This Sunday night when HDNet premieres “Vertigo//2005 Live: U2 Live from Chicago” it will be anything but live, but a lot of work has gone into place behind the scenes to give you the ultimate U2 experience.
This concert taped in Chicago last year on May 9th and 10th before two sold out audiences in Chicago and features all of U2’s greatest hits. U2’s front man Bono along with band mates The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen, Gavin Friday and Larry Mullin Jr. work their magic on the stage and give a flawless performance. But a lot of work went on behind the scenes to give you one of the best seats in the house! Thanks to HDNet SatelliteGuys.US is proud to give you a look behind the scenes of what it took to put this massive concert together.
As we mentioned earlier the concert was taped over 2 days, each concert was shot using 17 Sony 1080i cameras at a frame rate of 23.97 frames per second. At the second show they moved some of the cameras to new locations giving them a total of 26 camera locations to choose from.
The concert video was produced by Ned O’Hanlon who was no stranger to working with U2 and is credited for many other U2 productions dating all the way back to U2’s highly successful Rattle and Hum.
The video production was directed by Hamish Hamilton. Like Mr. O’Hanlon, Mr. Hamilton has also done lots of work with U2 in the past. Some of Hamish Hamilton’s other work includes being the executive producer of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, that lucky guy!
According to Ned O’Hanlon, in previous U2 tours there was a huge emphasis on giant video screens, mirrorball lemons, Trabants on cranes as elements of the production. This tour is much smaller and concentrates much more on the most important element - the band¹s performance. As such, lighting was a critical element of this production. Not just to illuminate the band but also to be a significant part of creating atmosphere for the performance. It¹s lighting as art.
In order to capture this art on tape they brought in Allen Branton, who is a long time collaborator with U2 in filming their live shows. Allen has a vast understanding of the importance of lighting as an art and how to bring that feeling to the television screen. Allen Branton spent a lot of time with U2 Show Director Willie Williams and Lighting Director Bruce Ramos to make the live show look exactly as it should on the HD screen. The cost of making this happen was the most expensive element in the filming budget.
Branton along with Hamish attended about 10 U2 shows before the shoot so they could plan out how everything was going to look.
According to show producer Ned O’Hanlon “We decided to shoot at a frame-rate of 23.97, which is a little unusual, but is the best rate to shoot at if, in the future, we wanted to transfer the project to film.”
Also another unusual item for this project was how to record the audio as they did not use a separate audio recording truck. According to O’ Hanlon “Typically, when filming concerts, we would bring one in so we can record each channel separately to allow for mixing in post-production. U2 have, as part of this tour, their own recording setup which does this exact job.”
According to O’ Hanlon “Advances in technology and particularly in media storage make this feasible now where, before, the tape costs and sheer bulk and weight of tapes precluded this. This now means that the band now have the best possible audio archive of this tour...”
Once the show was all filmed it was edited by three separate editors (Guy Harding, Tim Qualtrough and Tim Woolcott) in three separate locations. (New York, Los Angeles and Dublin) Each of the editors had their own styles and backgrounds which injected a greater dynamic in the overall presentation.
(SatelliteGuys Tip) If you watch carefully you might even be able to tell which scenes were shot on May 9th and which scenes were shot on May 10th. If you see people holding up signs in the audience then it’s May 10th which was Bono’s 45th Birthday. The signs you see are actually signs wishing Bono a happy birthday!
The full show was 2 hours and 15 minutes long, however the HDNet broadcast is only 90 minutes long. For the production crew is was hard to decide what to keep in and what to take out because it was all so good. The finished production includes U2 classic “New Years Day”, “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “Mysterious Ways” all the way up to “City of Blinding Lights” and “Vertigo”
This HDNet concert event premiers this Sunday at 9PM Eastern Time on HDNet, additional replays can be seen on Monday at 12AM and again on Monday at 5PM (All time eastern)
For additional replay times and dates please visit the HDNet website at http://www.hd.net/U2
For those of you U2 fans who want more you can purchase an expanded version of this concert (although unfortunately it’s not in HD) on DVD from Amazon.COM
Our thanks to everyone at HDNet for making this possible especially Mark Cuban and Lucia McCalmont and also a big thank you goes to Ned O’Hanlon for giving our SatelliteGuys members a look behind the scenes of Vertigo//2005 U2 Live from Chicago.
This concert taped in Chicago last year on May 9th and 10th before two sold out audiences in Chicago and features all of U2’s greatest hits. U2’s front man Bono along with band mates The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen, Gavin Friday and Larry Mullin Jr. work their magic on the stage and give a flawless performance. But a lot of work went on behind the scenes to give you one of the best seats in the house! Thanks to HDNet SatelliteGuys.US is proud to give you a look behind the scenes of what it took to put this massive concert together.
As we mentioned earlier the concert was taped over 2 days, each concert was shot using 17 Sony 1080i cameras at a frame rate of 23.97 frames per second. At the second show they moved some of the cameras to new locations giving them a total of 26 camera locations to choose from.
The concert video was produced by Ned O’Hanlon who was no stranger to working with U2 and is credited for many other U2 productions dating all the way back to U2’s highly successful Rattle and Hum.
The video production was directed by Hamish Hamilton. Like Mr. O’Hanlon, Mr. Hamilton has also done lots of work with U2 in the past. Some of Hamish Hamilton’s other work includes being the executive producer of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, that lucky guy!
According to Ned O’Hanlon, in previous U2 tours there was a huge emphasis on giant video screens, mirrorball lemons, Trabants on cranes as elements of the production. This tour is much smaller and concentrates much more on the most important element - the band¹s performance. As such, lighting was a critical element of this production. Not just to illuminate the band but also to be a significant part of creating atmosphere for the performance. It¹s lighting as art.
In order to capture this art on tape they brought in Allen Branton, who is a long time collaborator with U2 in filming their live shows. Allen has a vast understanding of the importance of lighting as an art and how to bring that feeling to the television screen. Allen Branton spent a lot of time with U2 Show Director Willie Williams and Lighting Director Bruce Ramos to make the live show look exactly as it should on the HD screen. The cost of making this happen was the most expensive element in the filming budget.
Branton along with Hamish attended about 10 U2 shows before the shoot so they could plan out how everything was going to look.
According to show producer Ned O’Hanlon “We decided to shoot at a frame-rate of 23.97, which is a little unusual, but is the best rate to shoot at if, in the future, we wanted to transfer the project to film.”
Also another unusual item for this project was how to record the audio as they did not use a separate audio recording truck. According to O’ Hanlon “Typically, when filming concerts, we would bring one in so we can record each channel separately to allow for mixing in post-production. U2 have, as part of this tour, their own recording setup which does this exact job.”
According to O’ Hanlon “Advances in technology and particularly in media storage make this feasible now where, before, the tape costs and sheer bulk and weight of tapes precluded this. This now means that the band now have the best possible audio archive of this tour...”
Once the show was all filmed it was edited by three separate editors (Guy Harding, Tim Qualtrough and Tim Woolcott) in three separate locations. (New York, Los Angeles and Dublin) Each of the editors had their own styles and backgrounds which injected a greater dynamic in the overall presentation.
(SatelliteGuys Tip) If you watch carefully you might even be able to tell which scenes were shot on May 9th and which scenes were shot on May 10th. If you see people holding up signs in the audience then it’s May 10th which was Bono’s 45th Birthday. The signs you see are actually signs wishing Bono a happy birthday!
The full show was 2 hours and 15 minutes long, however the HDNet broadcast is only 90 minutes long. For the production crew is was hard to decide what to keep in and what to take out because it was all so good. The finished production includes U2 classic “New Years Day”, “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “Mysterious Ways” all the way up to “City of Blinding Lights” and “Vertigo”
This HDNet concert event premiers this Sunday at 9PM Eastern Time on HDNet, additional replays can be seen on Monday at 12AM and again on Monday at 5PM (All time eastern)
For additional replay times and dates please visit the HDNet website at http://www.hd.net/U2
For those of you U2 fans who want more you can purchase an expanded version of this concert (although unfortunately it’s not in HD) on DVD from Amazon.COM
Our thanks to everyone at HDNet for making this possible especially Mark Cuban and Lucia McCalmont and also a big thank you goes to Ned O’Hanlon for giving our SatelliteGuys members a look behind the scenes of Vertigo//2005 U2 Live from Chicago.
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