Danny Elfman at Coachella 2022

Electronic Countermeasures produced Danny Elfman’s Coachella set, combining works to showcase the three faces of Elfman in 2022: Film Scoring, Oingo Boingo, and Big Mess.

Due to the covid pandemic postponements, Black Ink Presents found themselves with film clips and screen content made in 2020, disjointed against the new songs created throughout 2021 that didn’t have anything slated for them. To collate content for a complete and consistent look, Electronic Countermeasures pitched a Notch workflow to fill the gaps. 

With a focus on IMAG and video content combined for the stage design, Notch was used to bring coherence between the already existing content and turn the video effects (IMAG) into engaging content across all three screens for the new tracks.

To achieve this goal, the team designed animation from the beginning to be layered and integrated with live video. Spider-Man was a celebration of the orchestra, using silhouettes of individual instrumentalists playing the arrangement woven together with the live shots. LUTs and subtle reveals using alpha overlays made the pre-shot video feel as if it were live, but an effect that would have been impossible to achieve in the moment.

For songs such as Only a Lad by Oingo Boingo with no video content, the Notch Block was essential in creating the visual landscape and musically motivated changes. The goal was to create a look for each song that picked out the most fundamental vision of the content, tying in the IMAG’s look to match. 

“This kind of show couldn’t have been done without Notch. The ability to composite and manipulate footage so precisely in real-time is a game-changer for us. This was a complex show going into a festival environment; we knew coming into it that we wouldn’t have enough tech time or rehearsal time with cameras and lighting.”

“With that in mind, a carefully designed and documented Notch block can give you a lot of flexibility to deal with changing conditions quickly, like the ability to expose parameters to the timeline and do detailed keyframing and fine-tuning during rehearsals. This, in turn, allowed us to divide the work of adding musicality to the looks between us and to make quick adjustments onsite.”

Kerstin Hovland, Co-Founder, Electronic Countermeasures

Additional press coverage:
Independent, GIZMODO, NME, Deadline.

Credits
Client: Danny Elfman
Production Company: Black Ink Presents
Notch Designer: Kerstin Hovland
disguise Programmer: Emery Martin
Video Director (Just Another Day and Spider-Man): Emery Martin
Video Producers: Selena Moshell

Lighting Designer: Rob Koenig
Screen Producer: Kerstin Hovland
Animators (Just Another Day and Spider-Man): Kerstin Hovland, Emery Martin, Melody Yenn