Jack White’s Supply Chain Issues Tour 2022

Challenged to follow the ever-changing creative whims of the artist, Lüz Studio pushed the boundaries of spontaneity for Jack White’s latest tour.

In the summer of 2021, Jack White’s team contacted Lüz Studio to dream up and design ideas for White’s latest album, Fear of the Dawn. With five years’ experience working with White, Lüz knew that, above all, they’d need to be able to improvise and adapt to the artist’s singular style. To begin with, White had booked arenas, festivals, theaters, and clubs, so the creative team knew they’d need to come up with a show that could play at any venue. 

Lüz shared White’s philosophy that the visuals should support the music harmoniously with neither taking away from the other. With this in mind, the team experimented with shapes and architectural styles which invited the audience to lean in rather than pushing them away with overly assertive visuals. Opting for volumetric lighting cast on the architectural designs, the Lüz team built scenes in Notch and adjusted colour, intensity, and scale from the lighting console in real time.

Uniquely, White even followed his artistic intuition from song to song, deciding which of his tracks to perform a moment before strumming his guitar rather than using a typical setlist. Matthieu Larrivée, Creative Director at Lüz, decided very early that the video operator had to be the fifth member of the band and, like the rest of the band, had to follow Jack’s unique vision for each show. In implementing Notch this way, the team decided to use Notch blocks, which they placed in an order that looked equal parts appealing and unobtrusive.

“Our chosen block approach required so much flexibility we couldn’t have had with pre-rendered video. That’s where Notch became the solution. Notch was, of course, the perfect tool for our situation because of its real-time rendering power. With Notch, we could expose every parameter, allowing all 2D and 3D scenes to be controlled by the operator.”

Simon Rouhier, Motion Designer & Notch Specialist, Lüz Studio

Additional press coverage:
Variety, NME, The Guardian, SPIN.

Credits
Client: Jack White
Production: Monotone, Inc.
AV Supplier: Solotech
Production Manager: Adam Cutlets Richards
Tour Manager: Lalo Medina 
Creative Director: Matthieu Larrivée, Lüz Studio
Lighting and Production Design: Lüz Studio
Creative Producer: Marie-Christine Dufort
Video Content Creative Director: Dave Pawsey
Interactive Designer and Disguise Programmer: Philippe Marquis

Notch Designer: Simon Rouhier
2D and 3D Motion Designers: Camille Joubert, Maxime Lortie, Maxime Rouleau, Sébastien Deschênes, Jeanne Joly, and Emilie Fortier
Production Designer Assistant: David Rondeau
Lighting Director: Michelle Sarrat
Video Camera Director: Tyler Chapel
Video Content Director: David Leonard
Video Crew Chief: Olivier Tremblay