Competitor Analysis and Correspondance - Steve McWade // Three Dimensional Tanx

Last week I went to see Three Dimensional Tanx as they launched their new album. The night took the normal expected structure of support acts after support acts, but when the Tanx were due to play - all the lights dropped and the light show began.

I liked the effect of the black white and grey colour scheme. The mono chromaticism played nicely with the colours of the band's instruments but also allowed the animation to stand out from the black backdrop behind the band. The simplicity of the colours allowed the animations to take precedence. These were kept to simple geometric shapes and patterns, swirling and contorting on the command of the visual operator , Steve McWade.

Here is a close up of the projection hitting the surface of the singers keyboard/organ. I was particularly interested with how the animation interacted with the instrument. The flat back of the organ created another screen effectively and was uninterrupted as no movement passed in front of it. I would have been tempted to use this as a separate animation surface through projection mapping software. I feel this would have allowed for more creativity and maybe look for other surfaces where mapping could be implemented. In this case, however, McWade chose to treat the whole stage as a screen meaning that the animation warped and wrapped itself around the objects and musicians on screen. This created a certain visual aesthetic, but I would have least tried experimenting with mapping to create a more three-dimensional visual.

I managed to be introduced to Steve, stating that I too am interested in learning about the art of projected visuals. Steve was actually a recently graduated masters student, incorporating his projections into his post-graduate degree at Lancaster university. I managed to record our chat, but unfortunately I cannot upload it due to high background noise, this is a transcript;

Chris: Hi Steve, well done on the performance tonight.

Steve: Oh thanks, went pretty much all to plan.

C: So I noticed that you have a Zoom interface (Audio device) in front of you. Does that mean you are taking an audio input into your work?

S: Yeah thats what triggers the changes between animation loops. 

C: So through audio signals?

S: Well when the audio peaks yeah, if the singer screams or if the drummer hits the snare loudly. Its set to a timer though, so will only work every 30 seconds.

C: I suppose thats so its not flickering all the time and giving us all fits?

S: (laughing) Yeah like that.

Chris: I noticed that your animations were all black and white, was there a reason for this?

Steve: Well when we were setting up I was worried about the black backdrop, I'm used to working with white or lightly coloured surfaces. All those animations are actually coloured but when we set up my cable wasn't in the projector properly and it only came out in black & white, I thought it looked better on the backdrop and the band didn't seem to notice, or care!

C: Oh! You couldn't tell they were supposed to be coloured?

S: Yeah well there were a few that looked shit without colour, so I just dropped them.

Chris: I spotted your projector, is that dome around the lens to help the throw?

Steve: Yeah its a wide angled lens

C: So thats what was needed to cover the whole stage?

S: Yeah, a wide angled lens. Wide, Wide lens.