When the Newsboyz first started playing at Cool River, which seems like ages ago, we noticed right away that the giant video screens behind the stage were actually a distraction on many occasions. If there was a sports event playing on one or more of the screens concurrently with a Newsboyz show, some people would “look right past” the band at the screen. It is almost a given in our culture that many people are conditioned to stare at a video screen, regardless of content or surrounding events. At first Chip Street, the manager of Cool River, was kind enough to turn off the screens during musical performances unless there was a major sports event. This solved the distraction problem, but another idea occurred to me when people started asking me the name of the band even though there is a “Newsboyz” banner on stage and the band members mention the band name constantly throughout the show. Once, when an audience member was asking me the name of the band for the umpteenth time I happened to be looking at the blank video screens and I wondered about putting some kind of logo on the screen that would identify the band and provide another level of interest for the performance as a whole. My first thought was to have some kind of static computer logo that would be displayed throughout the evening. When Chip Street informed me that they didn't really have a way to do that, but that I could “fill up a video tape” with the static logo and have the tape play through one of their VHS decks, another idea occurred to me: animated logos.
At this point I began the quest of learning about video editing and 3D motion graphics. Over several months I learned the ins and outs of 3D Studio Max, Adobe After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator, Ulead Media Studio Pro, etc. I read many books and took advantage of the many tutorials and articles available via the Internet. We now have a DVD that plays a sixteen minute loop of “eye candy” moving logos featuring the Newsboyz band name and www.newsboyz.com web site address. No one has asked me, “what band is this?” in months and we have actually booked quite a few private functions as a result of interested parties being able to easily remember the band name and web site after seeing it constantly throughout the evening. Several other bands have commissioned me to do similar video logo disks for them as well and are already enjoying the benefits of increased name recognition.
Always looking for new and different approaches, my next step in the Cool River video experience was to incorporate live video of the band during their performance into the multi-screen video capabilities of Cool River. I started out feeding the output of my portable video camcorder to another of Cool River 's various video feeds. I have the camcorder mounted on a tripod near my mix position at the house sound board. From there I can point and zoom in on any interesting activity on stage. Usually this is whoever is singing or playing a solo. Looking into ways of expanding this approach even further, I began experimenting with various “lipstick” cameras mounted on stage. Over time this has evolved into four miniature color cameras on stage, each with and interesting view of the band personnel and their antics on stage. Several cameras include a view of the dance floor and whoever happens to be having fun in the shot. All the cameras are routed through a video switcher and can be selected dynamically to accentuate the stage performance. Through the use of artful switching between the stage cameras and my camcorder back at the sound board I can simulate the look and feel of a multi camera “shoot” with several camera operators. Actually I am the only one operating a camera.
All this has worked out so well that I am currently researching taking this whole concept “on the road” to be used at other clubs and private functions. Obviously most clubs and private functions don't have the multi video feeds and monitors that Cool River does, so we will probably end up using one or more video projectors and some kind of portable video projection screens. It may even be possible to use existing video projection capabilities at private functions that have this available. We have actually played at various functions where some sort of video projection was already set up to display company presentations or photos of people relevant to the particular party or wedding reception we were playing.
I sincerely hope you will come out and experience this added feature of the Newsboyz show at Cool River the next time we play there. Be sure and check the schedule for Cool River performance dates.