the exception of the first two / three songs the show is packed with a mix of live and pre-recorded video content.”

A curved, stage-wide band of LED screens along with five cameras have been supplied by VER. The screen sits above and behind the twostory set while Wynn-Edwards has control of the IMAG feeds and how the effects are layered on top. “I’m basically doing the video as I would lights. I use four layers for content, two layers for Versa Tubes and four layers for cameras. On top of that, I have had to have a quick lesson on how to use Green Hippo Hippotizer media servers!” Once mastered, the Green Hippo servers worked a treat.

SIMPLY UNSTOPPABLE SOUND FOH Engineer, Mark Kennedy has been with Tinie Tempah for many years and knows the artist and his sound intimately. Renowned for delivering a crystal clear, super crisp mix, Kennedy prefers to use the Midas PRO6 console.

However, on this occasion he is using an Avid Profile, which is supplied, along with all other audio equipment, by Britannia Row. “It’s a pretty basic set up,” explained Kennedy modestly. “The band comprises drums, keyboards, guitar and some playback tracks.

I’m not dealing with a huge number of inputs, about 40 in total. The main reason for using the Avid is that we had been in Australia for the last month and the only board I could get there was an Avid D-Show. There was little point in trying to move back to a PRO6 because I already had the show nailed.”

Kennedy used no outboard: “We were doing festivals and the great thing about this console is everything I need is onboard. Unless the room is super dry, Tinie doesn’t like any reverb on his voice. There’s a certain amount of effects on the tracks already, I am just adding a little bit of delay here and there. I also have the Waves package so I can pick up some nice compressors. It’s pretty straightforward. The only trouble with the D-Show is that if you max it out with too many plug-ins / outboard they can end up sounding really small and gnarly.”

Kennedy says working with Tinie Tempah is a fulfilling, if not a demanding, experience: “Tinie will always push hard for what he wants.

He and I have spent a long time working on every little nuance of the show, the sounds of the instruments and the playback.” The result is something very special sounding. He’s a great guy to work for. He knows what he wants and he trusts me to get it for him.”

For PA, Kennedy specified 14 L-Acoustics K1 and two boxes of the new K2 line array for the main hang and 10 on the sides and the bottom of the main hang. He also uses KARA ARCs for front and side fill: “I like K1,” Kennedy said.

“There’s a lot of new music on the latest album and The K1 is a very controllable box and so powerful, especially in the HF region.”

On the other side of the stage, taking care of monitors, is Tinie Tempah’s long time colleague and friend, Raphael Williams: “I know Tinie’s personality and what he likes for his own mix purposes. His key focus is his vocals. He likes to hear them way above everything else and it has to sparkle, crystal clear on every syllable.

“DJ Charlesy is more in the middle; he likes his vocal to sit comfortably in the mix with his own vocal just poking out on top. The other musicians like an even mix, but as always, like a little bit more of themselves on top.”

Helping Williams achieve this mix is a Harman Soundcraft Vi4 console with its 96

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PRODUCTION PROFILE: Tinie Tempah

inputs on 24 faders, and a total of 35 output busses are available for use as masters, groups, auxes or matrices. However, for Williams, it’s the Soundcraft Realtime Rack that has been the biggest asset on this tour: “This is the result of a collaboration between Soundcraft and plug-in manufacturer, Universal Audio and it delivers industry-standard world-class UAD studio plug-ins at a fraction of the price. I got hold of one to try recently, and it’s amazing.

I don’t know what I would do without it now! What I’m most impressed with is its flexibility and the number of on-board plug-ins.

In hard versions, these alone would cost thousands of pounds.”

In this case a simple MADI connection puts up to 74 plugins at Williams’ disposal. “I’m not using it to its full potential, at present, I am just slowly implementing it across the whole show. I’m using it on the output of Tinie’s and the DJs microphone.

It’s given me plenty of headroom and a crystal clear sparkle on the vocals. It also means that I can now use any MADI console and simply plug and play.

As well as the plug-ins, the unit comes into play in its own right: “When it comes to microphones Tinie has his usual favourite, the Sennheiser 935 capsule with a 2000 body,” said Williams. “We ensure that the microphone does less work by turning the sensitivity down while the unit does more work by turning the output up.

That also gives us the extra sparkle on the voice. In every signal chain my aim is to keep it simple and smooth the flow.

“It also helps that the stage is not too noisy,” continued Williams.

“The most noise on stage is from the subwoofers. Band members are all on in-ear monitors. Primarily from Ultimate ears - Tinie is using Ultimate Ears 18’s, Charlesy is also using 18’s now, as is the drummer.

The keyboard musicians are on Ultimate Ears 7’s, the guitar is JH Audio 11’s / 16’s. For in-ear transmitters, we are using all Sennheiser products again. We’re using the 2000 Series, which is fully networked and remotely controlled from the computer. We do frequency scans everyday to make sure it’s as clean and smooth as it can be.” On stage, Williams is using L-Acoustics ARCs and SB28’s subwoofers as side fills, and DMB 40

subwoofers on the drums, plus one for the DJ. LIKE IT OR LOVE IT CATERING Eat to the Beat provided three meals a day as well as a threecourse evening meal and all-day refreshments for Tinie Tempah, his team as well as all production and crew involved with the tour. The company provided three members of staff - Chef Nick Jones, Buyer and Manager, Richard Huggins and FOH and Dressing Room Manager, Abbi Courtney. Between them the ETTB crew has managed to serve an impressive ammount: over 1,500 meals during the 11-date run!

TRAINS, PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES Tour trucking was provided by Fly

By Nite and buses were supplied

by Phoenix as the company’s Paul Hattin explained: “We supplied a star bus for Tinie and two crew sleeper buses. We have had a relationship with the band for a number of years now so we were delighted to hear the tour was back on.”

There is no doubt that Tinie Tempah has much to say and the Temptation tour sparkled at every level. Although only 25 years old, this artist clearly knows how to get the very best from the team he chooses to work with and that sets the precedence for the atmosphere and ambition of the tour.

Quietly respectful and involved in the technical process, Tinie Tempah keeps a core team around him at all times. However, this tour has seen a number of new additions in production, and everyone involved seems to agree; this has been a good thing. The atmosphere is fresh, optimistic and exciting. Although the UK tour is over, Tinie Tempah and his side kick, DJ Charlesy will be performing at a number of festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer.

TPi Photos: Sarah Rushton-Read www.tinietempah.com www.a-r-e.com www.hslgroup.com www.ls-live.com www.perryscenic.com www.verrents.com www.britanniarow.com www.eattothebeat.com www.phoenix-bussing.co.uk www.flybynite.co.uk