Jeff Ravitz and associate, Kristie Roldan, have designed the television lighting for three concerts that were webcast Live-to-Web on YouTube in partnership with music video website, VEVO. The series, titled Unstaged, was sponsored by American Express and were produced by leading streaming media provider, AEG Digital Media.
The first show in the series featured artist, Alicia Keys, to promote awareness of World Aids Day in December 2009. Keys appeared with her band at New York’s Nokia Theatre Times Square for a two-hour concert that featured many new songs, including the blockbuster single, Empire State Of Mind with a surprise guest appearance by her co-collaborator on the song, Jay-Z. This show was later broadcast on Fuse-TV.
The next webcast presented top-charting band Arcade Fire and was performed live from Madison Square Garden on August 5, 2010. The show coincided with the band’s highly anticipated third album release, The Suburbs. The shoot’s creative producer was esteemed film director, Terry Gilliam. Viewers were able to choose from different camera angles, and even vote, live, for their choice of encore songs.
The Nokia was once again the venue for country music duo, Sugarland, to stream their concert tour live to the world. This show’s creative producer was director/choreographer, Kenny Ortega, most famous for his direction of the High School Musical franchise.
Ravitz comments, “We were thrilled that AEGDM invited us to be the TV lighting designers for these shows. The objective was to give the home audience the sensation of being in the venue watching the show. However, seeing the webcast had the added advantage of putting the viewer in the front row with a perfect vantage point. If that weren’t enough, they could change their angle to be somewhere else in the arena! We adjusted the live-show lighting just enough to work for the camera but to preserve the excitement of the original design.”
Jeff Ravitz is an Emmy® Award winning lighting designer with three decades of experience creating stage and television lighting for concerts, comedy, fashion, infomercials, and other studio productions.