An immersive, dance-based reimagining of the cult 1990s Matrix movie franchise, Free Your Mind: The Matrix was the focus of the opening of Manchester’s new cultural Aviva Studios space within Factory International. 

The brainchild of director Danny Boyle – who teamed up with choreographer Kenrick ‘H20’ Sandy, composer Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante of Boy Blue, designer Es Devlin and writer Sabrina Mahfouz – the vision behind the production inevitably pulled the UK’s most creative talent into its orbit. Sound design is by Gareth Fry, who specified TiMax SoundHub to handle the complex spatial audio requirements of The Warehouse where the event’s main action takes place.

The production moves from the smaller theatre space in Aviva Studios after the interval and significantly scales up into the aircraft hangar proportions of the 21m-high Warehouse. Set up in a traverse and promenade configuration, Fry explains, ‘In such a big space, with that audience-performer configuration, imaging is critical’.

While the role of TiMax in the performance is to guide the eyes of the audience to the next point in the action, TiMax provides extensive support to deal with what Fry describes as ‘the complexities of positioning sound in space as well as the complex delaying of multiple speaker systems’. ‘The distances of the stage extremes in comparison with the slow speed of sound really interfere with each other, especially when you have high-tempo, rhythmic music,’ he says.

Playback for the show is handled by QLab, which is fed into TiMax, along with the one handheld microphone used in the show. In turn, TiMax outputs to the multichannel distributed Warehouse loudspeaker configuration comprised of EM Acoustics loudspeakers and four Holoplot X1 arrays. EM Acoustics EMR12s are rigged within the structure of the 38m-wide LED Screen, firing down to provide great quality locational imaging on the stage area.

When the screen is flown up into the ceiling the Holoplot arrays take over, using their focused beams of sound to distribute certain musical stems from TiMax around the auditorium for a spatialised effect.

TiMax is a trusted tool for Fry who has relied upon the expert capabilities of TiMax for many of his high-profile projects: ‘I’ve used TiMax a lot on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and it sounds great. Beyond that, the software is a lot more mature than its competitors, which makes it faster to set up and easier to use to achieve complex results. It is very quick to programme and it took less than half-an-hour to delay the whole system and get it sounding good.’

This aspect of TiMax proved invaluable for the inaugural production of a building still undergoing construction. Against this backdrop, Fry also had praise for the sound team at Aviva, led by Sorcha Steele, and production engineer David Gregory, who says, ‘I can’t thank them enough for the skill and hard work put in by them and their teams to get the show not only up but sounding good.

‘Though not the reason for including TiMax in the specification, speed and ease of programming proved to be the aspect of using TiMax that I really came to appreciate, as construction delays began killing off a lot of our sound time,’ Fry adds.

Free Your Mind: Free Your Comms

The show’s complexity and the expectations of the creative team required an equivalently capable intercom infrastructure: ‘When you’re working with directors and creators on this level, they’re used to a certain standard,’ says Production Sound Engineer, David Gregory. ‘That standard applies to every element of production technology, including intercom, which, given the complexity of this production, needed to be expansive.’

Meeting the challenge, Clear-Com V-Series panels were paired with FreeSpeak II digital wireless system to expandi the venue’s existing system. ‘With the number of channels and FreeSpeak II, all we had to do was upscale the rig to accommodate everybody,’ Gregory says.

Sound design for the show was by Garreth Fry, whose work includes the V&A’s David Bowie is exhibition and the Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games. The intercom system he designed was implemented by Gregory and included an Eclipse HX-Delta matrix intercom system frame (with an E-IPA-HX card), FreeSpeak II digital wireless, and V-Series Iris user panels.

‘My job was purely to implement comms.’ Gregory expains, noted his previous work with both Boyle and Fry. ‘Danny came in with basically the same team that did the 2012 Olympics, and they have certain requirements.’

This take on The Matrix required intercom infrastructure more on the scale of a broadcast system than a standard performance set-up, including many user panels.

‘The theatre and corporate market is quite small here, and, at that moment, no one had any to spare,’ Gregory recalls. ‘That was when I contacted Clear-Com and asked for help. Brilliantly, [Clear-Com UK Sales Rep] Ben Turnwell helped us get enough V-Series so everyone who needed one could have a panel to ensure the show worked seamlessly.’

Comms for the show required the capabilities of the own venue’s Clear-Com system and a substantial expansion – a combination of fixed and temporary installations. ‘Because of the nature of the building and the venue design, this project was commissioned to use the flexibility of the space to its utmost,’ explains Anna Moutrey, Senior Producer at Factory International. ‘We’re effectively running two shows simultaneously, in two separate spaces in the same building – one in the hall space and one in our warehouse space, which is why we needed this massive system.’

With a combination of choreography by Kenrick H20 Sandy of Boy Blue and the comprehensive use of the venue’s entire space, Free Your Mind is a statement of intent. The show takes place in two spaces, with V-Series Panels spread throughout the venue to provide necessary inter-departmental communication. ‘The V-Series Panels are spread out because a lot of communication is necessary between departments’ says Production Manager Phil Wilding – among them lighting, video, sound, lasers, pyrotechnics, aerialists, costume and automation departments, all dealing with 50 dancers and 30 volunteers who manage the audience movement throughout the space during the show.

‘Normally, these will be separate venues, but in this case are being used in tandem for the show – and it’s a massive space,’ Gregory says. ‘If the audience is delayed, we need people that are in one space in the venue to be able to speak to the other venue.’

He explains that, while there is an extensive Wi-Fi network, they don’t want ‘issues’. ‘Using 1.9GHz allows us to get around where standard IT infrastructure sits.’

Gregory acknowledges Clear-Com’s responsiveness in sourcing and integrating the required elements, as well as its ongoing service and support as the system design evolved. In his words, ‘I phoned Clear-Com out of the blue, and they picked up. I didn’t know anyone there. I just said, “could I get someone to talk to me about helping get what we need?”, and within half an hour I got a response connecting me with Ben. Then, suddenly, there were options available.’

See also: 
David Bowie is – at the V&A