Tool Time

 When Tool makes a decision to go out on excursion, there is one aspect this is for sure: guitarist Adam Jones goes to be exceedingly involved within the appearance of the display. For some designers, this is probably a challenge, but considering Jones' background and past work on set layout and make-up (which includes on Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Dances With Wolves, and Ghostbusters 2), the guitarist has something of a creative eye, to mention the least.

Working along Jones, who conceived the video and set layout, are video director/programmer Breck Haggerty and lighting dressmaker/programmer/director Mark "Junior" Jacobson, with Scott Wilson as laser crew leader. Content and animation for the video-heavy excursion got here from several sources, together with Jones' spouse, artist Camella Grace, who directs the content, as nicely.

The look of the excursion is sincerely dictated by the video factors of the layout. When Jacobson, the band's lighting dressmaker for the closing 10 years, was unable to take on the first leg of the excursion earlier this 12 months because of a battle with Korn, he approached Haggerty to deal with a converged position directing the lighting fixtures, video, and set design. "This time round, however, Adam had a few certainly precise thoughts he desired to attempt for video and set design in phrases of where the projectors and displays move," says Haggerty, who is also founding father of Diagonal Research and the writer of the NEV8 gadget, also used on this tour. "This time, it turned into more about technical troubles than design issues for me."

While there was a comparable display backdrop for the sooner leg, the screen for this leg -- a fifty six'×6' seamless rear projection display screen -- is exactly 1/2 the size. "It turned into stimulated by a show that Cream did at Royal Albert Hall, where they desired to seat humans all round," says Haggerty. "They had a completely low video wall that become front-projected, so they may have a video element, but they might additionally seat within the round. The design is a combination of that and the idea of the use of the entire stage as a projection floor, inclusive of the degree itself." Delicate Productions furnished each lighting fixtures and video gear for the tour.

To use the level as a projection floor, 56'×28' of white marley floor, provided through Accurate Staging, takes video content from a grid of 12 Christie S+16K DLP projectors putting from the ceiling. Seven greater rear-mission the backdrop display. "The layout itself is absolutely easy," says Haggerty of the video. "It's simply that low wall and the massive projection on the ground, which clearly consumed our price range. It surely came down to how a good deal money they desired to spend and how huge this projection might be at the ground, as it receives exponentially greater expensive because the photo receives large. We began looking at keeping a steady brightness stage and just widening the degree through 2' or 3' made a huge difference."

"The show looks very different based totally on in which you are sitting in an arena," says Grace. "Toward the quit of the show, the screens in lower back of the band and the whole floor turn out to be one giant screen, making the nosebleed seats the best within the house. The layout objective is to create a show that everyone can be part of -- no awful seat in the residence.

"Adam desired the show, in its entirety, to be an evolution," maintains Grace. "The show has very a minimalist feel within the use of fundamental colorations in the starting and builds via the entire set until the stop is type of an overload of lights, video, and lasers. Inspiration comes from such a lot of specific locations, big and small. Each song has its personal subject matters and ideas, and the trick is by hook or by crook to marry all of those visual ideas and styles."

Ten Coolux Pandoras Boxes, with two outputs in step with field, serve this setup, the use of 19 of the to be had 20 outputs, one per projector (seven in back, 12 inside the air). "The Pandoras are used specifically for their capacity to zoom, facet combination, and correct keystoning, so we can as it should be tweak this massive projection and knit all of it up so it looks as if one continuous photo," says Haggerty. With six quadrants on the ground, each takes  projectors with character outputs to accurate for any errors in hanging. "We were in the beginning going to try and use just one output in keeping with quadrant and attempt to awareness every projector physically, but we never could were capable of get it completely right, so we introduced Pandoras Boxes, effectively doubling the number we had to the projectors inside the air, so we should get that greater stage of adjustment and truely get it dialed in," Haggerty adds.

All the content is added thru 3 Diagonal Research NEV8 racks, one feeding the ground, one feeding the wall, and one feeding Barco MiSpheres -- configured in a form stimulated via the paintings of artist Alex Gray -- that appear as a more dramatic backdrop for the last 0.33 of the show. "Part of the cause we used a novel source was so one photograph ought to play throughout the whole scene while not having to worry approximately all of the timing issues you may get jogging films off of multiple computer systems," says Haggerty. "The NEV and Pandoras Box made a great combination. Because all of the programming turned into divided between two systems -- the NEV for content material, and the Pandoras for display -- it saved the programming surprisingly easy." There is not any use of IMAG in this or any other Tool tours, as per the band.

In addition to content advent, Grace also works from others' content to build a story for every tune. "Having labored with the band for 10 years offers me a actual expertise of the way the band desires to create the stay experience," she says. "Being married to Adam offers me an intimate know-how of the vision they hope for."

Along with Grace and Haggerty, members to the video content material include Jones, Chet Zar, Alex Grey, Meats Meier, and Matt Santoro. The artists use an expansion of media, including a few live motion pictures shot on DV or 35mm and software together with Autodesk® Maya®, Newtek Lightwave three-D, Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects, and U&I Software's ArtMatic.

"In the early days, we would use 16mm film or a Hi-eight video camera and a video toaster making loops on SVHS tape," Grace keeps. "Today, the tools are so much better, and we have greater creative minds worried, however we nonetheless use some of the early stuff. The evolution of thoughts could be very a good deal part of what Tool does. It is a cacophony of styles and ideas which have emerged over the years."

Content is tweaked every show, and so are timing and programming changes. "We've been trying to shift matters over to a extra improvisational form of programming, in which you may make final-minute changes during the display, and if you make a decision you want to attempt something two seconds before it occurs, you can cross for it," says Haggerty. "This also makes it less difficult to exchange content and ideas. I'm greater VJ-ing the display than playing again cues."

For both lighting and video manipulate, Haggerty and Jacobson every run an MA Lighting grandMA. A grandMA Light is also on hand for backup, but its important use is for the duration of setup for adjustment to the Pandoras Boxes for the floor projections on level, considering those cannot be visible tweaking from FOH.

Danny Whetstone, video team leader for Delicate Productions and the projectionist for the tour, builds the projection gadget onsite, converging and mixing all the projectors. He makes use of a combination of the projector optics (lens shift, zoom, focus) and the grandMA Light controlling Pandora CAM layers. "We constructed very particular take a look at styles, take a look at cues, and views for him to use," says Haggerty. "Once the grid is directly and area is flat, he turns it over to me, and I begin running on display notes."

Band participants are plenty much less involved with the lights layout of the video-dominant set, besides for the insistence on no followspots. Aside from drummer Danny Carey, the band simply does no longer like to be well lit, mainly lead singer Maynard James Keenan. "They don't in reality run around the stage anyway," says Jacobson. "I can leave darkish areas at the stage they could retreat into in case they do not need to be lit at that second. This excursion, the lead singer turned into simply lit due to the video, no longer the lights. Video has constantly been a pinnacle priority."

Jacobson did no longer need to scrub out the video on the stage ground with too many lights. "That's in which the sidelighting with LEDs is available in -- the PixelLines," he says. "They're low profile, you don't simply be aware them, and I ought to still light the band with none toplight. The PixelLine one hundred ten is one of the first LEDs I've visible that is an actual light and now not simply an impact because it can absolutely throw light 20'." Also in Jacobson's arsenal are Coemar LED ParLites for truss toners, Martin MAC 2000s, High End Systems x.Spots, Studio Beams, Studio Commands, and Zap BigLite 4.5 furnishings.

For a few songs, three rings of shifting truss decrease and articulate, for which Delicate provided a magnetic hyperlink-counting gadget by using Branam Enterprises Inc. "It's only a laptop with a monochrome display screen -- very DOS-looking stuff -- that selects the hoists and information a role for them," says Jacobson. "They simply play back with characteristic keys."

Diversitronics D3000 Strobes are used for lightning results however are certainly managed with the aid of Haggerty from his grandMA to coordinate with the video footage. Both grandMAs are strolling the same show file but operating in one of a kind worlds, allowing Haggerty to grab the strobes for the tune "10,000 Days," as an instance, and sync them to the video. For the primary music, "Stinkfist," there is no video used, so in addition to the lighting, Jacobson makes use of the projectors with a strong inexperienced as a wash, controlling them from his grandMA, each console performing as a form of backup for the other, as well.

As for working the lighting fixtures, like video, tons of the display is administered on the fly. "There are best a couple of songs which might be totally 'Go button' songs," says Jacobson. "The relaxation of it is very fader-extensive, grabbing this bite of lighting fixtures, every having its very own cue stacks. Tool from time to time performs something a bit longer or provides a fab new bridge to a track at some stage in sound check, so we must provide you with something extra. They evolve the show, so we have to also." Some preprogramming turned into executed the use of grandMA 3-d, although maximum programming for both video and lighting was performed even as onsite.

The final icing at the design is using lasers, a first for Tool. "In 2002, we pointed out the use of lasers, however the budget didn't permit for it," says Jacobson. "I have been speaking to Howard Ungerleider about some other effects I desired to do, and I saved considering his corporation [PDI]. My method with the lasers has sincerely been to let the laser crew do what they want due to the fact they recognize far extra than I do about it. Adam had some thoughts here additionally, and Scott [Wilson] got here up with the appears."

As laser crew chief, Wilson designed and programmed the seems and runs the cues for the show. Additional programming turned into shared by means of laser tech Alex Donne. Since Wilson changed into on excursion with Hilary Duff for maximum of the rehearsal period, maximum of the laser elements have been programmed regtech compliance tools in only two days. Adding to the concept that the display builds and adds new factors as it progresses, lasers appear handiest inside the very last four songs.

"Knowing that the display is constructing to its top, the laser outcomes build as properly," says Wilson. "All the factors of the show play off every different, trading locations for who is the most foremost. A laser impact might result in a lighting fixtures transition and vice versa. The upstage lasers are able to change colour, allowing me to healthy certain shade palettes in songs. In the give up, you're left with a unified visible experience like no different."

Wilson makes use of a total of 5 lasers, together with  20W Spectra Physics 171 Argon/Krypton White Light Lasers at upstage middle. They are used on a custom 24-role double rail projector fitted with three units of Eye magic X/Y Scanners and CMY shade blending. Other effects consist of one hundred eighty° diffractions, RGB, and CMY beam rails. Three 12-role 3W Quantum YAG lasers,  of which are mounted on the upstage truss, round out the package. One of those is situated at FOH. The laser display become programmed with Pangolin's Showtime 2000, configured to apply  Pangolin Pro Cards. The show itself is administered through a Pangolin Live Controller.

The excursion design changed into maximum currently morphed all over again for a European leg, which is presently out. After dates in Australia and Asia, Tool plans to go back to the U.S. In the spring, with dates to be announced.