Tyler Childers’ Mule Pull ‘24 Tour

Supervoid, Voyage Productions, and Formation created a visual world inspired by Tyler Childers’ signature Appalachian psychedelia for the singer’s latest tour.

When beginning their work for Tyler Childers’ 2024 tour with Voyage Productions and Formation, Supervoid knew they’d want to incorporate Notch into a show already brimming with video effects. The singer’s large band of multi-instrumentalists, known as “The Food Stamps,” gave the creative team a never-ending stream of great material for the camera to catch.

With the added vision of Creative Director Emily Cox and Art Director Jamie Issuh, Supervoid used Notch to make the show look more visually deliberate and cohesive. They experimented with raw, lived-in textures and techniques, with hand-drawn and mixed-media animation moving at 12 frames per second taking the place of the futuristic 3D particles typical of an arena tour.

The Supervoid team used Notch’s Virtual Background feature to, at various points, eliminate the background to keep the focus on a given performer or apply different effects chains to performers and backgrounds. For added contrast, they often kept their backgrounds black-and-white while applying sepia-toned LUTs as well as glow and echo effects to performers.

With final texture overlays and colour grading bringing it all together, the creative team used the Disguise GX 3 as their media server. As Notch Designer and Animator Drew Mercadante recalled, “We found the limits fairly early on and optimised to ensure we could get a stable performance. With some creative remodelling, we were able to make it all play nice.”

The show was well-received by fans and the press, with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram proclaiming that “the communal future of country music is alive and well with Tyler Childers.”

“Notch’s node-based workflow and direct integration with our media server allowed us to tweak and optimise up to the very last second, which was crucial in getting our visuals to look exactly as intended.”

Drew Mercadante, Notch Designer & Animator, Supervoid

Additional press coverage:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, PLSN Magazine.

Credits
Creative Director: Emily Cox, Formation Creative 
Show Designer/Director/Lighting Designer: Kyle Kegan, Voyage Productions Inc. 
Art Director: Jamie Lew
Voyage Producer: Chaz Hamman
Lighting Director: Jack Davis
Lighting Programmer: Devon Brown 
Content Producer: Ryan Smith 

Notch Design: Drew Mercadante
Disguise Programmer: Larry Barnes
Animators: Nick Schoener, Marco Cardenas, Karl Fekete, Drew Mercadante & Matt Keppler Video Director: Jon Hurley
Content and Screens Director: Adam Skapple
Video Engineer: Joel Harrison 
LED Techs/Camera Operators: Cory Mascari, Nate Parris & Brian Roberts