Chauvet Professional Video Panels Tour with PitbullDuring his recent North American tour, rapper, songwriter, and record producer Pitbull ignited the audience with his high-energy performance not only rapping live, but also incorporating his famous duets with renowned artists like Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Mark Anthony, and Chris Brown, who entered the stage via recorded tracks on massive video displays. Video director for the Pitbull US tour Nate Selvidio and production designer Justin Geiger of Impulse Creative Group conceived a simple yet striking design using 263 Chauvet Professional MVP Ta8 Curve and MVP 12 video panels for the tour's 24 shows. More CHAUVET Professional Nexus 4x4 pixel-mapping wash lights were used on tour as blinders above the video walls. Orlando-based Complete Production Resources production company supplied the gear. "One of the big requirements for any show that Pitbull does is having LED walls, or at least one, centered main wall," Selvidio said. "Pitbull performs songs with lots of featured artists who are shown on the screen, behind him. When Jennifer Lopez is performing her part of the song he actually spins around and addresses her as she sings. Having an LED wall in the back center becomes a very important aspect in every show." Complete Production Resources chose the Chauvet Professional video panels for their flexibility, mounting hardware, connectivity, outdoor rating, lightweight, and brightness, according to Lucas Peterson, director of lighting production and lighting crew chief for the tour. "We looked at different options but we chose the Chauvet Professional video panels because they best fit our needs," Peterson said. "They worked really well on our tour." An important aspect of the design was setting up for recording and broadcasting live. Performances in various cities were recorded for a possible tour DVD, while during the performance at the Hollywood Bowl, NBC used two songs that were broadcast in the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular event. "We angled the side panels for shooting TV, giving a deeper perspective to the stage on video," Selvidio said. "Since the Chauvet Professional video panels are flicker-free we had no issues with the quality of the recording." Made of 120 MVP Ta8 Curve high-definition video panels, the central wall was flanked by four side walls, two on each side, built of MVP 12 modular video panels. "Our design had a lot of elements to it," Selvidio said. "Besides the 30' main LED wall we also had risers on the front of the stage made of Chauvet Professional MVP Ta8 Curve panels. The side tiers above and below the side walls were made of MVP 12 panels." Selvidio and his team used three Chauvet Professional VIP Drivers and LED Studio software to map the video panels, which were fed from three Green HippoHippotizer media servers. Three VIP Signal Distributor fixtures distributed the signal. "We had to take into consideration every aspect of the LED setup," he said. "Different panels would have text on it; the other panels could have just colors; or live video feeds. The Chauvet Professional video panels are very versatile. We could map it however we wanted." An important step was mapping the blank spacing in between the video walls so content would flow from one panel to another. "So, it all looked natural and correct on stage. This show is 100-percent video content-based; we would rather have content sometimes over laid-in, so having panels that are easy to program was a big help." Brian Henley, LED technician technician for the tour oversaw the setup, repairs, load in, breakdown, and mapping of content for the video panels. "It was very easy to work with the driver and the software: LED Studio," he said. "We did all the video mapping in the shop before we went on the tour. This allowed for the first day of load-in to basically set the panels up and just send the maps to the panels without having to do much of the configuration." Since most of the venues were outdoors, brightness and viewing angle had to be considered. "Audiences are wrapped around at times all the way up to the stage, so people need to see the concert from harsh side angles and in the brightness of the daylight," Selvidio said. "The main video wall was too bright, we had to bring down the output to the lowest setting and also toned it down in our media server. We had to match everything for video, so we had to adjust spotlights, color temperature, individual pixels or rows and we did this within the LED Studio software." The Nexus 4x4 wash lights were used for their color capabilities and as audience blinders, placed equidistantly high above the stage. "The Nexus 4x4 worked perfectly," Peterson said. "They were able to fill entire arenas, like the one at Mandalay Bay where we drenched the venue in rich colors, from reds to blues, to ambers. We also used them as strobes. They are extremely versatile, reliable, easy to hang, and they have three- and five-pin DMX. It's just very easy to work with these fixtures." Henley said the Chauvet Professional LED panels and Nexus 4x4 wash lights worked very well throughout the tour. "These fixtures are very durable and we were able to load in and out without hassle. The show went on without a glitch." See Chauvet Professional at PLASA Focus: Austin, September 10-11, and PLASA Focus: Nashville, February 18-19, 2014. 
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