VariLite and ETC Make a “Wicked” Theatre Combination
It seems that Melbourne is awash with world famous musicals at the moment, with crowds flocking to see Guys and Dolls, Wicked and Spamalot. And what do these three productions have in common apart from rave reviews? They all rely on the winning combination of ETC analogue lighting and Vari*Lite moving lights to produce their stunning lighting designs.
The Regent Theatre is playing host to Wicked, the untold story of the witches of Oz, which is fabulously lit by Kenneth Possner. It utilizes 12 x Vari*Lite 3000Q Spots, 17 x Vari*Lite 3000 Spots, 32 x Vari*Lite 2500 Spots, 26 x Vari*Lite 2500 Washs and a whopping 278 ETC Source 4 fixtures.
The Princess Theatre is home to Guys and Dolls which was originally lit by Howard Harrison and his associate James Whiteside. The rig contains 10 x VL3500Q Spots, 4 x VL3000 Q Washs, 3 x VL2000 Spots, 8 x VL2000 Washs and 69 ETC Source 4 fixtures. Added to that are six ETC Revolution fixtures.
Over at Her Majesty’s Theatre Spamalot, originally designed by Hugh Vanstone, was using 15 x VL3000 Q Spots, 10 x VL2500 Spots, 14 x VL2500 Washs, 18 x VL500s and heaps of Source 4 fixtures.
What else do these productions have in common apart from amazing lighting and lighting products? The talented Hugh Hamilton! Hugh worked as Production Electrician on Spamalot and Wicked as well as Associate Lighting Designer on Guys and Dolls. And Hugh just loves his Vari-Lites.
“Vari-Lites have the best output and their zoom is absolutely amazing,” he commented. “They go from 60˚ to narrow with a single fixture. Their brightness, even field, easy maintenance means that theatre designers are always specifying Vari-Lites. The VL3000s are particularly bright and the new VL2500 washes and spot are great with their new dimmer modules – the glass enables a much better fade than with solid metal blades.
“I think at the moment Vari-Lites are definitely the new unit on the block and there’s a lot of money being invested in them. Meanwhile their competition’s products are getting older and so everyone is buying Vari-Lites.”
Hugh describes the ETC Source 4 fixture as the workhorse for theatre lighting in Australia. For the first time, Hugh is also using the ETC MultiPARs on Wicked and he describes them as having a lot of output.
“They’re a handy batten,” he said. “As for the Source 4, there’s really no other profile competitor in the industry that can match the reputation of it. I found the Revolutions very entertaining. They’re reliable and their inter-changeable pieces are great. I used the shutter kit on Priscilla and the twin rotating wheels on Guys and Dolls – the way you can drop in and out modules is neat. They’re also the same colour temperature as the rest of the Source 4 rig which is good.”
www.jands.com.au

VuePix adds versatility to Olympic Broadcast
Channel Seven’s recent coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games has been viewed by over 17 million Australians, outpacing all other Olympic Games and other major events over the past five decades.  Beijing 2008 was the first time the event has been broadcast in HD, with Channel Seven broadcasting over 17 hours a day of 1080i coverage.
The Broadcast was hosted from the Channel Seven studio of the International Broadcast Centre in Beijing. The Channel Seven Production was designed by accomplished Australian Designer Mal Nichols, where elements of the set were designed to maximize the limited space that the studio occupied in the Broadcast Centre. Mal wanted flexibility in lighting effects incorporated into the design, and so the lighting rig included a 20 panel VuePix LED Video Screen, 50 iLED Color Tubes, and 70 iLED ColorBank 54’s, supplied by Clifton Productions - who also constructed the set.
Mal Nichols states that the goal of the lighting in the television production was to “create atmosphere, and increase options and flexibility” in a very small environment. This was the key motivation behind incorporating the VuePix screen, as the versatility of the screen allowed various content to be relayed to the audience – including live to air feeds and computer generated graphics. It was also imperative that the screen had brilliant resolution, so as to ensure that the quality was maintained for 7’s HD broadcast. Mal states “the resolution was of surprisingly quality for a 6mm, and there was no strobing through the screen”, which was essential for a flicker free broadcast.
This impressive screen was VuePix’s P6 RGB SMD 3in1indoor model. The P6 is a high resolution (6 mm) display with a calibrated brightness of 1000cd/m2 and a pixel density of 10, 000 pixels/ m2 to deliver unrivaled light output, and incomparable color depth and uniformity, best suited for broadcast conditions. The content was powered by a multi-format image processor that accepted Channel 7’s HD SDI signal and digitally scaled it to 1024 x 768 (to fit the format of the screen) with ease. This signal was then sent through the VuePix’s video processor, which can accept a wide range of incoming signals: S-Video, composite, DVI and VGA. The screen was configured via the VuePix LED Studio software.
James Pavey of Clifton Productions supports the screen by stating “it looked good and went together easily”. He goes further to say “there were many positive comments from crew and guests on the set”. The VuePix range of leading LED video screens for indoor and outdoor use is distributed exclusively in Australia by the ULA Group.
www.ulagroup.com

Martin LC Panels in fashion
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The David Jones Summer Collection was launched in Melbourne and Sydney recently with a fabulous lighting design by Hugh Taranto that incorporated Martin LC Panels into the flooring The venue in Sydney was the Royal Hall of Industries whilst in Melbourne it was the Town Hall.
The David Jones event team was keen to utilize a video effect and initially they looked at a variety of video screens and such options. But problems arose with how the screens would be supported, their weight plus cooling difficulties. However the Martin LC Panels were perfect in shape and size to fit into the standard staging fixture plus they were light and very easy to install into the design.
The stage consisted of a thirty-metre, Perspex catwalk made out of Staging Rentals new LE deck, and the look continued to the back of the stage almost as if the catwalk was climbing the wall for six metres. The large screens on either side, supplied by TDC, displayed the main imagery with the catwalk used for colour and textured that complimented.
A total of thirty-one LC Panels, supplied by Cairellie, were used in Sydney with twenty in Melbourne where the catwalk was shorter. The media fed through them was supplied by the David Jones creative team headed by Mike Mizrahi.
“The LC Panels give you so much more creative freedom as a lighting designer,” said Hugh. “They were perfect for this job as it meant that the light was coming from a much larger source than a small point source as even without running media content, they provide a great colour wash. It meant that the top lighting wasn’t influencing it too much.
The LC Panels are a great product for what the client was after and more cost effective than using some of the other LED screen options they were initially looking at. The way they could be implemented into the catwalk really met their creative needs.”
The rig lighting was mostly Source IV pars with barn doors for the catwalk as well as Source IV profiles for audience lighting. Martin MAC700’s were used in the pre-show and after-show area as well as some LED fixtures. These were all supplied by Bytecraft.
www.showtech.com.au

Avolites Diamond 4 Elite goes Bollywood!
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An Avolites Diamond 4 Elite console is currently touring Australia with the theatrical dance spectacular, The Merchants of Bollywood. Hitting Australian shores after its sell out international tour in London, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Geneva, The Merchants of Bollywood have landed at the Gold Coast’s Jupiters Casino for a 16 week run.
The Merchants of Bollywood extravaganza charts the history of the world’s largest and most prolific film industry, and a dynasty of stars that have lit its way over generations. This fictional story, based on real life, reveals to Western audiences the workings of cinema and the part it plays in the heart and soul of Indian society in an extraordinary evening of music and dance. 
UK based lighting designer, Benedick Miller, has worked on The Merchants of Bollywood since December, taking over from original LD Liz Berry, and has completely reworked the programming on the road. Miller has been in the industry for over 25 years and has used a variety of Avo control throughout his career, from the Pearl Sapphire way back to the QM500 – which he wishes they still made!
He operates The Merchants mix of theatre elements and pure Bollywood Rock’n’Roll very much hands on, with 500 button presses per show – not including all the preloaded chases! Miller states “The Diamond 4 is a workhorse” and claims that the desk is especially suited to creating the big, bold, and colorful looks which are essential for The Merchants musical numbers. 
The D4 is controlling a combination of fixtures from Martin, High End, Robe, and Le Maitre. The gear for the Gold Coast production is a combination of items from Jupiters Casino’s inventory and also items supplied from Chameleon Touring Systems Brisbane, including the Diamond 4.
From a design perspective, Miller has two distinct elements within the production that he must program for. The first is the standard theatre sections of the show, which involve direct delivery of dialogue to the audience. During these sections the emphasis of the lighting is on the actors, and the look is clean and simple.
The more dynamic parts of the show are during the musical numbers which involve a lot of movement and color. Miller has spent considerable time studying traditional Bollywood movies, to create authentic looks and has come up with a combination of big bold patterns and strong powerful colors. He also paid particular attention to the costuming, taking costume changes as cues for the lighting, so as to enhance and compliment this essential element of the production.
www.ulagroup.com

Vanessa Amorosi turns to LED’s for solution
Vanessa Amorosi toured throughout Australia in June/July in support of her new album "Somewhere in the Real world". The show was catered mainly for the Pub and RSL market and once again her lighting designer Rohan Thornton had to address a no smoke issue.
“Vanessa really doesn’t like using smoke which isn’t a great thing for a lighting person!” remarked Rohan. “Sometimes the lighting can look a bit bland without smoke.”
The rig contained twelve Martin MAC250 Washes, four Atomic strobes, sixteen MultiPARS and seven Molefay Duets but Rohan felt that, with the lack of smoke on stage, he needed something else of interest; some extra eye candy and a bit of a blast. He found that the addition of ten Pro Shop Honeycomb LED fixtures did the trick.
“In fact on a couple of the smaller shows, where I only had ten amps of power available, I used the ten Honeycombs as the whole rig and they were actually some of the better shows!” said Rohan.
For the final four Victorian shows, more LED pizzazz was added in the form of three Martin LC panels.
“Once I had the LC Panels I used the Honeycombs more for wash,” said Rohan. “For a small budget rig it ended up working quite well. Entertainment Installations supplied the gear and crew and they were great.”
www.showtech.com.au

Chameleon & Enttec Make Light Work of World Youth Day
Faced with the challenge of distributing DMX signals across 70 towers surrounding Randwick racecourse, Chameleon turned to Enttec’s ODE with great results.
World Youth Day, held recently in Sydney, is the largest youth event in the world, and with 110,000 international pilgrims from over 170 nations, the largest event ever hosted in Australia. The Final Mass celebrated by the Pope, and overnight vigil leading up to it, were held at Randwick Racecourse, requiring a massive amount of site lighting, supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems.
The site is enormous, capable of holding up to 400,000 people, so the challenge of providing enough light to keep everyone safe during the overnight vigil was a big one, to say the least. Organisers turned to Chameleon Touring Systems to meet the challenge of lighting up all the World Youth Day sites.
One of the big challenges was always going to be the distances involved. With hundreds of par cans, Light Balloons and intelligent fixtures deployed around the site on 70 scaff towers, the data distribution required some planning. World Youth Day were installing a fibre-optic network around the site with HP managed switches for the production departments to utilise. Chameleon decided the best course of action was to distribute Art-Net from their Wholehog II console in the Venue Control Room to the various locations around the site. All they needed was a cost-effective, simple yet reliable, DMX over Ethernet converter to allow this to happen.
Josh Moffat, Chameleon’s Site Lighting Account Manager, remembered seeing the Enttec ODE (Open DMX Ethernet), a single-universe DMX over Ethernet node, during the Entech tradeshow earlier in the year, and realised this would be perfect device for this application.
The ODE supports Enttec’s Node Management Utility (NMU) – a free software package that bypasses IP settings and allows remote configuration of DMX over Ethernet nodes from a central location. This allowed him to assign each node to an Art-Net universe, and change it later if need be, from the control position, rather than having to wander out to each tower to check dip-switches if there were any problems.
The low cost of the ODE (around $350 inc GST) also made it attractive for such a large project, as previously DMX over Ethernet nodes have been well over the $700 mark, making it unaffordable for use on such a scale.
Chameleon got final sign off on their design and proposal with only two weeks until the load in was due to begin, and ordered 90 of the ODE’s to be delivered within 10 days. Enttec were ready and delivered the full amount with a day or two to spare, allowing Chameleon to test the units prior to deploying them in the field.
“We had a minor issue during the initial testing, but Enttec’s support was great and we got them up and running in no time” says Josh. “The NMU application made configuring the ODEs straightforward and easy, and given the size of the network we were putting together, that was really important. In the end, the gig went well and we were really happy with how it all came together”.
www.balancedtech.com.au

Martin LC Panels cut through the daylight for Sneaky Sound System
For years lighting designers have feared the day time, outdoor gig. Many wondered what was the point of any lighting? Usually if there was a decent lighting rig, it was there for the act that was due on after sunset and anyone performing prior just had to make do.
But with today’s high output LED lighting this has all begun to change especially with the Martin LC Panels. Not only do they act as a back light source, they can provide colour, pattern, movement and fabulous eye candy for day time productions especially those that are being filmed.
The recent performance by Sneaky Sound System on Channel 7’s Sunrise programme was a prime example that had many people talking. A stage was built ‘in the plaza’ for the band to perform two songs that were broadcast live. The Entertainment Installations crew of Bryce Mace (programmer/operator) and Christian Yanni (LX rigger) worked closely with the Sunrise crew to produce a simple yet effective rig that the cameras just loved.
Key to the rig were the Martin LC Panels (Entertainment Installations recently purchased four more Panels to expand the four they already had) that provided a kaleidoscope of coloured light and pattern behind the band whilst sixteen Kupo MultiPARs provided side light. Despite being filmed in the day, the LC Panels still shone brightly and were highly visible on camera and from all areas of the Plaza. It has to be said that Martin LC Panels have certainly added a whole new dimension to outdoor gigs and this summer, we should see them being utilized extensively on music festivals and concerts.
See live footage of the concert at http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/sunrise/12524/sneaky-sound-system-perform-on-sunrise
www.showtech.com.au

Novatech get their 50 Cent's worth
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Hot on the heels of the Air tour (below) came a whirlwind tour by world famous rapper and entrepreneur 50 Cent who teamed up with fellow artists G-Unit and Phinesse for a short, three concert stop in Australia. Novatech Production Services supplied all production elements for the concerts held at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.
Lighting was a mixture of 112 parcans, 12 MAC600, 10 MAC700, 4 Martin Atomic 3000, 8 four way blinders, 24 Pro Shop LED strips and 160 Pro Shop LED tubes - all run by an MA Lighting grandMA with a PC back up and a Jands Hog 1K triggering the ArKaos media server. The show focused on some old school looks so there was a shift back to the traditional parcan and away from moving yokes. With this in mind there needed to be something to give the stage a finishing touch so the 160 LED tubes where fed video signal converted into DMX via an ArKaos LED mapper and video server. This gave the stage some eye candy technology without detracting from the intention of the ‘old school’ lighting design.
The vision system for the concerts was a key component necessary to maintain the continuity of the 50 Cent show. With custom graphics packages for each of the tracks in the 50 Cent set, the system needed to deliver high quality i-mag camera shots and great graphics. A single projection screen each side of the stage kept the system simple and was adequate for the size of the venues. Barco CLM R10+ DLP projectors provided bright and sharp images. A Sony DFS-700 mixed the vision sources with multiple DVD and computer sources mixed together with four live cameras to create the final vision mix.
www.novatechproductions.com.au

Novatech Tour with Air
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In March 2008 French music duo, Air, toured Australia for the first time with the V Festival. They then followed up the V Festival with their own concerts in April. Novatech Production Services supplied the production for four of the concerts working with Michael Coppel Presents and Production and Tour Manager Ian 'Spider' Digance. It was Novatech's first time collaborating with Ian and they enjoyed the experience, providing the production for two concerts at the Sydney Opera House and
one each at the Melbourne Palais and Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide.
The production was focused on high quality audio and mood building lighting. Unusually the shows were free of visual (video) production, with the intention of keeping the audience focused on the musical performance. As the band plays all of the music live and does not rely on sequencing or backing tracks, audiences seemed very content to just sit back and listen to the band play different versions of the tracks that they all know.
The concert's lighting design was minimal with a dark feel to the looks and programs. The aim was to produce an emotive lighting show to match the bands individual style of music. The looks were achieved with a mix of 30 MAC700's and MAC600's, 10 Duet Blinders and 20 bars of Par 64 and Ray cans. A full colour LED drape backdrop completed the stage look and a MA lighting GrandMA console (with a redundant PC version in parallel) supplied the control for the system.
The concerts were enjoyed by the audiences, the band and the crew. There was always a joke being played by the band directed at the production
crew, they cheekily relabelled desks and equipment at random and generally joked around during set ups and sound checks. It's always a good sign that things are running smoothly if there's time to waste during checks. Our crew even managed to learn some valuable French phrases for use in future tours, although it's anyone guess what the band was really teaching them to say.
www.novatechproductions.com.au

Battle of the Choirs
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Channel Seven’s singing competition show, Battle Of The Choirs, has become a rating success and is now heading to a thrilling climax.
Chameleon Touring Systems supplied the lighting rig which consists of 16 x Martin MAC700, 9  x  MAC250 wash, 31 x MAC2000 profile, 37 x Pulsar ChromaBanks, 2 x Look Solutions Unique Hazers and a MA Lighting grandMA lighting console. The Technical Direction Company supplied six columns of 6mm Barco screens driven by Catalyst.
The lighting was designed by Francesco Calvi who whilst away in a sunnier climate with Big Brother left the knob twiddling to Brad Landi and Michael Burton.
www.showtech.com.au

Pods of Pro Shop LED Strips for Kisschasey
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Kisschasey have been on the road to promote their new album with lighting designed by Phil Riordan and supplied by Brisbane Concert Lighting. The rig included four Martin MAC600, eight MAC250 Kryptons, ten rays, eight 2-way molefays, two Atomic strobes, and a hazer but it was Phil’s use of twenty Pro Shop LED Strips that had everyone talking.
The LED Strips were grouped into five pods of four with Brisbane Concert Lighting making the custom pods especially for this tour. The pods became the main focus and were pretty much the set with silver cloth draped behind them.
“I’ve been experimenting with the LED Strips on other gigs, such as the Caloundra Music festival and The Dreaming, but often I was using them as day time eye candy,” explained Phil. “I began to think about incorporating this ‘eye candy’ into a rock show and I came up with the pods. I guess I was inspired by the early silverchair shows where they used a heater sort of a look as well as old AC/DC videos where they used big banks of wash light.”
Phil reports that the pods transported well as BCL had a custom made, 1.2 metre square road case designed and built for them.
Phil is certainly a fan of the LED Strips describing them as a great, cost effective effect.
“They’re very user-friendly,” he added. “You can use them as a RGB wash or use the built in multiple effects which are quite effective. I have to say I’ve really enjoyed using them on a variety of gigs and when you incorporate them into larger light shows they can make it look ten fold bigger than it actually is. They really add another dimension.
“Also the LED Strips give out heaps of light and definitely act as stage washes too. I used them at the Caloundra Music Bowl and they kicked all the way past front of house and keep on going. I could have tilted the pods and used them more as a bank of wash coming down on the band. I’d really like to create a ‘dome’ of the LED Strips over the stage - that would look awesome!”
Phil also points out that because the LED Strips are only three inches wide they tend to disappear into the set when switched off.
www.showtech.com.au

It’s Vari-Lites all the way for Celine Dion
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Celine Dion thrilled capacity crowds in her first Australian tour in more than 10 years, showing the irrepressible energy and powerful voice that shot her to global notice.
Her ‘Taking Chances’ tour, which started in South Africa and will travel the rest of the world, was lit by her long-time designer Yves Aucion, a self-confessed fan of Vari-Lites.
“Vari-Lites have always been my favourite lights,” remarked Yves. “It has been a long story between them and me. I’m constantly checking other lighting fixtures and I’m really up to date with what is out there, but once again I’ve decided to go with Vari-Lites as I really like the VL3000 series and the VL500 series.”
One of the primary reasons why Yves always opts for Vari-Lites is the colour white that they offer, a shade of white that Yves describes as superior to those offered by other lighting brands.
“I always start with the colour white so it’s very important for me,” he stated. “I’ve always said that the movement of the Vari-Lite is far sexier than any other fixture even the big VL3500 wash, which moves a little slower, still has a sexier move. I’m really impressed by the VL3500 wash – it’s amazingly powerful for its size and I like the ability to change the lens inside of it.”
Having been on the road for twenty years, Yves is very grateful for the support he has always received from Vari-Lite.
“They have always offered super technical support and really look after their clients”, he said.
The Australian production featured a standard rock’n’roll rig with two U-shaped truss and a mixed match of Vari-Lite spots and washes. In total there were 110 Vari-Lites including VL3000 spots, VL2500 spots and VL3500 washes. The rest of the world tour will see the show performed in the round.
“The design is fairly standard because every country that we visit I have to reproduce the same look with different vendors and suppliers,” said Yves. “That’s why I’ve opted for something quite simple. Sometimes I’m going to a country for just two shows and I don’t always have the luxury of Vari-Lites.”
Bytecraft Entertainment was the Australian production company.
Photos: Bob King
www.jands.com.au

CCP and the Guru
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CCP were contracted to supply lighting, rigging and vision for the Perth event “A Celebration of Life” featuring the renowned Indian Guru Bhaishri Rameshbhai Oza held in June 2008.
Held inside a 45m x 45m four pole circus tent supplied by Ashton’s Circus, the event had many challenges to overcome before a single light was hung.
Holding an event of this size and nature, in June on the Esplanade in Perth, is risky due to the weather and with just a few days before the opening it was touch and go with the ground flooding and putting everything in jeopardy.
The design brief was to convert the inside of the Circus tent into an Indian themed intimate venue. The majority of the set was designed and built in India and shipped to Perth for re-assembly with some portions being made and handled locally.
CCP’s lighting designer for the event Sean McKernan designed a system that not only supported the lighting rig but also allowed the set to be hung and supported easily. Using over 400m of Global Truss 550mm, 400mm and 300mm box truss to create all the lighting positions and set supports was a large undertaking.
The lighting rig was simple but effective with the following equipment used to create a single state for the whole event: 8 x Martin MAC2000, 12 x MAC600, 6 x Pro Shop LED Honeycomb 72, 4 x Pro Shop LED Wall Washers, 8 x BO4 Par 64 MFL, 22 x ETC S4 Parnels30 x Kupo Multi Pars MFL, 12 x ETC S4 15/30 Zooms, 12 x ETC S4 19 degree, 40 x Par 56 on Floor stands, 70m Blue LED Listel Light, 24 x Blue Fluoro Fittings, 8x 240v Par 16 and a MA Lighting grandMA.
CCP also supplied 2 x 12 panel Barco Slite 10XP LED screens for Image Mag and Video Rolls.
The event ran for three days with two 2.5hr sessions a day. The Final result was stunning and was well received by all who attended, marking a successful end to a memorable once in a lifetime event.
www.ccpwa.com

LED Media sets MTV Awards alight
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A 10,000 strong crowd and a long list of hot celebrities rocked Sydney’s Australian Technology Park for the MTV Australia Awards 2008. Celebrities included Mischa Barton, Leona Lewis, Brian McFadden to present and performances from 50 Cent, Eve, Juliette Lewis & the Licks who are among the eight set to entertain.
The fourth annual awards were held in a revolutionary new format at Australian Technology Park, Redfern, rather than the more staid Acer Arena, and the result was more of a party atmosphere.
As usual the lighting was designed by MTV’s world-roving LD Tom Kenny who liaised closely with Technical Production Manager James Klein. Sean ‘Motley’ Hackett operated the moving lights, Julio Hinede was the production designer and the lighting was supplied by both Bytecraft and Cairellie.
James Klein had to liaise between all the different technical people on the production and basically pull the event together.
“I drew the Australian Technology Park in CAD so we had a 3D representation of the venue making the planning of the event easier,” said James Klein. “It’s useful for all aspects of the event – for example MTV wanted to put in a flying camera through the venue so I could give the director different views and options of where to install the camera. This way, we discovered that the height limitations of the venue wouldn’t allow us a camera shot that was worth it – all worked out in Vectorworks without even entering the venue.”
It was decided that a video component down the centre of the main bay of the venue would be ideal but the venue posed several rigging limitations and weight restrictions. Fortunately James had used the Martin LC Panels before and knew that they would be the ideal solution.
“The LC Panels are great so I suggested them to the MTV team,” he said. “They’re lightweight and really easy to install. Cairellie supplied twenty-eight LC Panels fed by a media server with custom content from MTV and some additional content from Alex Saad who operated the Panels and did an awesome job.”
The client was stoked with the see-through capacity of the LC Panels as they surrounded the pillars. The Panels were rigged with 3mm steels to become somewhat invisible on TV so the panels just ‘hung’ in mid air.
Julio and James were keen to add some movement and colour to the floor of the stage and so they had the stage floor made of transparent acrylic and underneath were placed 180 Pro Shop LED Tubes. Evenly spaced, the LED Tubes were pixel mapped so that video could run through them (18 universes of LED Tubes).
“They looked really good on crane camera shots,” reported James. “People in the venue couldn’t really see them, but they looked fabulous on television and really the show is made for broadcast.”
A further 181 Pro Shop LED Tubes were placed in the roof with special rigging on the walls to make the install neat and tidy.
Moving lights were a mixture of Martin MAC2000 washes, MAC2000 profiles and Vari-Lites with control via a MA Lighting grandMA plus a grandMA Lite for tracking backup. Three MA Lighting NSP’s were used to control the LED Tubes. The LED Tubes data was distributed using ELC Switch 8’s and 8-way nodes with redundant network loops between stage and control in the event of a cable getting damaged.
“The event went very smoothly with Cairellie and Bytecraft doing a fantastic job,” commented James. “The new venue, the warehouse vibe that really fits the mentality of MTV and the shortened show (from last’s year three hours down to ninety minutes) resulted in a tight, together show that really went off!”
www.showtech.com.au

Mandylights Cuts Loose
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Knox Grammar High School is known for a professional approach to their musicals, and their 2008 production of 'Footloose' set new standards when the school called in Mandylights to completely overhaul their production design to create something new and fresh. Richard Neville was responsible for the visual design of the production, which utilised 300 Pro Shop LED 'Happy Tubes' arranged on vertical trusses to literally cover the stage with a low-res video screen.
Control was via a MA Lighting grandMA console and media was piped to the tubes with a new Hippotizer V3 system, which proved to be worth its weight in gold.
"The processing power, range of controls, reliability of the server and the design of the content management system of the Hippo really is unmatched by any other media server," said Richard.
The vast majority of the media for the show was designed in house at Mandylights - everything from static imagery through to a series of video clips that made full use of the aspect ratio of the design and resolution of the tubes. With so many designers simply relying on stock video content, Mandylights prides itself on coming up with new, unique content for every production, and Footloose was no exception.
"We created a very stylised look made up of simple, icon-style graphics and bold, sweeping colour schemes to create a sense of place and atmosphere for every scene," explained Richard.
In addition to the 300 LED tubes, a selection of moving lights were thrown in and carefully programmed to work with the media content in every scene. Cairellie Showcraft supplied all of the equipment for the show, and went above and beyond the call of duty as they had custom-made low profile frames made up to mount the tubes evenly.
With 465 cues in each show, Richard hit the Go button nearly 3,000 times in the two week season, leaving a few thousand people very impressed with the show's staging and design.
Footloose Credits
Design: Richard Neville
Associate / Spot Caller: Michael Gearin
Equipment: Cairellie Showcraft
www.mandylights.com

The Light in Winter
Lighting Designer Andy Mutton is again involved in The Light in Winter @ Federation Square. This year he is interpreting the meaning of light from the culture of the Hispano-American Community. By projecting and overlaying the light beams of three Robe 2500 Spots, Andy is programming an image that represents the communities story of light. He has designed three individual gobos for the projection from the Robes. Clifton Productions have graciously sponsored part of Mutton’s light based installation.
Andy Mutton’s Sun God - Gift of Light 2007 Interpretation of the Aztecs Sun calender is pictured right.
The Light in Winter 5 June – 5 July
In 2008 Federation Square gives us two more bright reasons to rug and up and head for the city. Directed by Robyn Archer, The Light in Winter a new light-based event will bring together artists, designers and communities to explore their ideas of light, enlightenment and hope.
The Light in Winter will present two elements:
When The Gods Came Down To Earth - a commission from international artist and film maker Srinivas Krishna and The Gift of Light - nine Melbourne communities working with artists on the theme of light.
These installations, along with the whole Square, will be bathed in a warm winter glow created by lighting designer Nathan Thompson of The Flaming Beacon.
When The Gods Came Down To Earth by Srinivas Krishna will have its world premiere at Fed Square on 13 June. The artist invites visitors to contemplate the beauty of sacred images of Hindu Gods, the meaning of their ritual function and the power of their magical aura.
Presented on Fed Square’s recycled big screen, When The Gods Came Down To Earth will be on public display for four weeks, running continuously 24 hours a day.
Born in India and educated in Canada and the US, Krishna first came to notice as the writer, director, producer and star of the international hit Masala (1991). He has produced subsequent films that have premiered in the Official Selection of the Cannes Films Festival (Lulu 1996) and the International Film Festival of India (Forever 1999).
On 21 June, nine of Melbourne’s diverse communities, facilitated through the Footscray Community Arts Centre, will bring more light to winter and the Square with The Gift of Light. As dusk falls in Melbourne, these communities including Indigenous, Japanese, Indian, Tuvalu, Hispano-American, Turkish, Vietnamese and Afghan will share their Gifts of Light, the result of working with an artist to create contemporary interpretations of the meaning of light from their culture. Each group will install a piece of light inspired art – their gift. Melbourne’s community is invited to share in this celebration with music and performance on the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year which marks the heralding of longer, brighter days.
The Gift of Light will be launched with a Switch On Event at 5pm on 21 June.
The Gods Came Down to Earth
Dates: 13 June to 13 July 2008
Time: 24/7
Location: Federation Square
The Gift of Light
Dates: 21 June to 5 July 2008
Time: from dusk
Location: Federation Square
www.fedsquare.com

CCP celebrate with The Osmonds
Concert & Corporate Productions provided lighting and video for the iconic American entertainment family “The Osmonds” at the Burswood Theatre in Perth Western Australia last Thursday 5th June. Playing to a full house The Osmonds, headed by Donny and Marie, gave a performance that resulted in standing ovations for most of the night. The lighting was designed by Bandit Lights in Nashville Tennessee and was reproduced by CCP. Originally designed for arenas it was a tight fit in the Burswood Theatre but CCP managed to achieve the artistic intentions of the lighting and video design. The onstage rig consisted of six independent trusses filled with moving heads and flown at varying angles on twelve points. A FOH truss was flown using twelve movers for front wash and six x four-lite blinders for the audience.
The full rig was made up of: 24 x MAC700 profiles, 24 x MAC600 washes, 10 x MAC2000 Profiles, 8 x 3k Atomic strobes, 4 x Pulsar ChromaBanks, 8 x four-lites, 66 meters of 400mm Global Truss, 14 cm 1ton chain motors, 4 x 2k follow spots and was driven by a Whole Hog II.
Thirty-six panels of CCP’s Barco S-lite LED screen upstage center formed the backbone of the video production and was augmented with two 16’x9’ rear projection screens serviced by 2 x Panasonic DL 5500 projectors. Simon Greaves, the Osmonds video director, used a combination of Catalyst driven images and a vision mix of 7 cameras. The Video rig consisted of. 36 Barco Slite LED panels, 1 x DX700, 4 x Sony DXC – D55 cameras, 4 x remote cameras, 1 x Grass Valley Indigo switcher, 2 x Image Pro HD scalers, 1 x Grass valley Turbo, High End Catalyst media server.
CCP is now able to provide high end video production and LED screens along with their lighting and production services.
www.ccpwa.com

Michael Buble tours Australia with HES DL.2s
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He’s got “The World on a String” and DL.2s in his rig. “That’s Life” on the road for Michael Buble, who is selling out venues with his repertoire of Rat Pack-styled song standards.
LD Kurt Wagner chose 14 High End Systems DL.2 digital light fixtures as the visual centerpiece of his show design. Christie Lites' Ian Gordon first recommended that he take a look at the digital light fixtures. After seeing them on The Tragically Hip tour, Wagner was sold. "LD Brent Clark's approach was a bit different in how he used them, but I was impressed with what I saw," Wagner says.
With DL.2s, supplied by Christie Lites, Wagner is easily customizing each Michael Buble show to the cities they’re playing by featuring video footage of local landmarks. So it’s not just the songs -- “Mack the Knife,” “Call Me Irresponsible” and “The Best is Yet to Come” -- that are making audiences stand up and cheer.
The DL.2 is an automated luminaire with an onboard media server, which allows for still or video projections through this one fixture. It’s controlled like a regular moving lighting using a DMX console.
"I get my video director Kevin Carswell to go out and shoot local footage every day," Wagner explains. "We have a basic formula of shots that I'm looking for. It has worked out well. I've never done this before with other video equipment, so I have no comparison."
The DL.2s are positioned on the third truss line, roughly 10 feet from the downstage edge. “I wasn’t planning for the DL.2s to be the centerpiece, but as I found my feet with them and pushed them more they became a strong part of the show. My goal was also to use them as a lighting instrument as well as a video unit,” Wagner says.
"I've really enjoyed working with the DL.2s. it has been a large learning curve with the fact that the fixtures can do so much. I'm always finding new things I can do with them. The best way to sum them up for myself is that I approach the DL.2s as a moving light that does video. Not the other way around. My lighting rig is not huge and I try to get the most out of every fixture I have."
Joining him on the lighting crew is Dan Cassar, programmer and board op.
Tthe rig also includes extensive soft LED (4 custom lighting borders and 7 panels 24' x 8' on the upstage spinner truss), plus 50 moving lights (Martin 2Ks + Mac Performances). There is also a mixture of analog with the main light being a smaller blinder called a 20 lite. Consoles are grandMA's and operating system for all the LED is a system called Vixen. The truss system is a custom swing wing truss.
Kurt will be conductinfg an ALIA tour of the lighting in Perth on June 15th.
www.highend.com

Baz Barrett chooses ChamSys Lighting Consoles!
Respected Australia Lighting Designer Baz Barrett has worked on some of Australia’s greatest lighting productions. Most recently, Baz has been the lighting designer for British rock band Stereophonics on their Australian and New Zealand Tour.
Previously Baz was using a Hog Console to control his lighting designs, but was in the market for a new generation of lighting console. The solution was easy: a ChamSys MQ100 with an Extension Wing.
ChamSys create intelligent and easy to use lighting consoles. ChamSys began when a group of lighting designers and long time lighting product developers got together to develop a new console that would overcome the limits of traditional consoles.
Baz borrowed a ChamSys MQ100 Console from Lighthouse Distribution with a practical demonstration by avid ChamSys user, Matt Owen. After plotting a couple of shows and using it live on the Stereophonics Tour, Baz simply said, “I am incredibility impressed.”
The ChamSys MQ100 has an in-built colour touch-screen, so there is no need for external monitors as the control is at your fingertips. Each of the ten theatre style playback controls is electronically labelled to show the current and next steps in the Cue Stack. Eight rotary encoders make controlling individual parameters simple. The MQ100 supports effortless playback of pre-programmed shows whilst allowing instantaneous over-ride via the powerful MagicQ programmer for ‘busking’ those unexpected moments.
MagicQ MQ100 provides an ideal starting point for the lighting designer. With access to up to 202 playbacks through virtual playback controls, the MQ100 can handle the most complex shows. Should more faders be required for a particular show, simply connect one or more MagicQ Playback Wings.
Baz is so impressed he is organising to use a ChamSys MQ200 on the European Festival leg of the Stereophonics Tour.
Baz will be back in Australia in several weeks and hopes to continue road testing this awesome console.
www.lighthousedistribution.com.au

Clay Paky fixtures light up “Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour”
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Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour” is currently touring Australia with the help of 345 Clay Paky lighting fixtures. The show is a live fusion of songs, dance and team-spirited fun inspired by the pop-culture sensation and Disney Channel Original Movies, “High School Musical” and “High School Musical 2.”
The show, produced by Feld Entertainment and Kenny Ortega, made its world premiere in New York City last September as part of an unprecedented global tour featuring three companies playing more than 100 cities across the US and locations in Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia and Europe. The ice tour will include never-before-seen choreography, costumes, lighting, special effects, projection and scenery.
The show showcases 345 Clay Paky full-automated fixtures in three identical rigs including 115 fixtures per show made up of 37 Alpha Spot HPE 1200s, 61 Alpha Wash 1200s, and 17 Alpha Wash 575s.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years and have used every kind of light known to man,” says Dennis Flenniken, electrical operations manager at Feld Entertainment, Inc., the worldwide leader in producing and presenting live family entertainment. Feld Entertainment draws 25 million people to its shows each year; productions have appeared in 50 countries and on six continents to date and include “Disney On Ice,” “Disney Live!” “Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey” and “Doodlebops Live!”
“Clay Paky fixtures stand up to any light touring, and the new Alpha Series is just unbelievable. For ‘Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour,’ we did three identical shows, each with 115 active fixtures. The Alpha Series has many effects -- nobody has as many spinning and rotating gobos -- so lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe was able to create beautiful swimming effects and sunlight.”
Lighting programmer Patrick Dierson calls the show “very much a hybrid: a very theatrically-staged show that breaks out into musical numbers in an arena environment. It’s not quite theatrical, not quite a concert but very much both at the same time.” He was tasked with “lighting the faces of all the skaters in the cast -- energetic teens who are difficult to distinguish from each other -- and keeping things bright so the audience can see while maintaining a good amount of coverage.” He also needed to “combine a big, bold wash look with rock ’n roll flyouts to the audience with ballyhoos and effects. We had to keep up the intensity while creating moods.”
According to Dierson, “this is Feld’s first lighting rig to be completely automated, with no conventional units.” The team, specified Clay Paky fixtures “based on their reliability -- I’ve had a phenomenal run of reliability with them. For ‘Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour,’ we’re beating on them pretty hard. They take a lot of abuse with no problems.”
He says the Clay Paky “washes are bright and punchy, with good beam shaping; they do a lot of tricks. The Alpha Spot HPE units have a really great amount of gobos and a variety of patterns -- which didn’t look like disco gobos -- which gives us a lot of flexibility: This is the first time we didn’t have to specify all the gobos in the unit.”
In addition, “the Alpha Spot HPE units have some great built-in effects which is nice when you’re programming because you’re not as reliant on the console,” says Dierson. “And the effects are randomised enough so they don’t look repeated.”
He also finds “the optical clarity of the typical Clay Paky fixture to be high quality with a lot of output. They punch right through other wash lights, and have consistent colours across the board so we didn’t have to custom mix. They all dialled in extremely consistently. Everyone liked the way they looked.”
In the opinion of Feld’s Flenniken, “the Clay Paky fixtures are brighter than similar lights in terms of what the eye perceives in amount of lumens.” That means a small but powerful lighting rig enabled his team to “load in at 8 a.m. and be ready to go at noon. We used to take 10-12 hours!"
www.lighthousedistribution.com.au

2008 ASTRA Awards
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A record 31 winners were honoured at subscription television’s night of nights, the 6th Annual ASTRA Awards, at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on April 21st. The ASTRA Awards are produced by the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association, the peak industry body for subscription television.
More than 1000 people attended the gala event, created to recognise excellence in subscription television, both in front of − and behind − the cameras.
Lighting this spectacular event was Hugh Taranto using a rig supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems. The event was produced By Technical Productions with Keri Chittendon as Event Producer and Bill Ainley as Production Manager.
Hugh utilized a Show Technology dominated rig including 21 Martin MAC700 wash, 16 Martin MAC2000 wash, 28 Martin MAC700 spot plus two Studio Due Dominators for the after party walk. LED lighting included 46 ProShop LED Tubes, 22 Pulsar ChromaBanks which were modified for set installation, 16 Honeycomb72 LED Flood for the foyer wall, balloon and photo wall and 20 Martin LC2140 LED video panels to construct a 10m x 4m curved video screen.
“This was the first time that I had used the LC Panels,” commented Hugh. “The client was looking for something they could use as a more three-dimensional screen which could have action behind it. The screen itself had to be curved too. The LC Panels could achieve all of their wishes.”
Custom-made content was fed to the LC Panels via two Catalyst v4 media servers; one providing vision for the 3m sphere, whilst the other pixel mapped the ChromaBanks and provided vision to the LC Panels.
“Once it was all set up it was pretty easy to make it all work,” said Hugh. “The Panels were attached to a custom rolled piece of pipe to make them into a curved screen. Initially we had some problems with weird patterns coming through the TV for the broadcast but we discovered it was a synch problem with the cameras. All we had to do was genlock the screen to the cameras and the vision equipment to solve the problem – I believe that the LC Panels have something in their box that allows you to do that.
“The other issue we had was that they were too bright and we had to tone them down! Other than that the LC Panels were faultless and the effect was great. One great effect with the LC Panels was when Lior performed and we had an orchestra behind the Panels; to reveal them we opened up a window in the content which basically revealed the musicians behind the screen.”
The Pro Shop LED Tubes were installed into the ground set – on ramps and entrances – in strips to outline the stage. The ChromaBanks were situated behind sheer fabric on the set so that at times they could virtually disappear, yet when they were switched on they shone effectively through the fabric.
For control Hugh was using two MA Lighting grandMA consoles; one as a main console and one as a tracking backup. Three Robert Juliet 2.5K Heloise followspots were used n the production.
The after party was held nearby in the Byron Kennedy Hall with lighting designed by Scott Bason using six Martin MAC250 Entours, six MAC300, twelve Pro Shop Honeycomb72 LED Flood, eight Pro Shop Honeycomb36 LED Flood, five Oil FX Projector, 100 metres of Festoon, and analogue lighting.
www.showtech.com.au

Robe tours with Future Music
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The Future Music Festival toured nationally this March with over 100 Robe moving lights on board.
Arguably one of Australia’s most exciting and contemporary electronic music festivals, the Future Music Festival brings together an impressive line up of the world’s best DJ’s including massive headline act, The Chemical Brothers. With crowds of up to 40,000+, the huge day of full blown entertainment was spread out across several stages.
The lighting Rig for all the auxiliary stages was provided by Clifton Productions, and project managed by Clifton’s Production Manager Michael Parsons. All of the stages were heavily loaded with Robe moving lights. Parsons states that from his point of view having Robe’s on a production puts his mind at ease, “The reliability of the Robe products is fantastic. They withstand the rigors of touring and the elements and just keep working!”
Future Music
For the Sydney and Brisbane legs of the tour, the Future Music Stage was operated by Parsons himself throughout the afternoon. Parsons states that “the main hurdle that the lights had to overcome was to cut through the daylight”. As such the lights had to be powerful, and this was the motivation in incorporating the Robe 2500 ColorWash with PC Lens into the rig – which proved prudent – as Parsons states that the “brightness and punch of these fixtures was outstanding”. Parsons goes so far as to say that the “2500’s made the strobes in the rig look like tiny blinking LEDs”.
When the main act, the UK’s Chemical Brothers, kicked off the last spot on the line-up, they did so with their own specific lighting design from Lighting Designer/Operator Ricardo Lorenzini. Phaseshift Productions were brought on board to provide the lighting equipment and consoles for The Chemical Brothers for all of their Australian shows (except Perth). The Chemical Brothers are renowned for their amazing visuals, and brought with them as a feature a Stealth LED Screen measuring a huge 12m x 7.8m, and 2 x 10K full colour lasers.
Phaseshift’s Simon Aitken states that the LD asked for a ‘very punchy wash fixture to project through the Stealth Screen’. This was accomplished by rigging 27 Robe 1200AT ColorWashes behind the screen on angled pods, revealing the lights only during the Chemical Brothers spot. The rest of the rig included 10 iLed StarDrape Panels, as well as other fixtures from Phaseshift’s inventory. Simon states “The Robe 1200 Washes are a great unit and we never had any fuss with them at all throughout all the shows around the country”.
Mischief Stage
For the Melbourne leg of the tour, the Mischief stage was operated by John Stanley of Light and Sound Solutions with gear provided by Clifton Productions. The rig included 8 Robe ColorSpot 700E AT and 6 Robe ColorWash1200E AT. The lighting show was completely operated by E:Cue 3.8 with MM Dongle, Fader unit and Butler. On the performance of the Robe’s, Stanley states "They Robe’s were used due to the fast CMY color mix system and proven reliability. This enables me to produce extremely fast color flicks. I would say that the Robe's have the fastest CMY on the market."
Other stages on the Future Music tour that featured Robe’s include the Fan Klub Stage and the Famous Stage with 6 ColorSpot 1200E AT and 6 ColorWash 1200E AT on both rigs. The major Trance stage God’s Kitchen featured 8 Robe Colorspot 700E AT and 8 ColorWash 700E AT, and the innovative Silent Disco featured 4 Colorspot 700E ATs. The Future Funk stage featured 4 ColorSpot 700E ATs, and the very retro Roller Disco had 4 ColorSpot 575E ATs.
Overall, Parsons was very effusive about the reliability and performance of the Robe’s on the Future Music Tour – “I toured the lights from the Brisbane to Sydney gigs and had no hiccups. I took 6 spare fixtures and never even had to take them out of their cases. They withstood everything - rain, heat, dust – no problems.” It seems both the Future Music Festival and the Robe’s proved to be a huge success!
www.ula.com.au

Martin Stagebar 54’s go to the top of the class
The classic game show It's Academic has been a long-running success for Channel Seven. Hosted by Simon Reeve, it’s an educational and entertaining show that sees students from primary schools compete against other primary schools in an attempt to win cash and prizes.
Moving light operator Michael Burton has been with the show since the beginning and although the set hasn’t changed much, the lighting has kept up with the latest technology. Crucial to the set up of the show are the coloured screens behind each team of contestants which are lit in different hues. When a team member hits their buzzer the screen turns white to indicate which team has answered.
Before the latest round of filming It’s Academic a bunch of par cans achieved this effect but were not an ideal solution. Then lighting suppliers Lots of Watts came across the Martin Stagebar 54, a compact and powerful LED answer.
“The decision to switch to the Stagebars was made because the par cans draw a lot of power and take more set up time,” remarked Michael. “The Stagebars deliver a much more even spread of colour and they also allow me to run effects. The colour temperature is good too. Also the space they are in is pretty confined and the fact that the Stagebar produces no heat is a real bonus.
“I have only used the Stagebars on this show but I can see them used in many more capacities. In fact I’m quite impressed by them and they’ve worked really well.”
A total of nine Stagebars are used: three mounted on Martin MAC2000 road cases behind each screen. From there they can colour each school in green, red or purple. When a child presses the buzzer the MA Lighting grandMA console triggers a MIDI signal to change the StageBar colours.
Alongside the studio lighting there are eleven Martin MAC2000 fixtures: five in the air and six on the ground. One of the MAC2000’s in the air contains a glass gobo of the It’s Academic logo which it projects onto the floor of the studio.
www.showtech.com.au

Gladiators – are you ready for the MAC2000 Wash?
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After being a brief smash hit for Seven over a decade ago, the battering rams are coming out again with the successful return of Gladiators. It’s a colossal clash of Gladiator v Challenger that transforms the Dome arena floor into a spectacular battleground.
The massive action on the floor is matched by an immense and versatile rig designed by Francesco Calvi with Paul Collison acting as lighting director. Filming ran through January and February and the days were long for the crew.
“It’s a really tough show to make in many aspects,” said Paul. “From a lighting perspective it was very different from a normal show where you have a band on stage and your audience in one spot. We had a playing area that encompassed most of the floor area of the Dome and we could shoot from any one of the 360° that was available. The cameraman would be spinning around, the director would call stop and that would be the shot and within thirty seconds you had to have it lit and have the background covered. Consequently we were always on our toes! However the producers understood that things often wouldn’t be perfect and they wanted to go with that exciting, live feel.”
When designing the rig Francesco was careful to ensure that all bases were covered and providing the grunt in the system were ninety-three Martin MAC2000 washes used to light the floor, the set and the games.
“The MAC2000 washes were great and a pleasure to have,” commented Paul. “Thirty-one 8-lites were placed around the arena floor to supply a bit of a lift when required. Eight truss followspots worked hard lighting hosting positions and the players during the games, to isolate them a bit and bring a bit more colour and texture out around the games so it didn’t look like it was being held in a car park.”
Eighty-five Pro Shop Honeycomb LED fixtures were used to light the audience as were thirty-three Studio Due CityColors. Eighty Pulsar ChromaStrips add their usual bedazzle whilst seventeen of Francesco’s favoured Studio Due CS4’s throw their beam effects where required. A massive two-hundred Pulsar ChromaHeart LED MR16’s were embedded into the floor to provide colour and movement.
“There were kilometers of LED Neon Flex on the games, in the floor and in the main wall set,” added Paul. “The LED Neon Flex is great; it’s picked up where neon left off. Neon is a great effect but is just too brittle for the kind of things we needed to do whereas the LED Neon Flex looks great on camera and is easy to install. At the end of the day, it’s also relatively cheap. It’s no surprise that set designers are starting to use it in bulk!”
Of course Paul had a couple of MA Lighting grandMA consoles for control and two ArKaos media servers.
www.showtech.com.au

Trafficlight and Lighthouse Distribution shine on the Spicks and Specktacular Tour!
ABC’s Spicks and Specks, the hugely successful musical themed quiz show in its fourth season, recently toured Australia with the ‘Spicks and Speck-tacular Tour’. The technical production was delivered by Melbourne based production company Trafficlight.
When designing the lighting aspect of the show, Trafficlight needed a high output fixture with low power consumption. The solution was the DTS Delta LED Projectors. Trafficlight used six Delta R’s in dark grey as floor mounted and stage feature washes. The Delta’s are substantially smaller when compared to simular products on the market, and are silent, allowing the fixtures to be inconspicuously blended into the backdrop.
The Delta’s have superior colour rendition, using 40 full colour RGB LEDs, which independently generate 16 million colours. This full colour technology always produces a uniform light beam and offers a user definable white balance, which presents real solutions to age-old tri-colour LED problems.
The Delta’s are extremely versatile fixtures; they are IP65 rated and are camera flicker free, presenting the perfect option for both television and outdoor use. “The greatest advantage of the Delta over other fixtures in its class, besides its extraordinary colour rendition, is its ability to transition seamlessly between theatrical and architectural applications," comments Michael Jankie from Trafficlight Productions, pictured.
The DTS Delta’s are distributed exclusively in Australia by Lighthouse Distribution.
www.lighthousedistribution.com.au

Martin LC Panels for Matchbox Twenty
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Matchbox Twenty 'Exile On Mainstream' Australian Tour 2008 is currently underway with Lighting Designer/Programmer and Video Designer Benoit Richard of Millennium Lighting Design, Inc. not only employing lighting choreography that would create an unforgettable lighting experience for the crowd, but uses quality products that possessed a strong temperament for the duration of the tour and translate the band’s vision.
“I always use pre-visualization software as a starting point for all of my designs,” said Ben. “I also like to have a large amount of control when it comes to the visual package (console, media servers and video surfaces). Having a hand in all aspects of the production definitely helps give the show a seamless look”.
Keeping dynamism in mind, Ben chose a rig outfitted with a large quantity of Martin products including 22 MAC 2000 Washes, 12 Atomic 3000 strobes with Atomic Colors, 25 Stagebar 54 LED luminaires 12 MAC2000 profile and 14 x MAC700 profile. It is safe to say, however that Richard’s choice of 36 LC Series 2140 and 4 LC Series 1140 LED panels may be what set this tour apart from the rest.
The LC Series is a semi-transparent, modular system of LED panels, perfect for displaying video and images. Designed for stage shows, TV studios and other commercial applications, the LC closely integrates light, video and set design, offering entirely new possibilities for staging.
“Out of all the transparent video products on the market, I thought the Martin LC had the perfect look for the band,” said Ben. “It’s definitely the ‘cleanest’ and the most transparent that I found.”
“I thought it was really bright,” said Ben when describing his first impression of the LC Series. “And the 40mm pixel pitch gives it a certain texture that works very well with the type of content we are using for each song.”
This was important as Ben was intent on bringing a beautifully complex video design concept to life. To employ products that would create the exact effect he envisioned could have been a challenge. However, the choice of using the LC panels resolved any possible issues in that respect.
“To create some 3D video looks at certain points within the show, the LC panels worked really well in front of the [hi-res LED screen],” said Ben. “The fact that the LC is 60% transparent made it possible for us to spread the two LED surfaces apart and increase the field of view for the audience.”
Other challenges important to those working in production is travel, set-up and breakdown time, both of which the LC panels handle famously. The crew hasn’t had one issue while traveling with the LC Panels which are built to cater to a sometimes extremely harsh touring industry.
LC panels can be stacked or hung several units high and as wide as necessary. With standard Prolyte CCS6 conical truss connectors, linking the lightweight units together is simple and strong. With no external power supplies or drivers, each unit comes with everything it needs built in, which reduces logistical costs and set-up time. They are certain to become a production team’s favorite as they also are designed for travel and can be serviced without the use of tools.
Martin are in a strong position to provide the end to end solution for scenic/creative LED displays and content delivery by evolving the product line of displays hand in hand with the Maxedia products.
Mark Hogue, Production Manager for Matchbox Twenty stated, "The Martin light curtain is one of the most dazzling video effects on the market today, a true combination of video and lighting. In the hands of a skilled visual designer it is one tool that could bring a very cost effective dramatic look to any show."
“The band is extremely happy and proud to showcase the LC panels in addition to all of the other fun things we present to concert-goers on this tour,” said Ben.
Ben acknowledges the end result production as being one that will remain in the minds of concert-goers for a lifetime, but also notes that such a memorable experience is not brought to fruition by his hands alone.
“Coming up with visual design concepts is not as hard as finding the right team to execute 4 or 5 load-outs each week,” he says. “If I didn’t have these dedicated professionals by my side, this show would never be as cool as it is.”
Lighting for the Australian tour was supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems.
www.showtech.com.au

Robe up late with Andy Warhol
The recent Andy Warhol Exhibit at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane has proven to be a melting pot of past and present pop culture with the inclusion of the Andy Warhol Up Late performances.
Live music from national and international artists every Friday night of the exhibition has bought one of the most influential and important artists of the late twentieth century to today’s audiences.
Brisbane’s live production gurus, IJS Logistics were on hand to provide the audio and lighting for the Andy Warhol Up Late gigs. Holding one of Queensland’s largest Robe inventories, IJS used various combinations of Robe’s across the dozens of acts involved in the Up Late performances. These acts included names such as Architecture in Helsinki, I Heart Hiroshima, Tyrone Noonan, Trans AM, and New Buffalo. To close the Andy Warhol exhibit, award winning Australian band, Wolfmother, were called on to perform the final Up Late show. Playing to a sold out audience of 1000, Wolfmother lifted the roof of GOMA’s River Room and rocked the crowd with hardcore riffs and explosive lyrics.
Lighting on the night was courtesy of 8 Robe ColorSpot 700E AT’s, 4 ColorWash 575E AT’s, as well as 12 SDV ColorFusion 803’s. The fixtures were used to provide color and wash to both stage and audience. The ColorSpot 700’s were mounted on the front and back truss and the ColorWash 575’s were set around the stage. In the relatively small space of the River Room, the output of the 700’s set the stage alight with color, adding mood and depth to Wolfmother’s performance. Due to the conditions of the gallery, IJS were not able to use smoke or haze on the gig, so the color and light emitted over the stage and band was bright and sharp offering a different effect to the standard rock gig.
Robe certainly helped Wolfmother shine as bright as Warhol, and the combination of classic art and modern rock proved to be a great success – if the audience’s reaction was anything to go by.
www.ula.com.au

Jands Vista a Saviour with Xavier
Jamie Schmidt of JLS Lighting has recently returned from touring the United States and Canada with that one man and drummer roots band Xavier Rudd. According to Jamie the tour was made a lot easier for him by his treasured Jands Vista S3, the feature-packed console you can fit under your arm and is designed to be used with your desktop or laptop.
“I purchased my Vista S3, plus the M1 playback-only Vista control surface, last year and I couldn’t be happier with them,” said Jamie. “I was primarily looking for something I could carry onto flights as I tour so much. I had a good look at the market and the Vista just seemed the perfect fit for what I was doing.”
The portability of the Vista S3 was especially important on Xavier’s US tour as most of the gigs used the venue’s in-house rig.
“The Vista S3 was so easy to integrate into in-house systems,” commented Jamie. “I was also traveling with an ArKaos media server so all the files stayed where they needed to be and all I had to do was change the attributes of the moving lights – something that is simple with the Vista S3.
“The fact that I can basically change any fixture that I’ve got on the console to a different fixture really easily is fantastic and it really saved me a lot of time in the US. If I wanted to convert the functions of a Martin MAC500 to a Vari-Lite it could easily swap all the attributes across with the fixture pooling.”
Jamie found that technicians around the States were extremely impressed by the Vista S3’s capabilities and it found many new fans. Jamie had been concerned about was the backup service on tour but found that A.C. Lighting had consoles in the U.S. and that Briere Productions had consoles in Vancouver.
 “I love using the timeline features of the Vista S3 and also the effects generators as they allow you to create your own effects easily and it means that you don’t have to go with the inbuilt effects.
“The timeline feature is particularly useful on corporate gigs as it makes life so much easier than just using a cue list. I find that achieving off set looks using the timeline function is so simple.”
Jamie also enjoyed the Vista S3’s patching facilities that allow him to drag and drop fixtures across any universe and in any channel with minimum effort, and the fact that he could patch Arkaos into the fifth universe and simply link his laptops together to operate Arkaos.
www.jands.com.au

LED's make an Impression on So You Think You Can Dance
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So You Think You Can Dance Australia is set to be television’s smash hit of 2008! After the US series proved a ratings winner, Network Ten embarked on the local version to showcase Australia’s best undiscovered dancing talent. Currently filming at Sydney’s Carriageworks this spectacular production is lit by Francesco Calvi using masses of Show Technology gear supplied by Chameleon. The set was designed by Mark Dyson.
LED lighting abounds on this production with Francesco using two of the hottest LED products on the market; the GLP Impression and the Martin Stagebars.
Impression is the first LED moving wash light to give the equivalent of a 575W wash in a compact, lightweight housing, offering 660° pan and 300° tilt - with a complete 660° swing taking less than two seconds; this makes it application-perfect for touring, stage and TV as well as clubs and bars. It’s no wonder that Francesco was impressed with the Impression!
“The Impressions have been really good: punchy, small and have a really tight beam which is different for an LED,” he said. “They’re just a really cool fixture and also very robust, they’re great.”
The twelve Impressions are situated on the floor of the set whilst the sixteen Martin Stagebars are hung on a circular truss high above the stage.
“The Martin Stagebars have been excellent and are very punchy,” Francesco commented. “What’s unique about them is the fact that they have amber and white LED as well as the usual RGB mix. The amber allows you to get warmer looks and the white is good for colour mixing. They have an amazing throw and it’s surprising how much grunt they’ve got. They deliver a really nice, defined beam which you don’t normally get out of the RGB models. They’ve been amazing.”
Forty-two Pro Shop Honeycomb LED fixtures are situated behind the main screen from where they can make the backdrop change colour.
“They’re ideal for this as they’re low heat and have lots of colour options,” said Francesco. “I don’t have to dick around with bulbs and stuff. They’re very punchy and good value for money. We’ve put a bit of frost over them to help break it up a bit.”
Thirty-two Pulsar ChromaBanks and forty-eight Pulsar ChromaStrip are also used to light behind set pieces. Miles of LED Neon Flex is used to highlight the set.
Moving lights include thirty-six Martin MAC700’s, twenty-one MAC250 washes and fourteen of the MAC TW1 tungsten wash movers; a fixture that Francesco describes as great.
Control is via two MA Lighting grandMA consoles; one in the control booth to the side of the stage and one used for programming out front and as a back up console.
www.showtech.com.au

Vuepix makes it Austalian debut at Melbourne International Motorshow
The latest in High Resolution video screens is the Vuepix range of LED video solutions, distributed exclusively by the ULA Group. Making its official launch at Entech 2008, the Vuepix screens have quickly made their way into the production world with a debut at the Melbourne International Motorshow this March.
Purchased by Clifton Productions, the Vuepix P10 LED Video Screen was featured on the Kia stand at the Motor Show. With a very successful start to the year, and the launch of two new models, the Kia Display at the show needed to have significant impact. The Vuepix screen certainly helped with this, and was used to display full color moving images of the Kia, as well as text and static images.
The VuePix P10 LED screen delivers superior high resolution. The screen has a pixel pitch of 10mm and is completely modular for ease of rigging and setup in touring and production applications. The VuePix P10 LED screen is equipped with SMD RGB 3 in 1 LEDs and has a pixel density of this screen is 10 000 dots/m2. The P10 screen is ideal for synchronous display of all kinds of text, graphics, pictures, signs, and any signal from DVI, VGA, Composite, Component and S-Video.
www.ula.com.au

Robe helps out in the Carols against Poverty Spectacular
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Held this past December at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre was the Carols against Poverty Arena Spectacular. The goal of this event was to raise funds for Children in need in Burkina Faso, West Africa. The spectacular had a variety format and the Robe’s were used to bring color and versatility to the event.
The Spectacular, hosted by local Gold Coast celebrities, Rob Molhoek and Rowena Szeszeran-McEvoy, played out a modern day nativity story through a variety of musical and dramatic numbers. Staged in the round, the show featured stars such as Australian Idol contestants Matt Corby and Guy ‘MUTTO’ Mutton, as well as other local stars and celebrities.
Lighting on the night was supplied by Dominica and MLR (Clifton Productions) and designed and operated by Luke Criss of Dominica. The lighting rig, combining a mixture of Robe ColorSpot 700E AT, Robe ColorWash 700E AT and Robe ColorWash 575 AT, was used to provide an array of Color Washes and Gobo Effects to pull together the many elements of the spectacular.
Criss comments that “The zoom on the Robe ColorSpot 700EAT was great, it just kept going” and “… with the CMY it made a great seamless colour changing light.” He goes further to say “The Robe range worked well with all the shows variations, in a very big venue they worked easily and filled the arena with colour and vibe.”
The night had many elements, with the main focus on raising much needed funds for Burkina Faso, Criss states “The night was a great success; over 180 children were sponsored through Compassion International Australia.” All with a little help from Robe.
www.ula.com.au

Melbourne Opera's La Boheme
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Melbourne Opera's production of the much-loved Pucini romantic opera La Boheme opened in Melbourne last month and is touring until July of this year. Lighting Designer Scott Allan created a beautiful lighting design for this classic tale of love. The rig comprises: 12x 2kW Fresnel, 12x 1.2kW Fresnels, 24x 15/32 SL Profiles, 12x 23/50 SL Profiles, O/W Festooning, 12000x7000 Starcloth and a few purpose-built practicals. Venues are suppling control so touring Victoria and Tasmania, the Strand Palette appears heavily on the list. Interestingly, Scott has commented favorably on the 700 series of Lee colour supplied by Mediavision. "I particularly love the L776/4 and L728 colours. I have new favorite colours!".
Scott also used L776 extensively on last year's Sweeney Todd. This production was Directed by Hugh Halliday and Designed by Richard Jeziorny.
sallanld.com

There’s a light.........
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It’s astounding, time is fleeting and The Rocky Horror Show is back in a totally brand new Australian production at Sydney’s new Star Theatre. This production, directed by Gale Edwards with sets by Dale Ferguson and lighting by Damien Cooper, has received rave reviews in the press and continues to wow audiences.
The moving lights in Damien’s rig are mostly Martin MACs with twelve MAC2000 profile, ten MAC2000 performer, seven MAC2000 wash and eighteen Martin MAC TW1.
“I really like the quality of light you get from the MAC TW1,” he said. “It’s a quality I often find I’m missing with normal moving lights. They also have a nice clean fade to black. The combination of the TW1’s with the MAC2000 profiles and performances works very well.”
Damien found the new Star Theatre a fairly difficult venue to design for as it is rather cavernous and does not have a normal proscenium arch style. To compensate Damien had a proscenium arch loaded with camp light effects built into the set. There are rope lights, LEDs, festoon lighting but crowning it all are Pro Shop LED Tubes arranged in a pseudo-haphazard fashion.
“The ‘happy tubes’ are really quite good,” remarked Damien. “I’d like to use them on a larger scale one day.”
For control Damien was using a MA Lighting grandMA with a Catalyst media server. When asked why he opted for a grandMA, Damien summed it up in three words: flexibility, ease and speed!
”Usually I tend to use more traditional theatre consoles such as Strand but for this show I needed a console that could run the Catalyst, lots of LEDs etc so I needed something that could handle that kind of speed and processing quickly.”
Lighting was supplied by Bytecraft.
www.showtech.com.au

All praise to Martin LC Panels and TW1 washes
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Paul Collison has just finished lighting a spectacular Hillsong event in Sydney’s Acer Arena where Martin LC Panels dominated the visuals. Paul’s design needed to take in to account various things; firstly there was the three day Women's Conference (called Colour Your World) followed by the 2008 Hillsong DVD record. The Women's Conference was full of small musical items plus a huge produced conference opener that included video support, live performance and interaction between the two.
The second part of the week was the record of the 2008 Hillsong DVD which is distributed all over the world. This DVD was shot “as live” on the Sunday night after the conference. Both events required the audience covered in both a functional and theatrical manner.
The lighting was a joint supply from Lots of Watts and Chameleon Touring Systems with Paul reporting that both companies worked extremely well together and all staff was a credit to their companies and the industry. According to Paul, the system was very difficult to get in and out however the end result was definitely worth it.
Paul utilised thirty-two LC Panels which were spread around the trusses and mapped from one of the two Martin Maxedia media servers. Paul admits that the lighting design was one of those that looks stunning in 3D on your computer but when you get on site, a bit harder to put together.
“I have to say that in the end it was definitely worth it,” he commented. “The LC Panels have been used a fair bit in the past twelve months since they were launched and I didn’t want to do another big video wall with them. Hillsong already use a 25m x 4.5m LED screen anyway and I didn’t want to compete with that. I decided to break up the LC Panels over the whole stage and map them accordingly so that we could create a bigger picture with the LC Panels if we wanted to or they could be used virtually independently.
“When they were on they provided great colour and movement around the stage however, when they were off they were hardly noticeable amongst every thing else that was around. I could warm the truss behind them and you really had to look hard to see whether they were even in the rig. That makes them a really versatile tool especially when you want each song to have a unique look. Like wise the ColorWeb that hung behind the LED screen; when that was off it was a black wall. I could intersperse content on the ColorWeb, LC Panels or both. At any time I could get up four completely different looks on the stage.”
Paul has spent a lot of time gathering and editing media for use with the LC Panels. He tries to keep his media fresh, adding to it monthly, but at the same time he believes that you can reuse media over and over again by subtly changing it.
“What we need to be careful about in the industry now is overuse of certain media like using the same gobos all the time in moving lights,” he said. “We can’t afford to be buying new media all the time and we certainly don’t have the time to be buying or making new media for every event. There is a fairly limited resource of media out there so I think it is important is to start utilising some of the effects these media servers offer in order to change the appearance of the media. You can have a favourite piece of media that you can then change the colour, focus or key-stoning of to create a whole new look.
“I’ve been careful to create a section of my library that has media with high levels of contrast as I think that is the kind of media that works best with the LC Panels particularly when they’re not in one big wall. When they’re broken up, you need something that does have a high level of contrast and doesn’t always identify the full size of the LC Panel such as random graphic shapes that move through the Panel.”
Control was by a couple of MA Lighting grandMA consoles with four NSP Nodes plus three media servers: an ArKaos Media Server as a pixel mapper and two Martin Maxedia.
Moving lights in the rig included twenty MAC2000 wash, ten MAC700 wash, 20 MAC700 profile and twenty MAC TW1 wash lights.
“The Martin MACTW1 is simply my favourite light!” announced Paul. “The coolest thing is the play between tungsten light and the higher colour temperature moving lights – they just sit so well together. The colours in the TW1’s are phenomenal and I try to use them on whatever I can get them on.
”I was impressed at how the MAC700 Profiles held their own against the bigger 1200w fittings and I am really impressed with how reliable those fixtures are. I don’t recall any of the 700 series fixtures requiring maintenance during our week long stay at Acer Arena.”
Also in the rig were Pulsar ChromaBanks, VL3500’s, VL1000’s, VL3000’s, High End Showguns, VersaTube “Racks”, Mini/Zip Strips, 8-lites, 1200w PC + b/door (7" lens), Selecon Pacific Zoom 12-28 profile 80v, 5k fresnels and 2k fresnels.
www.showtech.com.au

Jands Vista PC is Speck-tacular
Adam Hills, Alan Brough and Myf Warhurst have been touring the country with the Spicks and Speck-tacular! A stage show loosely based on a comedic music quiz, Spicks and Speck-tacular features games from the show ramped up for the stage and the whole show is rocked along by a live band led by Myf’s big brother Kit.
trafficlight were chosen as the Production Management and Lighting Design Team for the tour, an exciting and important undertaking for them due to the challenge of incorporating numerous, multi-dimensional activities within a tight schedule. The production focus for this live extravaganza included combining live performance, audience participation and several exaggerated props to create a smooth running, successful event.
The lighting, a combination of moving heads, moving mirrors and conventionals, was designed by trafficlight’s Niklas Pajanti. A Jands Vista PC running of a Mac Book and a Jands Vista M1 were used for control.
The Jands Vista gear is owned by Hamish Clift who was Assistant Stage Manager and Head Lighting Tech on the tour. Hamish purchased the Vista PC and M1 six months ago. The Vista PC enables him to duplicate all the functions of the Vista lighting console on his Mac Book. The fixture icons even provide a basic visualization of the show, so he can use it to design and build shows at home or on the road. The Vista M1 is an ultra-compact and extremely cost-effective playback-only Vista control surface that is often described as the console in your back pocket. The M1 allows Hamish do program a light show in advance on his Mac Book, whilst providing hardware to simply control the playback of his show. With five playbacks including faders and flash buttons, plus a rotary master fader, the M1 is a complete and portable Vista playback module.
“I wanted a console that was easy to tour with and preferably a Mac-based solution,” Hamish remarked. “The M1 playback wing is tiny and fits into my hand luggage; the combination is excellent for touring around the country. From a lighting design point of view, the visual orientation of the Vista software is really good because you have all of your colours, gobo rotation right there in front of you. The way you add clips is very handy and easy to use. Coming from a theatre background, I’m using it with theatrical knowledge in a rock’n’roll environment which is excellent – best of both worlds.
“The Jands Vista is lot different from many other consoles and it takes a bit of getting used to but once you’ve done so, it’s very fast and easy to use. The entire operating system is completely different; the way it controls moving lights and the visual representation of everything is just excellent. You have a picture of what you see instead of numbers which is very nice.”
www.jands.com.au

Wireless DMX in Mardi Gras Parade!
Wireless Solution gets onboard Sydney Mardi Gras float to help the parade maintain it’s unrivalled reputation for glitz and glamour!
Viewed by over 300, 000 spectators, the 30th Annual Sydney Mardi Gras Parade was held in Sydney’s Darlinghurst on the 1st of March. The massive 4km procession travelled over a 1.6km route and was made up over 150 floats and 10 000 participants. The Parade is considered ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the Mardi Gras festival and this year Wireless Solution was onboard to help the parade maintain it’s unrivalled reputation for glitz and glamour.
Produced and designed by Wayne Mulder of Sydney’s Action Sound, the Wireless Solution system was featured on the Surf Life Saving Australia’s float themed "Whatever floats your boat". The Wireless DMX was used to communicate between the two float trucks that travelled anywhere from 150 to 200 metres apart. Dancing between the two trucks was a contingent of Life Savers, illuminated by 4 City Lights that were required to change color on cue. Mulder states "it was very important that the lights on the two trucks were in sync without the need to have two lighting controllers and two operators. Through the use of W-DMX we were able to control all the lighting from the front truck with one transmitter."
The Wireless DMX rig included the user friendly W-DMX BlackBox S-1 transmitter, which features "One-Button-2-Go" technology, to transmit to the BlackBox R-512 receivers on each truck. The S-1 and R-512 system transmits and receives 512 channels of DMX (one universe) wirelessly through the W-DMX technology and uses AFHSS, Adaptive Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum, along with a number of other techniques to avoid interference and create a very reliable wireless link.
On W-DMX’s reliability, Mulder states that "the Wireless DMX system never skipped a beat and there were no problems with signal strength or reliability". He also goes further to say that without W-DMX the project would have been impossible - "we wouldn’t have been able to do it any other way". The Wireless Solution is a new addition to Action Sound’s inventory, but due to its ease of use and reliability, it is sure to feature in many more projects.
www.ula.com.au

Martin LC Panels - something to Shout about!
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From the team that brought you Dusty – The Original Pop Diva, comes a brand new, multi million dollar production of SHOUT! – The Legend of the Wild One, Johnny O’ Keefe. This fabulous production has just finished playing a highly successful run at Melbourne’s State Theatre opening this week at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre.
With sets and costumes by Roger Kirk and fantastic lighting by Trudy Dalgleish, this production is a visual treat. This is the third production of Shout; the first was in 2000 touring lyric theatres around Australia whilst the second in 2002/3 toured regional areas in a tent.
”The script of this version is very similar to the tent production,” revealed Trudy. “It’s leaner and meaner. It’s a totally new set design and therefore a new lighting design too as the set really tells you what positions you can use for your lights. Roger has designed a really nice set which is multi-leveled and allows a whole lot of different scenes out of the one area. The last one was a big blue box where I had to make every scene – from intimate family scenes to big, stadium rock scenes – work. But with this one we have scenic elements to help which is great. It’s really nice to be able to place lights at different levels of the set; basically we have moving lights hitting all over the back cyc at different levels. I like Roger as a set designer, he’s very clever and he thinks about the lighting as he designs the set.”
The production uses Martin LC Panels hung in six metres by three metres format, an idea that was neither Trudy’s nor Roger’s but the directors, Stuart Maunder, who had used them at the APEC conference. Apparently he was very impressed by them and incorporating them into the show was the only suggestion he gave to Roger Kirk.
”We don’t use the LC Panels extensively,” said Trudy. “We wanted to resist using them as a background for every scene preferring to use them sparingly. That way, when they are used the effect is even greater. I don’t use them in an Australian Idol way; they’re used to display things like newspaper footage and stills of old television footage. They’re used in a documentary manner not an abstract way which works well. It also means we only use them in black and white.”
Trudy had used the LC Panels at the Schools Spectacular in November and she was keen to use them again.
”I really love them,” she exclaimed. “The possibilities they offer are endless. I love the way that you can do intensity in fact in some scenes we’re running them at only six percent! I’d like to use them a lot more to see how much they can actually do. I’d like to use them as individual panels, rather than a whole screen, and have those panels run the same image through them all. Stuart is actually talking about designing an opera based around the LC Panels so that should be interesting if it ever happens!”
Trudy’s moving light rig includes eighteen Martin MAC2000 Performers, twelve MAC2000 Profiles, fifteen MAC2000 Washes and thirteen VL6b’s for set lighting. It’s a rig she describes as a nice mix.
Bytecraft Entertainment supplied the lighting equipment.
www.showtech.com.au

The DTS Delta brings Christmas Cheer to Traffic Light!
Melbourne based production company Traffic Light designed and installed the lighting aspect of the spectacular Christmas Tree at City Square, Melbourne. The giant tree lit up City Square throughout the Christmas period, and included a sound and lighting show each night from 830pm. The tree and accompanying show was a great family event and the perfect backdrop for Christmas photos.
Traffic Light required a waterproof low power consumption solution that would perform in the face of bad weather over many nights. This solution was the DTS Delta R fixtures supplied in Australia by Lighthouse Distribution. The Delta fixtures are IP65 rated, so the fixtures are dust resistant and will withstand harsh weather conditions including heavy rains. They are also light enough to be truss mounted and have three len types to optimise its versatility.
“The greatest advantage of the Delta over other fixtures in its class, besides its phenomenal colour rendition, is its suitability to both indoor and outdoor applications without sacrificing quality or output.” Comments Michael Jankie, Company Director, Traffic Light Productions.
The Delta is one of the brightest fixtures in its class, it has forty full colour LEDs that produce a perfectly uniform colour beam with no false colour shadows. The fixture can always be used with Boost mode on, thanks to better heat dissipation and an automatic function that detects LED temperature making them even brighter at 500mA.
In addition to offering 3 sets of lenses (Spot, Medium flood, Wide flood), the Delta introduces the new very wide flood reflector, which provides a light beam projection of no less than 120° (horizontal) x 85° (vertical), ideal to light large areas and backgrounds from a short distance.
To see how the DTS Delta’s can help your next project, contact Lighthouse Distribution today. www.lighthousedistribution.com.au

Martin MAC TW1 fixtures for Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot is a funny, heart-warming and feel-good celebration of young boy’s dream in a gripping tale of triumph over adversity. The original story captured the hearts and minds of the world when the movie was released in October 2000. The original creative team; director Stephen Daldry and writer Lee Hall, were joined by Elton John, the most celebrated UK singer song-writer of the last 30 years to create Billy Elliot The Musical.
The Australian Premiere took place on Thursday December 13th at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre. Australian audiences and critics are raving about Billy Elliot.
Renowned lighting designer Rick Fisher has been working in British theatre for over twenty years and he is currently Chairman of Association of Lighting Designers. Rick spent several weeks in Sydney preparing the lighting for the Australian version of the stage show along with Associate Lighting Designer Richard Pacholski.
For this production the decision was taken to use sixteen of the new Martin MAC TW1 tungsten fixtures as well as eight MAC700 wash and fourteen MAC600. Chameleon Touring Systems supplied the gear.
“The TW1s on Billy Elliot at Sydney's Capitol Theatre were a new addition to the rig replacing a variety of other conventional and moving fixtures,” explained Rick Fisher. “I was very pleased with their flexibility and, most importantly, the quality of the light and subtle colour mixing that blended in with the other units in the rig. I was also impressed by their silent operation which is essential in a book musical like Billy Elliot. I look forward to expanding their presence in the upcoming Broadway production at the Imperial Theater in autumn 2008.”
Rick notes that he is a big fan of a tungsten light source for basic light on people and to have a wash unit that offers flexibility when rigging space over stage is becoming increasingly precious is fabulous.
”With near silent running, the MAC TW1 is a wonderful new addition to the lighting designer’s box of tricks,” he said.
Richard Pacholski backs up Rick’s comment adding; "The TW1 narrows on Billy Elliot were great proving themselves to be a rock solid unit with absolutely no problems during a long and grinding load-in. They worked straight out of the box. We used them in 'silent' mode giving us complete control over fan noise. For a show that requires minimum moving light noise they were a perfect choice. Performance wise they are a formidable unit. They have great punch and smooth colour mixing plus the choice of mechanical and electronic dimming made for flexible programming.
The Martin TW1 has been worth the wait."
www.showtech.com.au

A Day on the Green with Martin LC Panels and TW1's
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