(12/05/2015) XL Video is sharing in the runaway success of supergroup McBusted, an energetic fusion of two of the most popular pop-punk-rock bands from the early noughties - McFly and Busted - which is delighting generations of both original and new fans, all equally exuberant, on their latest UK arena tour!
The show's design and set concept is a non-stop, high-octane narrative set in a classic 1980s arcade games machine, which was the brainchild of Artistic Director Paul Caslin. He's known both bands for around 10 years and has a background in video and filmic art, so visuals and moving image were always going to be prominent in the aesthetic, which also includes snippets inspired by renowned cult movies of the 1980s and 1990s like Wayne's World, Back To The Future, The Mighty Ducks the formative era in which they all grew up.
Production North is handling all the technical co-ordination. The creative team working alongside Caslin includes Stuart Merser from Vis-A-Vis Video, who is both the Video Director and Catalyst Operator, and Lighting Designer Vince Foster all contributing to the fun, craziness and adrenalized thrill of a great show.
Unique elements include a giant sized fully-working and playable version of a classic games console which is part of the stage set.
The show is completely full-on from the moment McBusted launch into Air Guitar at the top of the set, from where the performance memorably rocks-out, steamrollering through their many hits with the band giving it absolutely 200 per cent right to the final chord of Year 3000 .
With the arcade machine design and Caslin's desire for a retro look but using the latest technology, they needed a large upstage video screen, so XL project managed by Phil Mercer, and tour Production Manager Iain Whitehead specified 350 tiles of Pixled F-12 LED product (arranged as a 25 tile wide by 14 deep surface).
Above that is an active banner' of Pixled F-12 making up the header of the machine which is utilised for various complimentary graphics and very often song titles.
The selection of vibrant and cheeky playback content was all commissioned by Caslin and produced by Blink TV as pixel-perfect material. It was then programmed onto Stuart Merser's own Catalyst V5 media server, running on the latest Mac Pro hardware, which is handling all the playback material.
XL Video is supplying four Sony HXC-100 cameras and a BlackMagic 2ME ATEM switcher on which Stuart is cutting the mix - a neat, lightweight piece of kit with inbuilt multi-viewer screens which he really likes.
Stuart emphasises the importance of having skilled camera operators as a key to getting a great mix, especially on a busy show like this where he's challenged to cover six super-animated band members, who, apart from drummer Harry Judd, don't remain in one position for more than a nanosecond!
Both Tim Bolland and Phil Johnson, worked with Stuart on Il Divo, and he also has Patrick Vansteelant, another very experienced operator and regular XL crew member on this. They are fantastic and I really appreciate their experience and flair, he states.
One camera is positioned at FOH with a 70 box lens, two are on track-and dolly in front of the VIP area created by an oval-shaped runway emanating from the front of the stage on which the band spend a lot of time charging around. These are both fitted with 22 x lenses.
The fourth camera is fitted with Stuart's own RF back and serves as a roaming hand-held fitted with a J14 x 4.3 wide angle lens. Operated by Phil, it lurks around the thrust and moves out to the B stage just in front of FOH to get all sorts of interesting and more off-beat shots of the band and the audience.
On top of these are three of XL's own mini-cams on the tour, which Stuart describes as The best mini-cams I have ever used . The HDiye units feature a 2.1 megapixel DSP chip that produces full HDI 1920 x 1080 resolution at 60 FPS and a 3G HD / SDI output, and he first specified them for the Blink 182 tour last year. On this, two are focused on the main stage drum kit and one on the B Stage drum kit, which is also a full setup.
In addition to the LED screens, there are two side IMAG screens, each measuring 21 x 11.5 ft (16:9 aspect ratio) which are each fed by a single front projecting Barco 22K projector mounted on T-trusses.
The cameras are multi-routed. Everything going onto the side screens is fed directly out from the PPU, while all sources going to the onstage screen and banner are channelled via the Catalyst, where some of the footage also receives additional treatments.
It's a busy show with multiple cues, with some of the playback timecode triggered. To aid the task of mixing cameras and operating the Catalyst simultaneously, Stuart is using a special iPad app that he has devised.
Operating both together is an exacting task especially at this pace - but he prefers being able to control the full visual picture rather than just component parts of it. It also makes it easier for Caslin to make any tweaks just by talking to one person.
As well as it being a great creative working environment for Stuart and his video team, there is a big upbeat vibe on the tour generally as the success and popularity of the McBusted collaboration looks set to continue for some time!
The many challenges have included getting the vintage games console 16-bit graphics working to best quality on the big screen for a specific part of the show, which engaged Stuart, Engineer Matt Vassallo and the Catalyst for a couple of days!
The stage set console is fully playable the buttons are triggered by IR beams and the joysticks are micro-switch controlled, all wired back to a classic games console. The audio feed from the console is played out through the PA while the video feed goes to the big screen.
As far as an
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
(12/05/2015) XL Video is sharing in the runaway success of supergroup McBusted, an energetic fusion of two of the most popular pop-punk-rock bands from the early noughties - McFly and Busted - which is delighting generations of both original and new fans, all equally exuberant, on their latest UK arena tour!
