People often close their eyes when they hear a song they like, but that doesn't mean they don't see anything.
"Whenever you listen to music, you can usually visualize something. A song may remind you of a moment in time," explains music industry veteran Simon Edwards. "Even when you close your eyes, you still probably create a picture or remember an image of something."
Today, Edwards makes a living translating the mind's eye into visual reality. He and Deep Cove resident LeeAnne Evans founded an animation and stage production company called Visual Artform 18 months ago in North Vancouver, though they recently relocated their studio to New Westminster.
"In basic terms, what we do is we design audio-visual shows for a range of events," Edwards explains.
He recently returned from Indio, California where his company produced two shows for Norwegian DJ Kygo at the annual Coachella music and arts festival. In addition to live music performances, the company also does visual design for corporate functions, fashion shows - basically any event that calls for an audio-visual element.
Edwards has been in the music industry for 20 years. He has worked as a music producer in the U.K. and a resident DJ in Ibiza, Spain - a party mecca for fans of electronic dance music. As a DJ, he started producing the visual accompaniment for his own shows and was spotted by Taboo of hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas. "They saw what I was doing and they said, 'Look, we think it's amazing and we want to bring you on tour.'" So, on tour he went, for quite a few years, before eventually deciding to strike out on his own and start a business that could service more clients.
To date, Visual Artform has worked with the likes of Dutch EDM project Dash Berlin, American rock duo The Black Keys and British singer Estelle. Busy preparing for the summer festival circuit, the team has shows scheduled at the Paradiso Festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State, the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas and B.C.'s Shambhala. When it comes to creating an "immersive environment" for live performances, Edwards says the first step is to understand the music before diving into the graphics and animation.
"There's many people doing visuals at music concerts, but the visuals don't really connect with the music or the songs," Edwards says. "We really research the songs and the vibe. We listen to the lyrics and we really connect the visuals in a different way."
That often means working closely with the artists to gain a better insight into the mood of each song.
Visual Artform does a lot of "projection mapping," which involves the use of large-scale projectors to cast images and video onto buildings and surfaces. They also employ video jockeys (veejays) to performs live visual shows "on the fly" to accompany music.
"It's quite an intricate thing doing a live visual show. It's not like just putting a DVD player on and pressing play," Edwards says. "It's quite intense to make sure you get it right and there's obviously a lot of pressure that comes with that."
A few years ago, Edwards estimates it would have cost an artist upwards of $100,000 to use a giant LED screen as a stage backdrop. Today, he says, it's no more than $15,000. The drop in the price of technology has led many performers to ditch stage props, which can be cumbersome to move, in favour of graphics and animation.
"We can do literally insane things with the animations. It's such an eye-catching thing," Edwards says. "That visual element not only enhances the show, but also the opportunity to film and post on social media, so it's becoming a huge marketing tool."
Marketing aside, Edwards says his core mission is to capture the essence of a piece of music and tell a story. "We actually bring the music to life through visuals," he says.
