U2 / 360 Tour Visuals – Michael Paul Young

In February of 2009 we got a call from Catherine Owens, the long time super creative director for the uber-famous band U2. Catherine came across our work and knew she found the team who could help with U2’s 2009 world tour (titled 360). After a quick stint of meetings in New York, we came back to the Bangkok studio and begin work for the following two months on numerous ideas. We began our development on the videos for the tracks Beautiful Day, Ultra Violet and The Unforgettable Fire. The first series of works involved filming small fish common in the canals of Bangkok for very fluid and dreamlike sequences. For the second series we explored mapping the films into a 3d space and further distorting them for an enhanced depth and perspective. Then for the last series of works we explored more solid colors, 2d and fast paced clips to stimulate lighting effects and screen energy during the performance. In the end we created over 100 different sequences, with over 300 total clips delivered in various formats, colors and speeds.

The concert opened in Barcelona on June 30, 2009 to a sold out crowd of 90,000 fans. The screen that displayed this work was designed by Willie Williams, Mark Fisher, Chuck Hoberman, and Frederic Opsomer. The screen was composed of 888 individual hexagonal panels that support 500,000 Barco LED pixels. It can transform from seven meters to 22 meters high and move up and down.