On nights when there are no live performances at Sphere Las Vegas, the venue’s Exosphere (a unique outdoor LED screen) will display “U2 Is Not Here.” However, five nights a week at the immersive venue, you can catch the best performances from U2’s:UV residency, which ran from September 2023 to March 2024, in concert film V-U2. Filmed on the Sphere’s proprietary Big Sky camera system, the concert film is just as amazing, if not more so, than the Irish band’s actual show.
Directed by U2’s The Edge and his wife, Maury Steinberg, V-U2 brings a number of firsts to the nearly year-old venue and its content production capabilities. Filmed over three nights of the band’s sold-out resident shows at Sphere, the film is part of a growing program of Sphere Experiences that run when the Las Vegas venue doesn’t have live resident shows or special events. Sphere Experiences also include Darren Aronofsky’s film Postcard from Earth.
“V-U2 was born out of conversations with the band about ‘how do we commemorate this moment’ of U2’s historic Sphere performance,” said Andrew Schulkind, senior vice president of photography at Sphere Studios, who served as the film’s cinematographer. “In 100 years of filmmaking, we’ve told stories through rectangular lenses. This is a different kind of storytelling. You can’t tell this story in a traditional way. You can chop it up, you can use wide-angle lenses, you can make your concert footage choppy, but you can’t recreate the experience at the Sphere.”
There may be nothing else but the technology that allows for a live spherical experience.
“By coincidence, we’ve been developing cameras to capture other content. [outside] “If you can tell a story about being inside a sulfur volcano or flying over Mont Blanc on a postcard, you can also tell a story about being inside a sphere,” Shulkind says. [during a concert] With our own technology?
When Shulkind was first approached to work for Sphere in 2018, the company was faced with the dilemma of creating images clear enough to show on a screen when commercially available cameras just weren’t good enough. After pursuing a variety of avenues, the Sphere team developed the Big Sky Camera in 2021. “The camera, the lenses, and all of its components are entirely in-house technology, with 10 patents under our belt,” Shulkind says. “No one else needs this level of incredible resolution. Coincidentally, it was this breakthrough technology that propelled our business forward.”
Big Sky’s technology first appeared on Aronofsky’s “Postcard from Earth,” capturing the images and video needed to span the Sphere’s 16K x 16K immersive display plane. It also features the largest single sensor commercially available, a 316-megapixel, 3″ x 3″ HDR image sensor, delivering 40 times the resolution of a 4K camera. Big Sky can capture content at up to 120 frames per second in 18K square format, or at faster frame rates in lower resolutions.
V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film Rich Fury/Sphere Entertainment
Using the same technology, producer Alan Maloney, U2, Sphere Studios and venues, the team worked together to film three nights of the 40-date performance (two in February and one in March) to create “V-U2,” the first film filmed entirely on Big Sky cameras.
Working on editing V-U2 over two months at the Sphere Studios Big Dome in Burbank, California, which was outfitted with a 1/25-scale replica of the screen, tactile seating and sound, Steinberg (the accomplished director and choreographer who choreographed many of Bono’s moves for 1990’s Zoo TV tour) and The Edge wanted the final product to be more than just a concert film or documentary, but a faithful recreation of the live show, as accurate as possible to U2, down to the detail of their shoelaces.
“It’s great for the fans to be able to see the band play like that, whether they’re in the high seats or the low seats,” Steinberg says.
But from a director’s perspective, the medium posed significant challenges. “You can’t easily see what you’re editing. Oculus [headset] Or you’re looking at a very low-resolution image on a monitor. You quickly understand what you might not be seeing and can make up for it,” Steinberg says.
One of the most complex production tasks was converting the 100-minute U2:UV into the 82-minute V-U2, which required interweaving the U2:UV setlist with covers of classic songs performed during the run, including Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender,” Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
The directors wanted the concert film to reflect the flow of the live show, “with the understanding that it would be watched by a broader audience than just U2 fans,” Steinberg says. “People are coming to see what Sphere can do. The first three songs in the film are a perfect example of that, but we want people to sit and listen to the last two songs.” [background] visual [just a shot of the band]Even if you’re not a U2 fan, there’s plenty to enjoy and experience.”
Steinberg says the film offers a fresh perspective on the residency’s greatest moments, with new depth and clarity. “The staging of ‘The Fly’ is a beautiful part of the film…it transforms the space, it creates the illusion of the room becoming squared off, and that’s the word that describes it best,” she says. “There are shots of the stage looking out at the audience, which is a new perspective that you don’t normally see.”
The song “One” features a camera angle on Bono that Schulkind describes as the biggest close-up ever filmed. “The ability to show this very intimate moment of Bono in this intimate song that everyone knows was so powerful,” he says. “Everybody was blown away.”
V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film Rich Fury/Sphere Entertainment
“We had to zoom out a little bit, and then it got even bigger,” Steinberg says of the stunning footage, which shows Bono in minute detail, “and then the camera slowly pulls back to reveal the band, and the moment opens up to an infinite view of the venue, with everyone in the audience holding up their lights.”
Audio from the audience at the original live event also played a key role in the creation of the concert film. Recorded via audience microphones set up in the venue during the live shows in February and March, audience audio can be heard in the film as they react to the band’s performance between and between songs. “A lot of the rawness and unexpected magic translates to the visual aspect,” says Shulkind. “You hear the little imperfections and human side of the show.”
V-U2 plans to play Sphere Experiences regularly as it continues to be created, and while it’s not yet decided whether all of the Sphere’s resident bands will get their own film, content has been collected at Phish and Dead & Company shows and will be filmed during Eagle’s current runs.
“We continue to capture every band that comes to us,” says Josephine Vaccarello, executive vice president of live for MSG Entertainment. “Everybody that comes to our venues is learning different ways to play with the tools that we have. We’re always looking for how to innovate and how to continue to grow, and this was one of the ways to do that.”
“Every Sphere show is a special moment,” Shulkind says, “and we’re still figuring out what that looks like for other shows. It’s a never-ending journey of discovery as we learn how this new medium works.”