Donald – Red Mic Experience

Bad Weather was approached by Jazzworx and Donald to craft a one of a kind arena performance, now known as the “Red Mic Experience.”

Donald’s vision was to create the best DVD of the decade for the South African music market and so we began working towards that vision by designing the entire technical package.

We designed a “Red Mic” inspired glamour ramp, knowing that arial shots would be a key look for the DVD recording, giving director, Robin Kohl, bold and dramatic images to work with.

Donald’s performance is amazingly diverse and journeys from big opening moments to intimate love songs and back to big name dance collabs. We tackled this challenge by creating two extension ramps flanking the main platform to be able to feature guest artists, dancers and other performers. This lead to a very wide and visually dynamic experience while still feeling focused with the entire centre line dedicated to Donald and his performance.

We hand crafted all his video content and used that to previsualize the lighting experience in our studio, pre programming the entire show in 3D before moving into the venue for final run throughs. This gave us the freedom to focus entirely on rehearsals and tailoring fine details before going live.

Using a Bad Weather media server package, as well as lighting control systems, time code and multitrack audio playback, we were able to have complete control of the outcome and its success.

Client: Jazzworx