Morgan studies Creative Lighting Control at Rose Bruford College in London and has been working with current developments in technology including working as an associate on projects with established lighting designers such as Tim Routledge in the UK. He also has worked as a lighting technician on a variety of live events such as the BRIT Awards, Capital Summertime Ball and the National Television Awards. We took the chance to speak with Morgan in detail on his work with Depence² and his brand-new fictional personal project, a conceptual show based on music act Dua Lipa, which inspired him:

https://morgantevans.com/portfolio/depence2concept/

Syncronorm: Morgan, what is your new show about?
 

ME:
In my latest design concept I wanted to push the advances in technology and my own design experience to see what results were possible. Therefore I decided to set this personal project in London’s Brixton Academy as a special one-off fan concert programmed to the music of Dua Lipa. The lighting and video design had to be realistic to both physical and financial constraints. I worked independently on this project over several months, starting with initial design ideas, then programming, creating content design and pre-vis rendering.

Syncronorm: What were your ideas & motives behind the show?

ME: My lighting and video designs were primarily influenced by the mood of the songs and their lyrics. I was keen to use moving truss, which formed the central core of my lighting design. The stage automation allowed for a huge variation of configurations, a greater amount of looks and provided more versatility out of the fixtures. It also gives much more depth to something that otherwise would be just static and the movement is used to create feeling in addition to the lighting. My goal was to use video content sparingly to create a bigger impact in the select songs that were video focused. I used a variety of lighting techniques such as video bitmaps and in-sync bumps to tie the design together.

Syncronorm: How did you handle the workflow?

ME: For me the workflow felt very natural coming from a background working with programs such as Adobe After Effects and Unreal Engine. I was able to get my project modelled and visualised in Depence2 very quickly. Importing VectorWorks files is seamless with MVR imports, fixtures are intelligently replaced and models are easily transferred and textured.
 

Syncronorm: What features of Depence² were especially helpful while programming your show?

ME: After seeing the functionality and quality of the renders produced by Depence², I knew it was the best tool for this project – reliable software capable of producing extremely high quality multimedia renders. With game engines and 3D video render engines becoming more and more powerful, software for the live events industry is an ideal application for this new technology. Depence² offers a high level of visualisation that capitalises on these exciting new advances. It has realistic fixtures and 4k photo-realistic video renders that make it far easier for a designer to demonstrate a concept to an artist or band. There is no need to compromise on quality for speed – textures, atmosphere and reflections can be rendered in real time. Camera animation helped add feeling and a variety of audience viewpoints. The realistic renders makes it much easier to watch and visualise how a design project might look in real life. Animated custom characters add another layer of realism to projects, along with a huge library of vehicles, special FX and textures.

Syncronorm: What differences have you noticed, working with Depence² in contrast to working with other show-design software?

ME: The timeline nature of Depence² is one of the main reasons it’s so powerful, allowing for a variety of media cues – whether these are produced internally or recorded from external sources – to be collated. The Art-Net stream recording is a great feature, allowing you to record in all your preprogramming and then scrub through your timeline after disconnecting your hardware.
 

If you’re interested in his work, feel free to visit: www.morgantevans.com or contact: morgan@morgantevans.com

In cooperation with their partner company TSE Poland, TSE Qatar was founded in 2019 as an independent venture under the creative lead of Peter Heybutzki, who is deeply rooted within the show production & lighting industry for over 30 years. Heybutzki started to work on his vision of a vast and innovative EDM festival concept way back in 2018 & now relies on Depence² to let his ideas become reality.

As former user of Realizzer 3D, successful software-predecessor to Depence², Heybutzki was already used to the creation of 3D worlds, but now profits from Depence²’s new software rendering engine, which allows a drastically more realistic approach to the display of multimedia show elements such as lighting, laser, fire and even water. TSE also was in need of such variety as the EDM music genre itself offers intense live experiences with breathtaking shows all around the globe. To capture the energy & feeling of this music, all visuals were needed to fit on point. For this reason, all kinds of bright & colorful strobes as well as beams were used, also in combination with the excessive use of video wall content. While designing, the structure of Asian architecture was a main focus point for inspiration and can be found in many aspects of the final production design. With Asian temples & buildings as ideational concept, the center of the stage means to symbolize a crown, a ceremonial Thai headdress. C1 motors & fixtures are capable of moving this center piece of the stage in various ways, while the beams in between produce a kind of sun-like look, also displaying Asian imagery. On the center stage, beams, Atomics and 5x5 WW LED panels are circularly positioned around the DJ. To reduce potential build-up time the installation of décor was reduced to a minimum, furthermore two large screens are being one of the highlights of the project. Here two 12x20m screens are in use via rear projection. An octagon like structure is placed above the FOH, which is mounted with various lighting fixtures, while it is carrying different panels as well as Atomics. The suspension elements are hanging freely within the room and are separated in five main lines, which are equipped with beams, spots, washs as well as blinders. These elements are capable of being moved via C1 motors, too.

“The combination of different lights and video walls are a guarantee for sheer endless combinations and when I say endless, I mean it. […] Thanks to Syncronorm for this mighty software tool… […]” – Peter Heybutzki, TSE (2020)

The shapes & rigging plans of the project were created in VectorWorks prior to the initial arrangement of design elements. Via Depence²’s .MVR interface, importing the project file was quick and smooth. The project has a total of over 1000 fixtures & was connected to a secondary machine running Resolume (via NDI).

For more information on TSE visit: www.tse.qa

The most recent MOSAIK-Live Arena Tour of the famous German hit-act Andrea Berg is a huge spectacle and fuses a massive set of multimedia shows including great deals of organization & logistics. With equally great performances and breathtaking show elements, a more than enthusiastic audience repeatedly is taken away by a most detailed & well-planned production, which was started way back in 2019. The show production thereby is realized by evento PSC from Germany, which already have been working on various indoor arena shows & events in the past, delivering a great result based on their vast experience within the multimedia show business. Syncronorm is happy to have had contributed to this enormous live event series by providing the newest version of our Depence² multimedia show design & real-time visualization software system. The show was designed & planned with Depence², while the sophisticated visualization was used to beforehand preview all the elements & different phases in the most realistic way, helping operators, designers & artists alike.

Syncronorm had the opportunity to speak with Gustavo Buss Cárdenas, who is responsible for the studio department at evento PSC. Together with his team, he helped to realize the different show segments of the tour by programming & visualizing them in Depence². The renderings not only helped to realize the artists vision, but also to monitor the production on location.

“Here, Depence² reaches a very high level of performance, stability & realism. […] The pre-programming and the resulting presentation for our customers are particularly to be pointed out.” – Gustavo Buss Cárdenas

evento is using Syncronorm’s Depence² visualization system alongside powerful hardware, e.g. light desks, and in combination with other 3D rendering software as Depence² supports a flawless integration into most workflows & systems. Set up in a specifically arranged studio environment, evento are producing most complex multimedia shows always being able to consider looks & presentation during every step of the production process. Depence² has become an integral component of the studio’s workflow.

“Pre-viz products seriously are forming a great proportion of the show production process, with a rising trend. They give us the opportunity to try out different styles & designs beforehand and to cost-effectively present these to our customers. […] Because of the neat workflow, long technical rehearsals and over-night programming on location are history.”