Glass Animals’ Tour of Earth

FRAY Studio let their visual imaginations run wild on Glass Animals’ spaced-out 2024 world tour in support of their fourth studio album.

In 2024, FRAY Studio created visuals for Glass Animals’ Tour of Earth. The initial brief challenged the team to create a deep, dark, punk-inspired journey through space. They collaborated closely with the band’s lead singer, Dave Bayley, and Production Designers Cassius Creative.

During creative development, they quickly concluded that Notch’s Virtual Background feature would be central to realising their goals. With its clean edge detection, they could create clearly defined figures and generate tunnels using cloners for songs like “On the Run.” For “How I Learned To Love The Bomb,” they replicated glitch-block overlays, faulty TV signals, and exaggerated slit-scan effects to transition between verse and chorus.

The creative team incorporated extensive MIDI integration with programmer Ed White. FRAY developed an approach for real-time beat modifications in Notch-generated and -rendered content. For instance, they built “Wonderful Nothing” entirely in Notch with visuals inspired by analogue oscilloscopes responding directly to the band’s performance.

Each visual element was controlled by different instruments and audio sampling, creating unique patterns that modulated in real time. The visuals were fully reactive, stopping when the band stopped playing, and had no pre-rendered elements.

To tie it all together, the team made a master grade, experimenting with Notch’s post effects to achieve a custom 16mm filter combining edge detection, blur, and colour correction. Beneath the primary overlay, they created song-specific grades ranging from simple to complex with verse-chorus progression.

“Notch’s malleability allowed us to take the audience on a truly dynamic visual journey perfectly in sync with the band on stage, from a cinematic grade to complex, camera-integrated content. The sky was the limit.”

Kira O’Brien, Creative Technologist, FRAY Studio

Additional press coverage:
PAPER Magazine, 303 Magazine, Shameless SF, Stage Right Secrets.

Credits
Client: Glass Animals
Production, Set & Lighting Design: Cassius Creative
Video Design: FRAY Studio
Lighting Director: Alex Noel
Video Programming & Operating: Ed White
Camera Director: Ed Coleman
Production Manager: Simon Lutkin
Tour Manager: Tom Allen
Stage Manager: Dora Gaskill
Management: September
Design & Content Creation: Finn Ross, Adam Young, Letty Fox, Hanna Schrage, Norvydas Genys, Kira O’Brien, Grace Arnott-Hayes, Olly Venning, Rafael Vartanian, Charlie Smith, Dan Denton & Chris Homer

Live Camera Treatments: Kira O’Brien
Studio Producer: Georgia Young
Disguise Programming: Ed White
Set Fabrication: Ox Event House
Scenic LED: LED Creative
Staging: All Access Staging
Lasers: ER Lasers
Lighting & Video (North America): Special Event Services
Lighting (Europe): Neg Earth
Video (Europe): 80six
Photography: Ed White & Evan Woodrum