Enei, 150 metres above Lower Austria.
For the first edition of Blckshift Showcase we took Enei onto the roof of a wind turbine nacelle in Hohenruppersdorf. No audience on the roof, and no set if the wind was too strong. Instead, a sunset set we shared live with our community.
© Alex Holzapfel
At a Glance
Format
Location
Height
Production day
The wind gave the go.
The idea was clear. The schedule wasn't, for a long time. On the roof of a wind turbine nacelle, wind, safety and the space available decide everything.
Three days blocked. Decided two days out.
Artist, crew and equipment were blocked for three days. The final go still came only two days before the shoot. The wind forecast decided it: work on the nacelle was only safe within a defined wind speed.
Safety was part of the production.
Before anything went up, everyone went through a safety briefing. RTS Wind was on site with four Level 3 rope access technicians and was responsible for securing people and equipment, the load capacity of the nacelle roof and how many people were allowed on it. On the roof, two untrained people worked alongside four trained specialists.
Not up by lift.
Heavy items like subwoofers, the table top and audio equipment went up by the crane at the rear of the nacelle. Slowly, under control, always watching the wind. ProPerformance built the system together with RTS Wind before our camera and lighting gear followed.
No audience on the roof. Still right in the middle of it.
Community is normally part of our sessions. At 150 metres that wasn't an option for safety reasons. So from late morning we ran an Instagram livestream. It showed the final set and, before that, the journey, the build and the people behind it.
From Vienna to the nacelle and back.
A production day between safety briefing, crane work, sunset and a night-time teardown.
Briefing & sign-off
We left Vienna at 09:00 and reached the turbine at 10:00. Introductions and briefing, then the safety training: helmets, personal protective equipment, rules for the roof and a procedure with no shortcuts.
The way up
While the equipment went up by crane, Konstantin and Wolfgang from ProPerformance started the build together with RTS Wind. Only once audio and the DJ setup were in place did camera, lighting and recording follow.
Setup before sunset
In the afternoon we carried the RED Komodo, RED Komodo-X, our Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and the rest of the camera gear up. Down below, artist care was running while the FPV pilot prepared the flight.
Set, blue hour, teardown
Enei started at 19:15. After sunset we released the rotor lock and turned the nacelle into the wind so the blades would slowly start turning in the shot. By midnight all equipment was back down, and around one we were back in Vienna.
Gear that had to fit in.
DJ setup
- 4 × Pioneer DJ CDJ-2000NXS2
- 1 × Pioneer DJ DJM-900NXS2, 4-channel mixer
- Custom DJ table, built to the exact width of the nacelle roof
- 3D-printed sun covers for the CDJs, with Blckshift logo
Audio
- Alcons GB181 subwoofer
- Alcons GR20/80 tops
- Alcons WR20 stage monitor
- Alcons Director6 amp/controller
Camera
- RED Komodo
- RED Komodo-X
- Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
- DZOFilm PL zoom lenses
- FPV drone
The table was built for this roof. Four CDJs, the mixer, cable runs and all the gear had to work safely on a surface with not a centimetre to spare.
Frames from 150 metres.
Arrival, build, the set and the hour after sunset.
Photos: Alex Holtzapfel
The edit only started once everything was back down.
After the shoot the footage went back to our office in Vienna. The FPV footage had no timecode sync, so we lined up picture and music by hand. Editing and sync happened in-house, colour grading in DaVinci Resolve in our grading studio. The picture side of the video production stayed entirely with us.
For social, our sound design partner mastered and adjusted the recording once more. We built the intro in Remotion: an animated interior of the nacelle with sound design, effects and several exported layers. The room itself was generated by an image model (Flux); nothing was filmed there. In DaVinci we balanced the layers one by one so animation, footage and grade belong together.
The final cut went to Enei and the label first, then to every crew involved. Sign-off came back without changes.
The set ended up top. Online it was just getting started.
Livestream, reels and reporting were all ours, as social media management for our own channel. The reels ran as collabs with Outback Festival and ProPerformance, without ad spend.
views of one reel from the production day
measured on our own site
accounts reached by the same reel
measured on our own site
published a post about the production on its own initiative
release confirmed as a collaboration
No set without these partners.
- BLOCH3
- Project partner. Made the production at the wind turbine possible.
- ProPerformance × Alcons Audio
- Sound and acoustics, supply and setup of the audio system.
- Outback Festival
- Logistics, artist management and artist care, including the airport transfer and looking after Enei.
- RTS Wind
- Safety plan, Level 3 rope access, securing crew and equipment, sign-off for work on the nacelle.
- Blckshift
- Creative concept, artist research and booking coordination, overall production, livestream, camera, lighting, post-production and release.
Video, photos and social media came out of one production here. That's how we work for clients too, as a creative agency in Vienna.
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