Interview: EPIC's director Mark Calvert

With just a few hours to go until the launch of one of dance music most ambitious DJ shows, we caught up with Marc Calvert, one of the directors at Immersive, the company who designed, built, and installed the EPIC show to find out more about the spectacle they’ve been working on for 18 months.

What was the biggest challenge you faced with the EPIC show?

The biggest challenge was to try and do something groundbreaking, because the show includes so many different disciplines. There’s not just one groundbreaking technology at play.

We’ve got rotational mapping - a system that we custom built - which allows us to move objects whilst continually mapping them with visuals. 

There’s an incredibly high resolution rear screen that runs on six HD projectors, and then of course, the hologram screen which runs on one HD projector.

Plus trying to get such a huge production into a one day load in is a big challenge. In fact that was probably one the hardest things about EPIC. Of course, we’ve been here since 2AM!

Company wise, is this the most ambitious or biggest show Immersive have done?

The thing that is most exciting for us as a company is that it involved all four directors for the first time. EPIC has the entire attention of the company - we created the content, built the rig, produced the show, and are doing the production. That’s a first for us.

By the time the music starts, it would have taken you 18 hours to install the EPIC stage. How long will it take to bring down?

Well, we’re hoping to have it done in about four hours. Usually putting a show up takes a lot longer than taking it down.

Can you tell us more about the visuals of the show?

They were all custom designed and created just for EPIC. John Munroe, our Creative Director, worked on the show’s conceptwith Eric himself. John’s a bit of a mad genius!

Eric originally came to us with the concept of ’The Man Made In Nature’, which we decided to juxtapose with ’How Nature Influences The Man Made’. That theme runs throughout the show.

How will the visuals be controlled?

Ralph Lambert, our VJ, will control the visuals using our custom Addict Show Control System controller. Eric’s music will also be triggering visuals in real-time, as it’s MIDI synced to the Addict system. It’s a pretty amazing piece of gear, certainly groundbreaking anyway. It has got a lot of people’s attention!