Erasure4rum Asks Stephano Barberis
Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2023 5:24 am
Erasure4rum Asks Stephano Barberis
Part 1-The Neon Tour Visuals
1. Erasure tour visuals-a dream come true? How did it feel to get this job?
It felt like I was having a dream. I remember working all night on a project and then about to go to bed. I saw an email come in from Mute and after I read it, I almost couldn't believe it. A strong euphoric rush overtook me.
2. This is a chicken & the egg question,what came first the tour visuals job or the video for Time (Hearts Full Of Love)? Or maybe it was a complete package job with two parts from the beginning.
The tour visuals came first and then the video materialised after that. Thankfully, Richard contacted me about the video in the middle of the tour project happening, seeing as I was already working with so much footage that we were shooting for the band. It just felt like a right fit.
3. Tell us about the brief/concept of the Neon Tour,and did the final visuals deviate at all from that initial brief?
The tour's production designer had come up with the stage setup and the themes for each segment of the show. I was given about six themes to create visuals for with a few songs in each theme. Within that, I came up with my take on those themes and I leveraged that with my love and in-depth knowledge for the band and their work and heritage. We rented out a massive warehouse, hung large sheets from the ceiling in a patchwork, and projected images that I was designing onto the sheets blowing in wind, then captured those images on cameras. After that, we added effects to the footage of the footage - basically, it was a multi-dimensional project, constantly reaching inwards so that it had a bit of an otherworldly feel to it.
I wanted the oval to be a "living event" that wasn't a finite wall. I wanted people to feel they could reach into it like a portal so that it gave the show another dimension as opposed to a hard wall or simply a flat video panel. I also was very conscious of every single Vince bleep and plonk, so I would inject visuals or light at those exact moments. It was a love-letter to fans and the band. I realise that when you're at an Erasure show, you're not looking around as much as you are at the band, so they also had some basic visual vibes going on that were big enough to not need to constantly look at them to get the idea of each song and segment's narrative.
4. The full stage set looked absolutely amazing,with all the Neon (shock didn’t see that coming) plus the single main screen,if you went to an arena gig you got the full 3 screen set up,the visuals looked amazing how pleased were you with the video footage you saw appear on YouTube etc after the initial gigs got underway?
I literally covered my mouth in shock when I was being sent the initial video footage of the stage tests before the first shows. It was unreal. I didn't quite feel how large a scale this was going to be until I saw the footage being sent to me from the tour manager's phone.
5. It was unusual that we didn’t see a version of Time (Hearts Full Of Love) that you had worked on,it was at the time of the live shows out as an EP release,did you think that was odd too?
I think when the tour idea was created, that song wasn't in existence or at least it wasn't planned as a single maybe? When a band has such a massive catalogue, the new songs need to be designated as important future singles to make it into a tour. I absolutely love that song, it being my favourite song from the Neon era by a mile. I did employ the same tour theme of projections with that video. I think it would have been a great graphic backdrop with what we shot.
6. For the eagle eyed fans at the early gigs would have noticed that for some reason the original Blue Savannah video was changed to an alternate one,why was this?
The "Blue Savannah" graphics were the only graphics that didn't go with the theme of everything else. I wanted to make a shot-for-shot recreation of the original "Blue Savannah" music video from 1989. We purposely left that as the last thing to shoot because we used a crane to descend into the warehouse we shot the project in, used my cinematographer's hand painted in blue painting various props we used, putting gold angels on them, etc. Having said that, I would also have chats with Andy after shows sometimes and even though the fans seemed to love that hand video, Andy felt that maybe it detracted from the show's theme. So I quickly rushed down to my basement studio and put together a new visual for that song (I always want everyone completely happy). I completed it in one night, sent it to Andy (who loved it), then sent the footage to my production guy who converted it into their tour system's file format, then it was in the very next show. Andy was so complimentary of all the graphics - my head was going to explode.
7. Were there any videos that were made that never actually made the gigs?,we know New Horizons was played but was dropped from the live set very early in the tour.
Yes, there were a couple gorgeous ones that were pulled last minute. One had a great spiralling cloud vortex feel that you kept flying into and it slowly changed colour (see below).
The Joe 90 theme was also shortened considerably later in the tour.
8. The Erasure4rum is 100% behind you doing another video for Erasure,or maybe Andy’s solo work,would this be something you would like to do? I’m sure your creative mind has a whole host of ideas floating around ready to roll(stupid question I know)
One zillion percent "yes" (with chicken on top). I am always flooded with ideas for Erasure and their music. Even their album and photography themes.
9. What’s the legacy after this tour,have you been offered more jobs in a similar vein?
Strangely, the 50 Cent people were also interested but I think that tour ended up not happening.
10. What does the future hold for Stephano Barberis?
I'm basically directing and making music. Rinse repeat. Ad infinitum.
The new Breathe Of Amy Leaves album The Radiant Believers is out now,read the E4M review here-
viewtopic.php?t=1356
Erasure4rum Asks Stephano Barberis
Part 2-Time (Hearts Full Of Love)
1. Erasure fans had been backing you for years before this single came out for you to do a video for the band. How did this video job come about,and how did you feel about finally being offered this job?
Since I was already waist deep in shooting footage for the tour, Richard felt that I'd be the right one for the video job as well. Even though I was extremely tired, I was ecstatic. The projects (gratefully) took over five months of me either shooting or living in my basement studio day and night.
2. What was the nature of the brief for this job,were you given a theme or did they entrust you to come up with a vision for the final video?
Excitingly, I was given absolutely no brief (as per usual with music videos) so I had free reign.
The only thing I could not have was the band as they were busy and unavailable for a music video shoot. So I came up with an idea to bring the band into the video via footage they would send me that I converted into retro hologram visuals. Also, I was adamant that Vince be included as well.
3. How did the filming of the video shoot go?,were there any problems or obstacles to overcome or was it a straight forward shoot?
We shot the video the week we ended the tour project. That massive projector we used for the tour projections we projected onto the massive wall of sheet was stuffed in the back of a massive truck. We shot footage of Andy and Vince I received from them (and I turned into holograms) against an unsuspecting city in the wee hours of the morning. Illegal haha. I sat in the back of the truck next to this massive projector that was shooting out the side of the truck at streets that I scouted earlier that week at around 2AM for lack of traffic and passage ease for a truck that large. We also shot at a very old school, underground parkade and dilapidated warehouse district with crew all over the place rushing to make this all work within night hours (as projections wouldn't be visible in the day).
Oddly, sitting uncomfortably in the back of that truck brought me back to when I was a teenager and I had purchased The Innocents. I was listening to it in the back of a flower truck that my best friend worked for delivering flowers, surrounded by a wall of flowers around me, crying tears of joy at the music. It was the first time I heard Erasure.
This moment was one of the strangest re-occurrences ever in my life.
4. The fans were very complimentary about the finished video,it was very popular,this must’ve been a great feeling having direct contact with the fans via long standing fan groups/forums etc being a lifelong fan like yourself?
For me, I think I was more worried about the fans liking it than I was even Mute or the band! They all loved it, but when I started reading fan reactions, my heart was exploding.
5. Did you have much contact with Andy & Vince during the process & did you get any direct feedback for the finished product?
Yes. Mute and Andy were who I was communicating with and it was so beautifully smooth. They loved it. I believe it was approved on the first edit or so. The entire project was so rewarding, placed within the realm of officially working with my fave band since childhood. It was a dream with a gleaming crown rising over it.
A bonus extra,Stephano’s 6th Show Reel,over 25 years of video making & Award winning excellence,plus you may or may not glimpse some Erasure.
Part 1-The Neon Tour Visuals
1. Erasure tour visuals-a dream come true? How did it feel to get this job?
It felt like I was having a dream. I remember working all night on a project and then about to go to bed. I saw an email come in from Mute and after I read it, I almost couldn't believe it. A strong euphoric rush overtook me.
2. This is a chicken & the egg question,what came first the tour visuals job or the video for Time (Hearts Full Of Love)? Or maybe it was a complete package job with two parts from the beginning.
The tour visuals came first and then the video materialised after that. Thankfully, Richard contacted me about the video in the middle of the tour project happening, seeing as I was already working with so much footage that we were shooting for the band. It just felt like a right fit.
3. Tell us about the brief/concept of the Neon Tour,and did the final visuals deviate at all from that initial brief?
The tour's production designer had come up with the stage setup and the themes for each segment of the show. I was given about six themes to create visuals for with a few songs in each theme. Within that, I came up with my take on those themes and I leveraged that with my love and in-depth knowledge for the band and their work and heritage. We rented out a massive warehouse, hung large sheets from the ceiling in a patchwork, and projected images that I was designing onto the sheets blowing in wind, then captured those images on cameras. After that, we added effects to the footage of the footage - basically, it was a multi-dimensional project, constantly reaching inwards so that it had a bit of an otherworldly feel to it.
I wanted the oval to be a "living event" that wasn't a finite wall. I wanted people to feel they could reach into it like a portal so that it gave the show another dimension as opposed to a hard wall or simply a flat video panel. I also was very conscious of every single Vince bleep and plonk, so I would inject visuals or light at those exact moments. It was a love-letter to fans and the band. I realise that when you're at an Erasure show, you're not looking around as much as you are at the band, so they also had some basic visual vibes going on that were big enough to not need to constantly look at them to get the idea of each song and segment's narrative.
4. The full stage set looked absolutely amazing,with all the Neon (shock didn’t see that coming) plus the single main screen,if you went to an arena gig you got the full 3 screen set up,the visuals looked amazing how pleased were you with the video footage you saw appear on YouTube etc after the initial gigs got underway?
I literally covered my mouth in shock when I was being sent the initial video footage of the stage tests before the first shows. It was unreal. I didn't quite feel how large a scale this was going to be until I saw the footage being sent to me from the tour manager's phone.
5. It was unusual that we didn’t see a version of Time (Hearts Full Of Love) that you had worked on,it was at the time of the live shows out as an EP release,did you think that was odd too?
I think when the tour idea was created, that song wasn't in existence or at least it wasn't planned as a single maybe? When a band has such a massive catalogue, the new songs need to be designated as important future singles to make it into a tour. I absolutely love that song, it being my favourite song from the Neon era by a mile. I did employ the same tour theme of projections with that video. I think it would have been a great graphic backdrop with what we shot.
6. For the eagle eyed fans at the early gigs would have noticed that for some reason the original Blue Savannah video was changed to an alternate one,why was this?
The "Blue Savannah" graphics were the only graphics that didn't go with the theme of everything else. I wanted to make a shot-for-shot recreation of the original "Blue Savannah" music video from 1989. We purposely left that as the last thing to shoot because we used a crane to descend into the warehouse we shot the project in, used my cinematographer's hand painted in blue painting various props we used, putting gold angels on them, etc. Having said that, I would also have chats with Andy after shows sometimes and even though the fans seemed to love that hand video, Andy felt that maybe it detracted from the show's theme. So I quickly rushed down to my basement studio and put together a new visual for that song (I always want everyone completely happy). I completed it in one night, sent it to Andy (who loved it), then sent the footage to my production guy who converted it into their tour system's file format, then it was in the very next show. Andy was so complimentary of all the graphics - my head was going to explode.
7. Were there any videos that were made that never actually made the gigs?,we know New Horizons was played but was dropped from the live set very early in the tour.
Yes, there were a couple gorgeous ones that were pulled last minute. One had a great spiralling cloud vortex feel that you kept flying into and it slowly changed colour (see below).
The Joe 90 theme was also shortened considerably later in the tour.
8. The Erasure4rum is 100% behind you doing another video for Erasure,or maybe Andy’s solo work,would this be something you would like to do? I’m sure your creative mind has a whole host of ideas floating around ready to roll(stupid question I know)
One zillion percent "yes" (with chicken on top). I am always flooded with ideas for Erasure and their music. Even their album and photography themes.
9. What’s the legacy after this tour,have you been offered more jobs in a similar vein?
Strangely, the 50 Cent people were also interested but I think that tour ended up not happening.
10. What does the future hold for Stephano Barberis?
I'm basically directing and making music. Rinse repeat. Ad infinitum.
The new Breathe Of Amy Leaves album The Radiant Believers is out now,read the E4M review here-
viewtopic.php?t=1356
Erasure4rum Asks Stephano Barberis
Part 2-Time (Hearts Full Of Love)
1. Erasure fans had been backing you for years before this single came out for you to do a video for the band. How did this video job come about,and how did you feel about finally being offered this job?
Since I was already waist deep in shooting footage for the tour, Richard felt that I'd be the right one for the video job as well. Even though I was extremely tired, I was ecstatic. The projects (gratefully) took over five months of me either shooting or living in my basement studio day and night.
2. What was the nature of the brief for this job,were you given a theme or did they entrust you to come up with a vision for the final video?
Excitingly, I was given absolutely no brief (as per usual with music videos) so I had free reign.
The only thing I could not have was the band as they were busy and unavailable for a music video shoot. So I came up with an idea to bring the band into the video via footage they would send me that I converted into retro hologram visuals. Also, I was adamant that Vince be included as well.
3. How did the filming of the video shoot go?,were there any problems or obstacles to overcome or was it a straight forward shoot?
We shot the video the week we ended the tour project. That massive projector we used for the tour projections we projected onto the massive wall of sheet was stuffed in the back of a massive truck. We shot footage of Andy and Vince I received from them (and I turned into holograms) against an unsuspecting city in the wee hours of the morning. Illegal haha. I sat in the back of the truck next to this massive projector that was shooting out the side of the truck at streets that I scouted earlier that week at around 2AM for lack of traffic and passage ease for a truck that large. We also shot at a very old school, underground parkade and dilapidated warehouse district with crew all over the place rushing to make this all work within night hours (as projections wouldn't be visible in the day).
Oddly, sitting uncomfortably in the back of that truck brought me back to when I was a teenager and I had purchased The Innocents. I was listening to it in the back of a flower truck that my best friend worked for delivering flowers, surrounded by a wall of flowers around me, crying tears of joy at the music. It was the first time I heard Erasure.
This moment was one of the strangest re-occurrences ever in my life.
4. The fans were very complimentary about the finished video,it was very popular,this must’ve been a great feeling having direct contact with the fans via long standing fan groups/forums etc being a lifelong fan like yourself?
For me, I think I was more worried about the fans liking it than I was even Mute or the band! They all loved it, but when I started reading fan reactions, my heart was exploding.
5. Did you have much contact with Andy & Vince during the process & did you get any direct feedback for the finished product?
Yes. Mute and Andy were who I was communicating with and it was so beautifully smooth. They loved it. I believe it was approved on the first edit or so. The entire project was so rewarding, placed within the realm of officially working with my fave band since childhood. It was a dream with a gleaming crown rising over it.
A bonus extra,Stephano’s 6th Show Reel,over 25 years of video making & Award winning excellence,plus you may or may not glimpse some Erasure.
