Far from conventional, Dutch musician, DJ and producer Julian Jordan filmed his set for DJ Mag Virtual Festival 2021 in a former industrial plant. The towering metal structure, illuminated by ADJ static LED wash fixtures, provided a backdrop for the performance, while ADJ beam fixtures – positioned on the structure itself at various heights – generated piercing aerial effects which filled the night sky.
To coincide with the voting for the 2021 edition of its Top 100 DJs poll, DJ Mag hosted a 10-week online showcase of the world’s leading DJs across the summer. The DJ Mag Virtual Festival was broadcast across the publication’s social media channels on Saturdays and Sundays from the 24 July to the 19 September.
To produce the project, Jordan’s management team reached out to Robin Johannesma and his company RJ Music Show Equipment, which has extensive experience of both production design for dance festivals and DJ tours prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and of pushing the boundaries of production and videography for livestreams over the past 18 months.
For Jordan’s DJ Mag livestream set, RJ Music was responsible for the complete project. This included sourcing and arranging a venue, supplying the lighting and effects production, and filming the performance. The brief given to Robin for this was: ‘an outdoor location, with an industrial vibe and a lighting rig comprising lots of beams’. Based on a suggestion from a friend, Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord in Germany was selected as the location for the shoot.
With both ‘outdoors’ and ‘industrial’ ticked off his list, Johannesma turned to ADJ Vizi Beam 12RXs – which RJ Music Show Equipment had recently invested in – to cover the ‘beams’ requirement.
“This was a production that we really couldn’t have done without the Vizi Beam 12RX,” explained Johannesma. “The output was very important, because we needed to put moving heads 50m up at the top of a tower and have beams that would be visible without smoke. We did have one of ADJ’s extremely powerful Entourage ‘faze’ machines running at ground level, but of course its output had blown away by the time it drifted up to that kind of height. However, the output from the 12RXs is truly insane, you could see the beams without smoke no problem and they were picked up really well on camera.”
For the shoot, Johannesma and his team used 12 Vizi Beam 12RXs. Six were positioned, in pairs, at various heights on the huge scaffolding structure which surrounded the imposing chimney that stood directly behind the DJ setup. Six more were placed directly on the ground, four close together directly behind Jordan and the other two offset to either side. The chimney structure was illuminated in a series of vibrant colours – which changed throughout the hour-long performance – using four of ADJ 32 HEX Panel IP LED wash fixtures. In addition, a pair of ADJ 7P HEX IP LED par fixtures were used to illuminate Jordan.
“The 7P HEX IP was one of the first ADJ fixtures we invested in as a company,” stated Johannesma. “It’s an extremely robust device that we can use in any situation, including in the rain or mud, and it will always work. They illuminate the performers’ faces from each side, so they don’t distract them as much as a light positioned directly in front would, and they don’t get in the way of wide-angle shots. The inclusion of amber LED chips also means that we can get a really nice warm white tone for key lighting and we can easily alter the colour temperature if we need to, depending on the ISO settings of the cameras.”
As time was limited between the shoot and the deadline for supplying the finished video to DJ Mag, Jordan’s management asked the RJ Music Show Equipment team to mix the various different cameras live instead of using post production editing, which had been the services offered by the company’s in-house livestream studio. While Johannesma was more than happy to oblige, he was also keen to use a drone as part of the shoot to capture the full scale and ambiance of the location. A compromise was agreed that involved two separate takes of the performance, the first using conventional cameras – which were mixed live – and then a second filmed by drone. The two sets of video were then edited together quickly in post production to provide a finished film that exceeded the expectations of Jordan and his management, and also seriously impressed the team at DJ Mag.
Having initially invested in 7P HEX IP pars as well as Encore FR50Z and Encore FR150Z LED-powered Fresnels before the pandemic, RJ made a significant investment at the beginning of this summer that expanded their stock of ADJ static wash fixtures as well as adding two different automated luminaire models. The purchase consisted of 16 Vizi Beam 12RX and eight Vizi Wash Z19 moving heads as well as 24 7P HEX IP and eight 32 HEX Panel IP static wash fixtures. As pandemic restrictions are lifted and business returns to normal, the company also plans further investment, both to expand their stock of their existing fixture types and to add additional models.
“ADJ’s after sales and technical support is next level,” said Johannesma. “I have a very good relationship with my account manager, Steven, and my experience with ADJ’s technical team has also been really good. The equipment is well built and reliable, but if I do ever have any problems, I know I’ll be looked after. Another reason for choosing ADJ was the product range; they have everything we need – with the features and quality we want – at a price that is right for us. We don’t know of another brand that can meet all our wishes across all the different types of products we need.”
