Christie Works with Indochine on Their “Meteor Tour”

For the two final shows at the Palais Omnisport de Paris-Bercy, no fewer than 10 Christie projectors were installed by the technical services company, Alabama, so that every one of Indochine’s 34,000 fans could simultaneously enjoy a show embellished with animations, archive footage and live video on two lateral screens. The whole system was run by the light console using a Catalyst media server synchronised to the show’s timecodes. The media server stored all of the various video displayed on the screens, while simultaneously managing the live cameras used for both recording the show and providing live video to the concert-goers.
This final show of the tour opened with a giant-screen video. The lights go down in the hall. Imperceptibly, a Kabuki screen, 25 metres wide, appears above the stage. Fifty metres away, facing the screen, on a mini-tower placed behind the light console, A Christie Roadie HD+30K is ready to blast out the first salvo of images. A closed fist, punching in rhythm with the drum set, appears on the screen. The concert – two hours of music and images – is underway.

Part 2, second surprise. the Kabuki screen disappears to hand over the spotlight to five polichinelle screens arranged in a semicircle. “These screens were specially made for this tour,” noted Alabama CEO, Didier Véricel. “Managed by the light console, the screens had to run at the speed required by the scenography and the sequences so as to be perfectly synchronised with the light and the images.”

These five screens, each 12 metres across and 6.8 metres high, were illuminated by a total of seven projectors attached to the light grid of the Palais Omnisport de Bercy. The two screens located downstage right and left and the one at centre stage were each powered by a Christie Roadster HD18K. Four Christie Roadster HD16Ks were used to project images onto the screens located at centre stage right and left. Using their soft-edge blending feature, each Christie Roadster HD16K provided half of the image. This configuration was used due to the location of the screens in relation to the loud-speakers. “We had to avoid putting projectors in these particular places, directly in line with the speaker stacks,” stressed Véricel.

In Part 3, the scenography and configuration revealed all of the possibilities offered by this visual space, blending lighting effects and projection techniques. The five polichinelle screens were used in symmetrical duos or trios.

For the “Meteor Tour” shows with the biggest audiences (not counting the stadium show at the Stade de France) – that is, at the grand opening of the new Arena in Montpellier and the concerts at Paris-Bercy – Alabama counted on adding another two Christie LX1500 projectors to get the big jobs done. Using Tri-LCD technology, each of them delivers 15,000 AINSI lumens for a 2000:1 contrast ratio. They were used to display live images on screens 6 metres wide and 3.4 metres high. Alabama also deployed a contingent of 10 cameras to record the concert and provide live video during the show (one helmet camera with x86 focal length, three hand-held cameras, a single wide-angle hand-held camera) and five mini-cameras for special shots of each musician.

Alabama and Christie worked with Indochine on all shows in the "Meteor Tour". Technical services provider Alabama provided all video resources and modified them as needed to fit all the configurations required for the various venues in which the rock group performed between June 2009 and September 2010.

And to produce this visual environment – which enhanced the experience of every song performed and delivered the live video during the concert – Alabama chose Christie’s high-performance video projection solutions. “It was the right choice, given Christie’s wide range of equipment and the wide variety of venues we had to accommodate,” Véricel concluded.

About Alabama

Providing technical services for shows, events and TV, the Alabama company, based in Lyon, Paris and Casablanca, is today a leading force, a true specialist, in large format video projection, specializing in all the latest technologies.

About Christie®

Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. is a global visual technologies company and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ushio, Inc., Japan, (JP:6925). Consistently setting the standards by being the first to market some of the world’s most advanced projectors and complete system displays, Christie is recognized as one of the most innovative visual technology companies in the world. From retail displays to Hollywood, mission critical command centers to classrooms and training simulators, Christie display solutions and projectors capture the attention of audiences around the world with dynamic and stunning images.