Joji

Overview for Joji:

FRAY Studio teamed up with production and lighting designers Cassius to design the video for Joji’s Solaris 2026 Tour. A large scale, unique, video-led stage design, with offset portals created a challenging but exciting surface to work with. The stage design itself created depth onstage, moving away from the conventional upstage LED wall sitting behind the artist; here the artist is captured and contained within the stage in a sense, transporting them to another world with the audience witnessing through a window. The vast stage is made up of 4 LED walls in different variations. The front curved LED wall with a centre cut out has a resolution over 4000 pixels wide, followed by two more as you travel upstage. The scale of each slightly reduces down to a final fourth LED wall made up of ROE vanish, providing the central fill of the canvas. This vast amount of surfaces and pixels provided animation challenges, one being how to exaggerate the depth of the screens and another how to create content where 50% of it is hidden by the screen in front. To allow for off centre viewing angles the screens were overlapping, this meant building content separately for 4 individual surfaces. The animation needed to remain cohesive across all screens as well as pushing beyond the traditional 2D x and y axis and into the depth of the surface. One way in which we did this was pushing beat driven effects over the four surfaces, creating tunnel like pulses moving up and down the stage. We used a vast array of softwares such as; Touch Designer , Notch , Unreal , Embergen and After Effects , to create over 30 looks. Ranging from bold strobing landscapes, eye balls that animate and follow the artist on stage and the incorporation of real time camera modulation in touch designer. The show was split into chapters, with skin walker intervals in between each section. These chapters are largely driven by the automation movement of the platform where Joji stands. This platform movement is reflected in the content in songs such as Will He, where it reaches its highest point and a surreal mirrored landscape tracks along with the movement. Whereas songs such as Blah Blah Blah and Like You Do, both create an under and over world feel with the platform acting as a ceiling above Joji. These two camera-driven Touch Designer songs are split along a horizon line created by the platform, allowing for the stage to be pulled low and create a more intimate moment in the middle of the set. The platform movement also allowed for beautiful collaboration of departments, with video and laser effects dynamically working together during Die For You. This song includes moments of video and laser working in sync to draw on and off the content, all while perfectly framing the artist in the centre. Overall this show is a visual feast for the senses, with moments of pause, moments of drama and even some confetti.

Services provided: Real-Time Content, IMAG & Live Camera Effects, 2D Animation, Creative Direction, Video Design