Rising British singer and rapper Little Simz played her flagship show at London’s Kentish Town Forum in December, making video a priority for the first time to enhance her ‘infectious and joyful’ style to the tour’s largest audience.
Production AV was brought on board by Little Simz’s Production manager, Eric Wade of EZ Services, who was on the lookout for a new video supplier. Wade was keen to ramp up the visual effect of the show and capture quality footage, not only for live stage to IMAG screens, but also for use in promo material.
“We had a pretty tight schedule to implement the video aspects for the biggest show of the tour and going with Production AV made perfect sense,” said Wade. “We wanted to give everyone in the audience the same experience, regardless of whether they were on the balcony or tucked away some place where sight lines weren’t so great.
“Production AV were quick to meet, quote and crew the show. The efficiency of their work, the fluid nature of the crew and the fact that they were all stand up people made the overall experience very pleasant.”
Technical Project Manager Nathan Dunbar, who joined Production AV in 2019, oversaw the delivery and execution of the video solution, drawing on his experience on some of Europe’s largest AV projects including Glastonbury and the MTV Europe Music Awards and tours for big name artists such as Fall Out Boy.
“Production AV was brought on board because we understand the challenges of live music video in a demanding environment,” said Dunbar. “You only get one chance to make it perfect, so we put together our trusty crew of Director Anna Lucia Sadler; Pit Cam operator Jude Butcher; FOH Cam operator Jane Petrie; and Racks Engineer and PTZ’s operator, Mike Watchorn.
“The package included two Sony HDC 1500R Broadcast Camera Channels, which offer amazing picture quality, two Agile Remote Camera PTZs, and our incredible PPU alongside a Barco Image Pro to handle all of the data being fed to the house projection system. I have to say, it looked fantastic and I’d like to say a huge thank you to the crew, who smashed it.”
Wade continued: “I’d like to give a special shout out to Anna Sadler on Vision Mixing duties – she paid special attention to looking at the aesthetic of our stage design and did a cracking job with matching this on the fly.
“I’m more than pleased with the service provided by Nathan and his team! With this one show, Production AV has secured its position as Video Suppliers for EZ Services not limited to Little Simz and I look forward to more challenging and exciting shows through 2020!”