Royal Blood in Exclusive Live Return for Samsung Galaxy S8 Launch Show in London

Samsung has collaborated with Royal Blood on an innovative and visually insane 360 4K live stream in London, taking over an abandoned concrete theatre underneath Islington Green.

The exclusive showcase was the first time the Brighton duo played songs from their new album, How Did We Get So Dark?

Not only did the band make dreams come true for around 400 competition winning fans – but they performed a first live stream in 360 4K as part of a facebook/youtube/periscope takeover, all from a specially created stage featuring LED floor, light projections and mirrored ceilings to give a sense of ‘infinity space’, in line with the new S8’s infinity screen. For the thousands watching online, they would experience the gig from the centre of the stage – as a third member of the band.

So far, there have been over 7M views of the event on Facebook, check out the awesome comments!

Samsung’s creative agency iris commissioned live music multi camera Director, Sam Wrench to creatively direct the show and execute the live stream elements through creative & production services company &SON STUDIO.

Wrench said; “Myself and the iris team wanted to create a modern structure that juxtaposed the rawness of this incredible hidden venue, we explored infinity mirrors and reflection used in art installations with a view to bringing some of that mystery into a live music setting whilst nodding to the infinity screen on the new phone and creating something that evolved and transformed; tricking and exciting the viewer through this immersive new medium’

Wrench worked alongside show design studio Bryte Design, a regular collaborator on gigs such as Vevo Presents – The Weeknd & Vevo Presents – Ariana Grande. Together they conceived a 10m diameter circular video floor wrapped in a custom 30m single projection gauze. Above the stage 4 separate mirrored rings moved on individual motors to distort the field of view and create a sense of infinity. Custom made content was projected from 13 projectors positioned around the venue and designed to trick the perspective of the audience and the camera inside. The giant structure weighed 10 tons and was loaded in using 6 x 26tonne trucks through a custom built lift in the abandoned shaft.

Surrey based Focal Point VR supplied the 360 and live streaming infrastructure utilising their innovative and exclusive software Ubiety to live stitch the 3 BlackMagic Studio Cameras in each of the two rigs. An additional 360 POV to be made available on the Samsung VR store was mounted to a moving track that captured a wide of the space and crowd. Jonathan Newth, CEO of Focal Point VR said, “It was great to capture a live 360 stream from a set that was specifically designed for VR; the vast dynamic range and completely immersive nature of
the lighting provided a real challenge to deliver at the highest quality but the results were superb. Seeing it live on YouTube, Facebook and Periscope simultaneously really brought to life the breadth and quality this medium can have on events”

Streaming in 360 4k was technically demanding, not least because the venue has no power, phone signal or internet, &SON STUDIO producer Simon Fisher said “Our biggest challenge was combining the tech with the infrastructure of the venue. We in theory re built 2 traditional Outside Broadcast trucks inside the venue with 5 rows of control housing the heads of each department each monitoring via headset – our internet came from a satellite rigged on a neighbours roof”