Madonna + Maluma slay Billboard Awards - watch Medellín performance!

[Hapertje]

Number 55 in the US now

[ashtangi74]

i only saw marvin, kupono and one other rht dancer.

[domyeyebrows]

Accordion Madonna is an absolute hoot, I love her. Very cute.

Fabulous performance full of joy, she looks like she is having a ball and so does Maluma. Hear that audience response too? There is literally no bad in this. Her best awards performance in so so long.

[Butter9]

13 minutes ago, lasky said:

Audience view is looking good...

 

I'm so going Toi be like that woman in the red dress on the Madame X Tour !

So much JOY !!!!

[sotos8]

4 minutes ago, Katypatra said:

No way!! Are you serious?? Please let this be true omg! You think you can take a screenshot of the moment in the video where you think you saw him? 

i was wrong , is that kupono with the long hair lol? I tried to take a screenshot but it's blurry

[toujours]

1 minute ago, ashtangi74 said:

i only saw marvin, kupono and one other rht dancer.

ahlamalik aka skitzo is the third male dancer.

[Butter9]

2 minutes ago, ashtangi74 said:

i only saw marvin, kupono and one other rht dancer.

Ahlamalik Williams with the long pig tails .

 

[Guest Katypatra]

1 minute ago, sotos8 said:

i was wrong , is that kupono with the long hair lol? I tried to take a screenshot but it's blurry

Haha oh well 

[Ugly Hecty]

 

[AmericanLife95825]

Maluma is cool . He knows and lord she looks happy!

[FreeMySoul]

The black corset reminds me of her LAV mtv awards corset 

[veroelectronica]

madonna is the greatest and longest enduring performer of all time.

she is the ultimate winner in the end!!!

just face it.

she is going nowhere and ever will be down.

i still cant stop believing it happened last night and she nailed one of the most enjoyable and fun performances.

it was totally carefree but a big production at ease.

she can still pull it.

hands down.

simply the best.

Edited May 2, 2019 by veroelectronica

[FreeMySoul]

Just now, veroelectronica said:

madonna is the greatest and longest enduring performer of all time.

just face it.

she is going nowhere and ever will be down.

i still cant stop believing it happened last night and she nailed one of the most enjoyable and fun performances.

it was totally carefree but a big production at ease.

she can still pull it.

hands down.

simply the best.

QUEEN!!

[lasky]

Only complaint: no backstage pics.....

 

[FreeMySoul]

3 minutes ago, lasky said:

Only complaint: no backstage pics.....

 

There’s video of her going backstage after the performance and another in her dressing room and some other pics around from backstage as well 

[Butter9]

I love the fact that it's old school Madonna with sets / probs but with new technology .

The tour will be INSANE ! 

[Ugly Hecty]

Maluma, David Guetta, & Becky G all praising her in this video!

 

[spotlight]

Madonna is amazing, perfection, 

I love malumas ass and gut

[Marcelox]

2 minutes ago, Butter9 said:

I love the fact that it's old school Madonna with sets / probs but with new technology .

The tour will be INSANE ! 

Yes..  I looks more "organic" that way and I love it

[Get Together]

How augmented reality put five Madonnas on stage at once

The pop icon danced with digital versions of herself at the Billboard Music Awards.

At Wednesday's Billboard Music Awards, Madonna performed her latest single, "Medellín", with Latin singer Maluma. However, they (and their flesh-and-blood dancers) weren't alone on the Las Vegas stage. Several virtual versions of the pop icon joined them: a secret agent, a musician, a cha-cha instructor and a bride. Augmented reality brought Madonna's personas to life with the help of volumetric capture -- essentially 3D video -- and Unreal Engine.

The avatars (not holograms, so they weren't visible to the naked eye) wove in and out of the inventive performance, bursting into butterflies and puffs of smoke. There were several environmental effects that livened up the show, including digital rain, clouds, greenery and splashes of color, which married with the physical side in an attempt to tell a cohesive story. Madonna has reinvented herself countless times over her storied career, so it's perhaps little surprise that she tried something like this, a spectacle for which she reportedly paid $5 million.

Jamie King, Madonna's long-time creative director, said he was looking for something special for the BBMAs. "After meeting with [Madonna's manager] Guy Oseary, we settled on the idea of incorporating augmented reality into the performance," he told Engadget. "I wanted to explore a way to involve her Madame X personas into the performance as well as the possibility of the real Madonna actually being able to perform with [them]."

The team brought the concept to a new creative AR company called Sequin, which took on the challenge of piecing the performance together. While it was the first time Madonna and Maluma performed the song live, it also marked the first project for Sequin.

While you might not recognize the name, you'll probably be familiar with the work of co-founders Lawrence Jones and Robert DeFranco. At The Future Group, their projects included those dramatic flooding visualizations for The Weather Channel, an AR-enhanced performance by K/DA at last year's League of Legends World Championship Finals and effects for this year's Super Bowl, for which they were nominated for an Emmy.

Jones, who oversees creative, production and technology development at Sequin, believes it was the first time there's been a broadcast AR performance using volumetric capture, which he called "the next revolution" of the medium. "What's new about this is that it's a completely choreographed performance where Madonna and Maluma are dancing with four digital versions of Madonna in perfect choreography," he told Engadget in an interview.

The show was something of a global affair. The volumetric capture process took place at a studio in London, while a Canadian company created the digital assets and environments in Unreal Engine for Sequin to pull together.

The Unreal Engine is being used more broadly outside the confines of its gaming origins these days. Creatives in various fields are tapping into its potential, including film, virtual reality and, of course, AR. "The interesting thing about real-time visual effects in broadcast augmented reality [is that] a big portion of the work is happening in pre-production," Jones said. "All the creation of the assets, all of the animation, most of the lighting is all done ahead of time."

A critical aspect of making performances such as this work is real-time camera tracking. Jones and his team use a tool called Brainstorm, layering broadcast objects, including motion graphics, character generation and real-time data, on top of Unreal Engine. Jones explained that Brainstorm feeds data from the physical cameras into Unreal Engine so everything from the real set lines up with a digital replication, ensuring the AR renders are in the right place at the right time.

Once Sequin was on site in Las Vegas, the team tweaked the production so it would fully integrate with the actual performance setting, making adjustments for factors such as lighting, shadows, reflections, timing and placement. According to Jones, the Billboard Music Awards and Dick Clark Productions (which produced the broadcast) were "essential in getting this to happen" and were "super accommodating" to Sequin and Madonna. Sufficient stage time was vital to make sure the live and virtual aspects lined up correctly -- no mean feat for a show with more than a dozen performers who all needed rehearsal time.

Complex performances such as this are driven by time codes, as Jones noted. Everything from lights, music and pyro effects to graphics have their own time-code triggers. Renders do, too, of course. Jones worked with Carla Kama, another creative director for Madonna, to design the shots and make sure everything matched up.

The eventual performance used three AR-enabled cameras: the crane (or jib), a front-of-house camera and a wireless Steadicam. "The wireless one is more of a novel one, because it's allowing you to have a free camera roaming around and being able to have these really cool dynamic, fluid and organic shots," Jones said.

While it wasn't flawless and found its fair share of detractors on Twitter, the display showcased the cutting edge of AR and volumetric capture. Attendees at the awards show were able to see Madonna's AR guises on screens inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena. However, the creative team wasn't too concerned the AR aspects would distance attendees from the live performance, which was fairly lively even without the digital elements, conga line and all.

Given the live audience numbered in the thousands and the TV viewership will extend into the millions, "I think the pros outweigh the cons there," Jones said.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/02/madonna-billboard-music-awards-augmented-reality/

[Ugly Hecty]

Ratings:

Quote

The Billboard Music Awards fell to an all-time low among adults 18-49 — but despite that, NBC's broadcast still easily led Wednesday night's ratings.

 

The awards also improved a bit year to year in total viewers, and the demographic declines weren't as severe as some other recent music awards.

 

The Billboard Awards drew a 2.1 rating in the 18-49 demo, down 12.5 percent from 2.4 a year ago and the lowest on record for the show. The show's total audience of 7.96 million is up a smidge from 7.87 million in 2018. 

So about 8 million saw Madonna perform!

[JWAD]

1 hour ago, Butter9 said:

I'm so going Toi be like that woman in the red dress on the Madame X Tour !

So much JOY !!!!

The woman in red in the audience is Uber fan Oksana who I follow on IG. She is about to release a fan documentary, Like A Prayer, very soon. She was also one of Madonna's Unapologetic Bitches on the Rebel Heart Tour:

 

[lasky]

another audience view:

 

[Voguerista]

22 minutes ago, Get Together said:

How augmented reality put five Madonnas on stage at once

The pop icon danced with digital versions of herself at the Billboard Music Awards.

At Wednesday's Billboard Music Awards, Madonna performed her latest single, "Medellín", with Latin singer Maluma. However, they (and their flesh-and-blood dancers) weren't alone on the Las Vegas stage. Several virtual versions of the pop icon joined them: a secret agent, a musician, a cha-cha instructor and a bride. Augmented reality brought Madonna's personas to life with the help of volumetric capture -- essentially 3D video -- and Unreal Engine.

The avatars (not holograms, so they weren't visible to the naked eye) wove in and out of the inventive performance, bursting into butterflies and puffs of smoke. There were several environmental effects that livened up the show, including digital rain, clouds, greenery and splashes of color, which married with the physical side in an attempt to tell a cohesive story. Madonna has reinvented herself countless times over her storied career, so it's perhaps little surprise that she tried something like this, a spectacle for which she reportedly paid $5 million.

Jamie King, Madonna's long-time creative director, said he was looking for something special for the BBMAs. "After meeting with [Madonna's manager] Guy Oseary, we settled on the idea of incorporating augmented reality into the performance," he told Engadget. "I wanted to explore a way to involve her Madame X personas into the performance as well as the possibility of the real Madonna actually being able to perform with [them]."

The team brought the concept to a new creative AR company called Sequin, which took on the challenge of piecing the performance together. While it was the first time Madonna and Maluma performed the song live, it also marked the first project for Sequin.

While you might not recognize the name, you'll probably be familiar with the work of co-founders Lawrence Jones and Robert DeFranco. At The Future Group, their projects included those dramatic flooding visualizations for The Weather Channel, an AR-enhanced performance by K/DA at last year's League of Legends World Championship Finals and effects for this year's Super Bowl, for which they were nominated for an Emmy.

Jones, who oversees creative, production and technology development at Sequin, believes it was the first time there's been a broadcast AR performance using volumetric capture, which he called "the next revolution" of the medium. "What's new about this is that it's a completely choreographed performance where Madonna and Maluma are dancing with four digital versions of Madonna in perfect choreography," he told Engadget in an interview.

The show was something of a global affair. The volumetric capture process took place at a studio in London, while a Canadian company created the digital assets and environments in Unreal Engine for Sequin to pull together.

The Unreal Engine is being used more broadly outside the confines of its gaming origins these days. Creatives in various fields are tapping into its potential, including film, virtual reality and, of course, AR. "The interesting thing about real-time visual effects in broadcast augmented reality [is that] a big portion of the work is happening in pre-production," Jones said. "All the creation of the assets, all of the animation, most of the lighting is all done ahead of time."

A critical aspect of making performances such as this work is real-time camera tracking. Jones and his team use a tool called Brainstorm, layering broadcast objects, including motion graphics, character generation and real-time data, on top of Unreal Engine. Jones explained that Brainstorm feeds data from the physical cameras into Unreal Engine so everything from the real set lines up with a digital replication, ensuring the AR renders are in the right place at the right time.

Once Sequin was on site in Las Vegas, the team tweaked the production so it would fully integrate with the actual performance setting, making adjustments for factors such as lighting, shadows, reflections, timing and placement. According to Jones, the Billboard Music Awards and Dick Clark Productions (which produced the broadcast) were "essential in getting this to happen" and were "super accommodating" to Sequin and Madonna. Sufficient stage time was vital to make sure the live and virtual aspects lined up correctly -- no mean feat for a show with more than a dozen performers who all needed rehearsal time.

Complex performances such as this are driven by time codes, as Jones noted. Everything from lights, music and pyro effects to graphics have their own time-code triggers. Renders do, too, of course. Jones worked with Carla Kama, another creative director for Madonna, to design the shots and make sure everything matched up.

The eventual performance used three AR-enabled cameras: the crane (or jib), a front-of-house camera and a wireless Steadicam. "The wireless one is more of a novel one, because it's allowing you to have a free camera roaming around and being able to have these really cool dynamic, fluid and organic shots," Jones said.

While it wasn't flawless and found its fair share of detractors on Twitter, the display showcased the cutting edge of AR and volumetric capture. Attendees at the awards show were able to see Madonna's AR guises on screens inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena. However, the creative team wasn't too concerned the AR aspects would distance attendees from the live performance, which was fairly lively even without the digital elements, conga line and all.

Given the live audience numbered in the thousands and the TV viewership will extend into the millions, "I think the pros outweigh the cons there," Jones said.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/02/madonna-billboard-music-awards-augmented-reality/

What a fascinating article. It makes me wonder if this performance could get an Emmy nomination being Sequin has captured emmy attention in the past? And their work on this performance was just as cool. Omg I would die. Fingers crossed. 

[Ugly Hecty]

2 minutes ago, Voguerista said:

What a fascinating article. It makes me wonder if this performance could get an Emmy nomination being Sequin has captured emmy attention in the past? And their work on this performance was just as cool. Omg I would die. Fingers crossed. 

They did in the past but now they don't do it anymore. The Daytime Emmys have a special category for performances, but since this was Primetime, I don't know if it'll get recognized. Totally should in every capacity though. 

[reQuiem4adream]

7 hours ago, mtzlplk said:

So is there a magazine praise yet how the other two DIVAs have become nostalgia performers while MADONNA is still churning out popular new stuff?

Ouch!!!! Keep singing that Xmas song, cow !

[Voguerista]

1 minute ago, Ugly Hecty said:

They did in the past but now they don't do it anymore. The Daytime Emmys have a special category for performances, but since this was Primetime, I don't know if it'll get recognized. Totally should in every capacity though. 

How about the Creative Arts Emmys? I dont know but I agree! It deserves something.  

[vertigokane]

Performance is #18 in trending in the US. 

[ashtangi74]

#54 on usa itunes

[reQuiem4adream]

i Can’t get enough of all positivity for M and her performance last night. Everyone can feel it especially Maluma. It’s once in a lifetime experience for him. Madame X is gonna do great!!!