LED battens provide stage backgrounds for concerts

Nov. 2, 2004

Pixelline products from James Thomas Engineering provided low-resolution display backdrops for two major concert events in the UK this summer.

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Lighting designer Nick Jevons of Electric Fly Productions used 60 James Thomas Pixelline 1044 battens to produce mind-boggling video effects on his visual design for BBC Radio One's "One Big Weekend" event.

One Big Weekend For the band day - featuring Joss Stone, Razorlight, The Lost Prophets, Goldie Looking Chain and a host of others - Jevons positioned 60 Pixellines in batches of 5 across his lighting rig. They were also arranged to bring a sense of depth to the set. This allowed Jevons to recreate spectacular effects across the battens - which effectively acted as a large, "stretched" low-resolution video screen. Similar effects were achieved with Massive Attack's summer concert at the Bristol Harbourside Amphitheatre.

Massive Attack

Lighting designers Andy Hurst and Vince Foster came up with the concept of a super low-resolution horizontal wall of Pixellines -151 pixels wide by 161 high - with gaps between the units.

In practical terms, the wall consisted of four custom banks of 8 Pixellines each, with a Pixelline width space in between each batten.

Highlighting the band in silhouette, the Pixelline wall acted as a emotive information carrier and a dynamic, mega-bright, light-surface for largely video originated content.