Production News
Martin sets the mood for West Side Story
Posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Fifty years after its Australian premiere, Joey McKneely’s vibrant stage production of the classic dance musical West Side Story has arrived in Sydney after wild critical acclaim in Paris, Tokyo, Beijing and London.
This production was originally lit by Peter Halbsgut resulting in a nomination for a Tony Award. Several years down the track, the design has been adapted to suit various locations and emerging technologies. In Australia Greg Yates is the Associate Lighting Designer with Chameleon Touring Systems supplying the lighting equipment for the tour.
The lighting rig dominated by Martin MAC moving lights including eighteen MAC700 spots with custom gobos, eighteen MAC2000 wash with PC lens and two MAC2000 Performance.
”Those two MAC2000 Performances work their butts off!” said Greg. “They’re situated one each side out the front and do lots of specials. They go all the way from tight spots to fairly big coverage with a gobo. They work so hard we’ll be stuffed if one went down during a show! However, so far they’ve been great
There are four lighting bars over the stage with the MAC700 and MAC2000 wash fixtures spread fairly evenly amongst them.
Twenty-two Martin StageBar 54 LED fixtures are situated on the top of the back cyc casting light downwards.
”The Martin StageBars are fantastic,” remarked Greg. “The colours are great, the intensity is great and the fact that there are no gels is great.”
A coolux Pandora’s Box media player is handling the projections for the back cyc and although only four layers are being utilized as there are only ten images and no movie files.
”It’s not working very hard as there aren’t that many images but it’s great for the streetscapes,” Greg added.
Production photography ©Branco Gaica
www.showtech.com.au
Vari*lites Are Star Struck
Posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Star Struck is a live three hour variety spectacular presented by the Hunter Central Coast Region public schools. Held annually at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre, the show features a cast of over 3500 young people.
The 2010 production was lit by Mark Hammer with Bytecraft supplying all of the lighting and crew. The whole floor of the entertainment centre is used for the production, so Mark needed a lighting system that was versatile and delivered many different looks. A total of thirty-seven VL3000 Profile and thirty-seven VL3500 Wash helped him to do just that.
“The VL3000 Profiles are almost like the industry standard at the moment,” commented Mark. “They’re very bright, have a great range of gobos and some great onboard effects. For a production like Star Struck they were ideal as they could give me different looks on the floor. Also, with the VL3000 Profile you can get a good, hard edge to pick out certain areas or items.”
Mark was equally impressed by the performance of the VL3500 Washes which he describes as extremely powerful.
”I think they are the most powerful wash light I’ve ever used on one of these types of event,” he added. “They have great colours – as does the VL3000 – with the mixed colours and the colour wheels delivering fantastic results. Coverage, intensity and colour – it’s all there.”
Mark reports that the show’s producer John Deacon was absolutely blown away by the Vari*lites insisting that everyone in the arena came to see Mark programming.
”He noticed straight away the colour difference and the intensity of the light,” said Mark.
MACs for Matty
Posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Channel 7’s The Matty Johns Show features Matthew Johns bringing his unique and entertaining take on rugby league backed by the game’s strongest panel of experts with extensive access to players and clubs. Plus each week, there’s plenty for the whole family with special guests, live performances, music and comedy
Bytecraft Entertainment has supplied a lighting rig that includes twelve Martin MAC2000 Profiles, eight MAC2000 Washes and ten MAC700 Profiles. Control is via two MA Lighting grandMA.
”The show is much more than a sports show with a fair bit of variety content too,” said Shannon Ryan, lighting designer and director for the show. “We generally use Martin MACs because I guess they have become industry standard. We know how they work and they’re always reliable.”
Michael Burton looks after the Martin MACs on one of the grandMA consoles whilst Shannon controls the studio lighting from the other console.
”We’ve been using the grandMA for years,” added Shannon. “I like the way that they are easy to customise to your own needs.”
The ASTRA Awards sparkle
Posted on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
The ASTRA Awards are the Australian subscription television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 2003. This year they were held at Sydney’s State Theatre with Mark Hammer designing the lighting for this prestigious event.
Sky News political editor David Speers hosted the event with performances by, amongst others, country music star Lee Kernaghan and pop group Operator Please.
The floor of the stage was shiny black Perspex which made Mark’s job quite tricky as he tried to avoid too much light reflection or bounce off the floor.
”Consequently the light angles were quite crucial,” he remarked. “Even the follow spot operators – using two Robert Juliat Korrigans – were aware that they had to do half-people pick ups to avoid bounce off the floor. However the producers wanted a rather dark and mysterious look so that worked.”
With clever use of Pro Shop LED Tubes and also JARAGs, Mark managed to create a variety of looks for the different bands playing that night. For example, the fifty Pro Shop LED Tubes were used to form five ‘stars’ two of which were wheeled in for Operator Please whilst the other three were suspended from the rig.
”They worked really well,” reported Mark. “I pixel-mapped them and they looked amazing with just different colours running through them. They gave a sparkling effect as the colour was chasing from the centre out like a star and I also did a bit of a rotate effect too. It was nice and simple – yet very effective.”
Twenty-four Pro Shop Honeycomb 72 LED fixtures were either placed in a row to down light drapes or were up lighting the proscenium arch.
”So when awards were being collected we’d colour-roll through them to add a bit of fun,” said Mark. “I also used twelve JARAGs in a variety of ways; for the first act I turned them in to use them more as side lighting onto the act. For the next act I rotated them around and shot them more into the audience like a back light. I also put some blue colour in them for the first act but for the rest of the show I left them in open white.”
Mark didn’t find the need to pixel-map the JARAGs as he found there were enough patterns and sequences already onboard. Also in the rig were twelve Martin MAC2000 profile, forty PAR64 and twenty-four profiles. Control was a grandMA with two NSP Nodes.
”I got the gear from Chameleon and, as usual it was reliable, so I’d like to give them a pat on the back,” added Mark.
Clarity in control at the 2010 Logie Awards
Posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
The ‘Logies’ are the Australian TV industry’s annual awards and for many years have been broadcast live in Australia by GTV9, part of the Nine Network of Australia. Named after John Logie Baird, the inventor of television, the event was again held at the Palladium Ballroom, Crown Towers in Melbourne with the “who’s who” of Australia’s TV personalities in attendance.
This year’s lighting design included 33 video screens spread around the room, being controlled by a total of 9 Media Servers from both Green Hippo and Pandoras Box. LSC Clarity lighting and multimedia control system was chosen to control this major element of the show.
Having seen Clarity’s ability to control Media Servers so easily, LD Rohan Thornton specified a control system based around a VX20 wing, a VX10 wing and Clarity software outputting 4 Universes for control of all Media Servers on the show.
Lynden Gare from GTV9 was given the task of operating Clarity for the event and was initially very nervous – being asked to use a new lighting console for the first time ever on the biggest show of the year might not be seen as prudent by some people. However, GTV9 has a long standing relationship with LSC, and their faith in the software gave Lynden the confidence he needed to run this control system on an event of such a large scale.
Gare commented -
“As soon as I installed it I was impressed with LSC Clarity. After requiring several attempts to get another ‘on PC’ software package to install under Windows 7, the Clarity installation was just a matter of a few mouse clicks and it worked first time.”
“We required SMPTE timecode input on all of our consoles for synchronisation in the musical items – a feature that wasn’t available in Clarity when I first saw it. However, Nick Denville from Open Clear and Richie Mickan from LSC understood this requirement and a few days later they delivered a solid midi timecode module within the software and also assisted us with the necessary hardware”.
“With my previous experience of other PC based systems, I had early fears of battling with what could have been an awkward PC based control system, under the rapid nature of programming for a broadcast such as the Logies. These fears were quashed within my first few hours spent operating Clarity. It certainly didn’t feel like using a PC. It is quite obvious that an operator’s work flow has really been thought through when building this software package. As an example, when operating media servers, CITP thumbnail capabilities really sped up the process”.
“The experience on the Logies proved that this is a serious control option for GTV. To our surprise, more stable than some of the other software on the gig. And certainly less convoluted than its competitors.”
www.lsclighting.com.au
Sydney lights up with the Vivid Festival
Posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010
From 27 May to 21 June, the Vivid Sydney festival used Sydney as a canvas for amazing light installations, beautiful music and creative ideas. Whilst some buildings were bought to life by projection work, other relied on intelligent and LED lighting supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems.
With only three week’s notice, Jeff Pavey designed the majority of this work with Tony Davis lending his expertise particularly on the illumination of the arch at the top of Macquarie St.
For Jeff the most difficult part of the project was dealing with the numerous committees and local authorities.
”There were many people who all had their individual visions of what they wanted achieved!” he remarked. “Then each building we lit had five different committees or building managers involved plus people like Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority – it was tough!”
Another hurdle was the battle to keep all of the installations aesthetically pleasing. It would have been easiest to build a large scaffolding in front of each building for the lighting equipment but Jeff was determined that the lighting gear was discreetly placed.
Goldfields House was lit by six Martin MAC2000 XB Washes, with very narrow lenses, that were situated on the roof of the Museum of Contemporary Art some eighty metres away. The result is really slow movement and colour changing.
A little further along the cityscape the façade of the Marriott Hotel was lit with eight Martin MAC2000 Performance profiles that dressed the building in colour and pattern.
”The clients loved what has become the two most disliked gobos by lighting designers everywhere due to their overuse – the magenta triangles and the old congo wheel!” said Jeff.
The structure of the AMP Building at Circular Quay lent itself to having light beams shooting up its’ columns and so Jeff had twelve Martin MAC2000 XB Washes located on the fifth floor.
”There is a balcony on the fifth floor which is a perfect position for lights,” commented Jeff. “However, we didn’t get final approval for the installation until 3pm on the launch day!”
On Macquarie St fifty-eight Pro Shop Honeycomb 72 fixtures were fixed to street poles to up-light trees whilst a further sixteen Honeycomb 72s were placed under the Cahill Expressway Bridge on Macquarie St.
At the top of Macquarie St was Macquarie Arch, designed by architect Joe Snell, and made from pieces of thick electrical conduit, painted with white plastic paint and resting on sandstone plinths. The Arch was lit with forty Pro Shop Fusion LED bars.
”It was the first time in my involvement with Chameleon that I’ve seen Tony Davis so involved in a project,” added Jeff. “He was regularly down there at 2am making sure everything came together.”
BCL set sail with Pro Shop LED Honeycomb 72 TV’s
Posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010
Brisbane concert Lighting found using their new Pro Shop LED Honeycomb 72 TV fixtures to be child’s play on their first outing – the 10th biennial Out of the Box festival.
Presented by QPAC and State Library of Queensland, the festival is aimed to excite and ignite the imagination of children from 8-14 and this year, paper boats were a major talking point.
Paper Boat River, was a living artwork created for and by under 8s. Inviting them to respond to the question: ‘What does the river mean to you?’, children wrote or drew their answers on a square of paper, which was then folded to become an origami boat. The boats were added to an already defined “organic line” thus affecting the length, direction, and shape of the river.
Paper Boat Lanterns was a dynamic, interactive installation for children and families created by Queensland artist and architect Suzanne Bosanquet. During the day you could put on your captain’s hat and climb aboard one of these giant paper boats. At night alight to shore to watch the show as these stranded ships take on a ghostly glow.
The installation of large scale paper boat lanterns were created from fully recyclable materials and illuminated from within by the Pro Shop LED Honeycomb 72 TV fixtures.
”The newest addition to our hire department is the LED Honeycomb 72 TV,” remarked Sam Walter of Brisbane Concert Lighting. “The original Honeycomb 72 was hugely popular, and the new TV (touring version) are 20% lighter and have smaller pixel control.
“As well as the weight reduction, the 72 allows static colour selection and stand alone control via the digital menu. It can be run using DMX in 6 channel mode or the more flexible 13 channel mode which gives four segments of control. The 72 is also IP rated which makes it a fantastic outdoor fixture for uplighting trees, buildings and marquees.”
The new Pro Shop LED Honeycomb 72 TV fixtures were ideal for the Paper Boat installations as the spec required weather proof, colour changing lights that were low heat so as not to burn the paper boats.
”Although they weren’t made out of ordinary paper, the heat was still of concern,” added Sam. “Some of the boats were quite small, so we needed something that was wide enough to hit all surfaces but punchy enough to light the taller boats, and the Honeycombs fit the bill.
”We placed a single Honeycomb 72 in each boat, and we put two in the larger centrepiece. There was nowhere for a DMX controller to live onsite, so we used the onboard programmes to run a sequence that slowly dissolved through all colours and hooked them up to a ‘garden variety’ timer that switched them on at 5:00pm and off at 10:00pm every night for a week. This method worked flawlessly and the built in programmes never once got out of time with each other.”
Photos: Yan Chan
Martin scores at the Fifa Fan Fest
Posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Bytecraft Entertainment provided lighting and LED Screens for the FIFA International Fan Fest held at Darling Harbour and Tumbalong Park for the duration of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Offering soccer fans a central site to meet and enjoy pre and post game entertainment, as well as the opportunity to watch all the action live on four Superscreens, Darling Harbour was full of football fever as Aussie fans cheered on their favorite teams.
Lighting Designer Mark Hammer was charged with the responsibility of lighting the floating stage, two side barges, floating football pitch, various sponsor areas, as well as site-wide effect lighting. The idea was to not just light the performance area but also the surrounding spaces to create a general atmosphere so that if Australia were playing, for example, the site would be bathed in gold and green
Mark’s design criteria was not only performance based but he also had to consider the reliability of fixtures that would continue to work when installed outdoors for six weeks during winter.
The majority of intelligent lighting was Martin MACs chosen for their reliability and hardiness.
“I was particularly impressed by the MAC2000 Wash XB fixtures,” commented Mark. “They’re good and punchy allowing me a few beam looks as well as just general wash.”
Exposed MACs were either dressed in the Martin rainMACs or had their little custom-made tin hats on them which, according to Mark, are fabulous at keeping the rain off the fixtures.
Bytecraft had a rotating crew of sixteen technicians to cover the lighting and screens, headed up by Project Manager Michael Webber.
Equipment used included
Main Stage: 12 x Mac 2000 Profile, 16 x Studio Color 575, 8 x Active Sunstrips, 32 x Par 64, 4 x 3k Gladiator Followspot, 2 x DF-50
Side Barges: 12 x Mac 2000 Wash XB, 3 x Syncrolite SX- B5/2
Floating Football Field: 32 x 500w QI, 20m Green LED Ropelight, 20m Gold Ropelight
Site Lighting: 16 x Mac 2000 Profile, 16 x Mac 2000 Wash XB, 112 x Par 64, 14 x Source 4 19, 8 x Source 4 10, 2 x DF50
Tumbalong Park: 56 x Par 64, 12 x Par 56, 16 x 500w QI
Screens: Main Stage 48 Panels Lighthouse R12, Side Screens each 24 Panels Lighthouse R12, Tumbalong Park 48 Panels Lighthouse R16
Control: Wholehog 2 w/ Wing, 4 x Balanced Technology Datagate, Fibre by Riedel
VuePix on Show for Chinese Karaoke Competition
Posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
The grand final for a popular Chinese Karaoke television competition was held at the Palms at Crown Casino in May 2010, broadcasted from Melbourne to China.
Due to the broadcast nature of the show, lighting director Kait Hall saw the need for additional movement on the stage. Having used VuePix P18 SMD LED mesh panels on Little Birdie previously, she contacted Clifton Productions to supply the LED screens again as this was the piece missing to light up the stage.
Due to a small budget, only a small amount of panels were supplied with high impact consisting of a total of 20 x P18 SMD LED mesh panels. Configuration of the middle screen was 3 panels wide x 4 panels deep. Either side of middle screen was configured into strips of 1 panel wide x 4 panels deep.
Kait drove the screen from FOH with the in house grandMA and a Catalyst server. James Pavey from Clifton Productions said everyone was extremely happy with the graphics the screen produced on stage as this complimented and made the lighting show.
VuePix Centrepiece for Canon
Posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
PMA (Photo Marketing Association) Australia 2010 Digital Life Expo was held in June 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre exhibiting stands and seminars to keen enthusiasts wanting to know more about digital photo imagery and the latest technology. PMA is one of the largest Photography shows in Australia, recording this year’s largest attendance of all years totally in excess of 23,000 registrations.
One major exhibitor was Canon, and they were looking for the latest visual technology centrepiece on their Canon stand. The stands designer, Virtual Display Group, met with Clifton Productions System Tech James Pavey to come up with a solution to meet Canon’s needs.
As the clients wanted a large high resolution screen, James decided to supply a VuePix P6 SMD cabinet, built into a custom set piece, split up into two sections. The configuration of the screen was 7 panels wide by 8 panels deep. The top section was 5 panels deep playing a 16:9 video. The bottom 3 panels were displaying a banner for an EOS competition.
James says “The clients were extremely happy with the overall display and visual impact that the VuePix P6 provided. We are using more and more of the P6 in exhibition work due to the resolution of the cabinets combined with quick and easy set up”.
JARAGs ideal for silverchair
Posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
Groovin’ The Moo is a travelling musical event like no other in Australia with shows set up in regional cities, not the big smoke. This year saw the festival at Maitland, Bendigo, Townsville, Canberra and Bunbury.
Headline acts were Empire of the Sun and silverchair, two acts that coincidentally are both lit by Hugh Taranto.
The show was mainly designed around Hugh’s design for silverchair which in turn had to fit into the touring festivals confines. Turn-arounds were extremely tight – Bendigo one night and Townsville the following – and so a duplicate rig was required.
Hugh had to ensure the rig could easily be erected without him being there and so he opted for three straight trusses, four simple towers and Martin MACs including twenty MAC2000 wash and eighteen MAC2000 spot. Added to that were twelve Atomic colour strobes, four 8-lite molefays, twenty-four molefay duet, three JEM ZR33 DMX foggers, and four DMX fans. Control was a full size grandMA and a grandMA lite networked together.
For the two main acts extra MACs were placed on the floor and on the towers. silverchair were given an extra dimension with the addition of sixteen JARAGs. Displayed in pairs, there were eight JARAG’s suspended from the rig and eight on floor mounts.
”The JARAG’s instantly gave a different look and a big look at that,” commented Hugh. “silverchair have always been into a more analogue look rather than a moving technology look and so the JARAGs were ideal. The band really liked that the JARAGs were a hybrid low tech/high tech device.
”The JARAGs are great; very versatile and almost an instant look. We would set them up during the change over and they were always reliable and easy to get going. Tungsten lamps have a naturally appealing look to them. They’re much less mechanical and more of an organic type of light. So from that point of view the JARAG’s really suited the silverchair type of look.”
Hugh had the JARAGs running through the grandMA console as normal lights and also pixel-mapped through a media server.
“That all merged together in the grandMA so I was able to run video content through them as well, he said. “For some songs I used the full array of individual control of the lights like a wide, basic video device. Other songs I used them more as a lighting device like a big blinder.”
Chameleon supplied the East Coast shows with Concert & Corporate Productions supplying the West Coast.
Usher’s lighting is O-M-G
Posted on Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Usher was like “O-M-G” as he took the stage at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney for a performance on Channel 7’s Sunrise program.
With the harbour as his backdrop, Usher performed three songs in the crisp early winters’ morning with the sun shining directly onto the stage. How on earth did the lighting designer manage to produce a light show that looked fantastic on the live broadcast?
Lighting designer Bryce Mace from Entertainment Installations, who supplied lighting production for the live performance, turned to fixtures with punch: Martin LC Panels, Pro Shop LED Honeycomb 72’s, Martin MAC301 LED washes, Studio Due CS4’s and new to Bryce, eight JARAGs. The rig was setup by Christian Yanni from Entertainment Installations.
Usher’s Creative Director indicated preferred colours for the gig but other than that, Bryce was given free reign with his design.
The four LC Panels at the back of the stage made a fabulous addition to the rig for when they were not displaying content from Bryce’s ArKaos Media Server, their transparency allowed sweeping views of the city behind the stage.
Ten MAC301 LED washes were flown in the air with a further six on the stage. The eight Honeycombs were suspended in the gaps between the LC Panels.
”The LED fixtures are great for the television,” commented Bryce. “In fact I use the MAC301’s on every gig I do as they are awesome. The Honeycombs are great too as they produce a ‘star’ effect. And I love the JARAGs! I had never used them before and only had a short time to get to grips with them but it wasn’t difficult. As they have the inbuilt patterns you can do something that looks good very quickly and without having to think too much.”
The JARAGs were positioned four on the floor against a small riser to the back of the stage with four more forming a tower centre back stage. Four Studio Due CS4 fixtures were positioned upright on the stage whilst a JEM ZR33 DMX smoke machine provided atmosphere.
Eight Kupo Par64 cans were out front in case the day turned overcast and extra light was needed for the cameras. Four Kupo 4 Liters and six molefay duets were also in the rig.
For control Bryce was using a MA Lighting MA2 + wing, with MA1 software, which make using the LC Panels a breeze.
”I love the MA2 and recently I’ve been using it for a local disco that I do,” he said. “The thing is, all my mates go there too so sometimes I want to join them on the dance floor rather than sit by the console all night. Fortunately I can do this as I have the MA set up on my iPhone! I bring a wireless router and use the grandMA application on my phone. I can ask someone whilst dancing what their favourite colour is and with one click change the lighting to that colour. It’s most impressive when they don’t know I actually work there!”
Photos by Troy Constable
VuePix Groovin’ The Moo
Posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
Groovin’ The Moo 2010 is a travelling music event that performs in regional cities including Bendigo, Townsville, Maitland, Canberra and Bunbury. Groovin’ The Moo presents a collection of music genres including rock, rap, dance, metal, hardcore and pop and has been growing steadily since its inception in 2005. Headliners include Silverchair, Empire of the Sun, Grinspoon, plus Tegan and Sara. Acts have a strong Australian focus, supplemented by artists from Europe, North and even South America.
There are three main stages used throughout the events consisting of the Moolin Rogue Stage, Myspace Stage and Triple J Stage. Clifton Productions supplied an impressive VuePix display comprised of VuePix P18 LED Mesh for the Triple J Stage – specifically for Empire of the Sun and Silverchair. The VuePix P18 has been a regular feature on gigs for Empire of the Sun. Configuration on stage of the VuePix P18’s was 6 panels wide x 7 panels deep at the back of the stage to show custom imagery. Lighting designs for both these popular bands were by Hugh Taranto who also operated the lighting.
System Tech James Pavey says “ I like Vuepix as they are easy to set up, easy and simple cabling and there are endless configuration possibilities.
VuePix for Debit MasterCard
Posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010
Fresh from sell-out shows and festival appearances worldwide, Pendulum, with their high-energy came to Home Nightclub for one exclusive gig for the Debit MasterCard Priceless Music series, where they performed tracks off their new album, Immersion.
While Home Nightclub already has a 40mm pitch LED screen, the band’s rider specified a larger high resolution screen. Clifton Productions replaced this screen with VuePix P6 SMD LED Display. 7 cabinets wide by 5 cabinets deep were configured, to make an impressive 5.4m x 3m screen, leaving a lasting impression to all patrons.
Clifton Productions System Tech James Pavey says “Everyone commented on the resolution of the VuePix P6, commenting the picture was so clear it looked like a Plasma screen, which in fact the resolution of the screen was at 896 x 460. We received a lot of positive feedback on the screen!” The images were driven from a proprietary media server by the bands lighting operator.
James said that the VuePix displays are so easy to configure, and assembling is a snap – quick and easy which is great for live work.
Fame for Show Technology
Posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Produced by John Frost and directed and choreographed by So You Think You Can Dance’s Kelley Abbey, the musical that inspired new generations to fight for fame and light up the sky like a flame is back! Currently playing at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, Fame will tour the nation for the next few months.
Fame is, almost uniquely, a classic of cinema, television and music theatre. The movie, released in 1980, won an Academy Award and swept the world. The TV show ran for six seasons, won numerous Emmy Awards and was broadcast in over 70 countries. Fame – The Musical ran for a decade on London’s West End and has been seen by over 10 million worldwide.
Lighting designer Trudy Dalgleish designed a rig dominated by Martin moving heads including ten MAC TW1 narrow lens units, thirty-six MAC2000 spots with a mixture of standard and Woodroofe gobos, and twenty MAC2000 wash.
”I use the MAC TW1’s as people lights,” remarked Trudy. “They’re situated on the advance truss and FOH truss from where they can pick people out with their narrow lens beams. They’re a great colour temperature for this. I have to say I love the TW1’s!”
MAC2000 spots are used for effect lighting but it is the MAC2000 wash that Trudy simply adores.
”They’re fantastic the way they spot and also flood,” she said. “They really are the workhorse of the show. I use them for effect, for colour washes, to light people, to light sets – basically they do everything! They’re nice, bright and never break down.”
Trudy always request Robert Juliat follow spots for her productions in this case two Aramis and one Cyrano models were specified.
”There’s nothing like the Robert Juliat follow spot,” she declared. “The internal frost is their best feature and also just how intense they are for how big the unit is. All of the operators much prefer Robert Juliat follow spots over anything else as they are really operator friendly. I think that they actually talked to operators before they built them!”
The show is very hazy thanks to four Look Solutions Unique Hazers which just keep on doing what they do best.
”In a venue with a lot of air conditioning and air movement I find the Unique hazers really good at pumping out the haze and keeping it there,” commented Trudy. “For control I specified a MA Lighting grandMA, which is currently my preferred console, as it can control all of the media as well as the show. A lot of the show is time-coded as it is impossible to call due to too many cues. I find that the grandMA console is best for time coding as it’s the easiest to plot and the easiest to move the time-code around. In fact I reckon that’s its best feature.”
Lighting was supplied by Bytecraft Entertainment.
Jands Vista: Something So Strong
Posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Prior to a much anticipated world tour, Crowded House played the West Coast and the East Coast Blues & Roots Festivals, plus a sell-out show at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. The band’s longtime lighting director Dave Harding was there at the helm of a Jands Vista control system comprising of a Vista S1, S3 and a couple of M1’s driven off a MAC Midi with a laptop for backup.
Dave has played an integral part in the development of the Vista from the launch of the system at Plasa in 2004 until present day.
”I had been working on it for a couple of years prior as a consultant to Jands,” said Dave. “I designed the control palettes and had quite a lot of input into the fixture selector.”
Dave finds the modularity of the Vista system very handy especially on cold Perth nights when the Vista S1 allows him to program a show in the warmth of his hotel room.
“I have a Vista S1 that I carry around in my backpack,” he explained. “Once in my hotel room I can just plug into my laptop and it’s got encoders, playbacks and such like. In fact I did most of the programming for the West Coast Blues Festival appearance in my hotel room. It was just too cold outside at 1am in the morning! It worked out really well and looked good. The modularity is also good on tour when we do festivals where I may just bring in the Vista S3.”
For Crowded House Dave also utilized a couple of the M1 playback-only Vista control surface. The M1 is ideal for situations where you can do your programming in advance in your hotel room on your PC, but you still want hardware to control the playback of your show.
“I’m a very hands-on operator and do a lot of things flying by the seat of my pants!” said Dave. “With Crowded House I have one cue per song and then I just fiddle with it for the whole song. I guess the way I operate the show determined the Vista set up as I wanted the M1’s for their faders.”
According to Dave, if you’re doing a tour where you’re bouncing between different rigs all the time, you can’t beat the Vista.
”You just pull a light out of the patch, turn it into something else, put it back in and it’s done,” he remarked. “Without that you’d have to reprogram every day. I really like the timeline too; it makes it really quick if you’re programming a sequence of cues which I don’t usually do with this band but have done with Split Enz. Their show was very structured, each song would have 20 – 30 cues and a whole bunch of chases, and I used the timeline heavily.”
Dave is about to embark on the world tour with Crowded House, with lighting designed by Paul Normandale, and the Jands Vista system will accompany him all the way.
BCL’s Easter Treat
Posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010
Easterfest is held on the Easter long weekend at Queens Park in Toowoomba and this year was the biggest ever with Brisbane Concert Lighting supplying a stunning lighting rig for the Seven Mainstage, 96.5fm Big Top, The Hammered Silver Epicentre and The Alley. They also provided a lighting system and small sound system for the Arena.
The guys at BCL were delighted to hear that headlining act Newsboys insisted on half a dozen Martin Atomic Strobe 3000 units for their performance.
”To be honest we’d been waiting for an excuse to buy some!” said Sam Walter, BCL’s Production Manager “The Atomics are an important part of the Newsboys’ show particularly in the opening number where they use the constant blind effect. They are then used sporadically throughout the rest of the show as strobes. It really had to be Atomics and no other strobe could substitute.
”When it comes to high powered strobes, this is about as impressive as it gets, with a 3000w lamp and the ability to pull off up to 28 flashes a second. They really are the industry standard and nothing else comes close.”
Other acts included Stan Walker, Sanctus Real, Superchic[k], KJ-52, New Empire, Article One and Hawk Nelson to name a few.
The Seven Mainstage system included 24 x Martin MAC2000 Profile II, 12 x Martin MAC600 Wash, 6 x Martin MAC550 Profile, 9 x Martin MAC250 Wash, 6 x Martin Atomic Strobe 3000, 4 x Studio Due CityColour, 44 x LED Strip, 96 x Blinder Lamps, 12 x Strand 2k Castor and 8 x ETC Source 4 Profile.
The 96.5fm Big Top rig consisted of 20 x Martin MAC250 Krypton, 32 x Tri Colour LED, 28 x Blinder Lamps, 10 x Selecon Fresnel and 3 x ETC Source 4 Profile.
BCL also recently took delivery of an additional six Martin MAC250 Beams, bringing their total to eight. Unfortunately they haven’t been able to use them on their own productions as they have been in constant sub-hire demand!
”We bought them due to external requests and haven’t seen much of them at all!” commented Sam.
Anolis Lights the RACV Royal Pines Resort for the BMW Charity Ball
Posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010
Royal Pines
The Bruce Lynton BMW Charity Ball is an annual black tie event, donating thousands of dollars to numerous charities. In celebration of the Ball, the RACV Royal Pines Resort chose to light the outside of the building to welcome everyone to the event. Anolis ArcPad Xtreme’s, one of the most powerful outdoor lighting fixtures on the market, were supplied to illuminate the building. The ArcPad Xtreme’s LEDs are densely populated providing extremely bright output, perfect for outdoor applications. Management at the RACV Royal Pines were very impressed that only two lighting fixtures on each side of the resort were required to light the entire building from head to toe and were extremely happy with the colour changing effect creating a lasting impression to all patrons.
Spandau Ballet on the road with Martin and MA
Posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
When legendary 80’s band Spandau Ballet decided to reform for an extensive tour Patrick Woodroffe was the obvious choice for show designer as Gary Kemp and Patrick have been mates for a long time and had spent months discussing the project.
The idea was to create a lighting design that was essentially eighties in flavour using the latest in modern lighting technology. For example instead of heaps of par cans, Martin MAC250 Beams create the classic beam-style of lighting. The rig includes twenty-three MAC2000XB Wash, eighteen MAC250 Beam and ten Martin Atomic Strobes.
“The MACs always deliver good light output, classic reliability and great performance especially from the MAC2000s,” commented Danny Nolan, lighting director for the tour. They were chosen for the robust and powerful light that has become quite famous for its reliability. The MAC2000 has a great zoom from wash to tight spot and the best amber from any 2K wash light. The Martin lights have been brilliant with very few problems.
“We actually specified another beam light that wasn’t available in Australia but I have to say I’ve been impressed by the MAC250 Beam. They’re incredibly bright and provide great beam effects that can punch through any stage lighting with ease. They really do deliver very good aerial effects.”
For control Danny has opted for a MA Lighting grandMA, always his console of choice.
“I love the grandMA,” stated Danny. “It does everything it claims with flawless performance. The system and its set up is very flexible. You can do a lot with the grandMA, and I’m impressed by it.”
Chameleon Touring Systems supplied the lighting which also included two Robert Juliat Heloise follow spots.
Bieber Fever: the gig that never happened
Posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Entertainment Installations often supply staging for Channel 7’s Sunrise gigs in Martin Place and usually everything goes smoothly. Not so when the teen pop sensation Justin Bieber hit Sydney. Firstly, the gig was moved to the Overseas Passenger Terminal over crowd safety fears but even that didn’t work out.
Neale Mace, Entertainment Installation’s managing director, arrived with his crew for load in at the ungodly hour of 1am to find 3,000 screaming, hormonally-charged young girls working themselves into a frenzy.
”At 3am while we were still setting up they broke through the barriers and stampeded the stage,” Neale told. “By 4.30am there were about 8000 fans screaming and surging towards the stage. Every time we’d turn on a light or a LC Panel, they all screamed and pushed forward. The police asked us not to flash any lights or LC Panels until they had made a call as to whether the gig would go ahead due to crowd safety concerns.
“After they called the gig off around 4.30am, the crowd didn’t move…. they all just stayed there screaming for Justin.”
Neale is not sure if his rig of 8 x Martin LC Panels, Arkaos Media Server, 32 x Kupo MultiPars and a MA2 Lite had anything to do with the mayhem – but he likes to think so…..
This photo was taken at 5.30am an hour after the gig was called off.
Martin LC Plus Panels for Crowded House
Posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010
There is no event that better encapsulates the great West Australian lifestyle quite like the West Coast Blues ’n’ Roots Festival. In 2010 the Blues ’n’ Roots moved to its spectacular new home, Fremantle Park where headlining this years’ festivities was Crowded House who are about to release a new album and begin a world tour.
Dave Harding has been operating their lights for many years and the festival gave him the opportunity to use the Martin LC Plus Series of modular LED video panels with new generation technology that closely integrates light, video and set design.
“The LC Plus panels were a lot of fun and I think that they’re really nice,” commented Dave. “It was the first time that we’d used video with Crowded House as they tend not to lean that way. I used a range of visuals from custom material provided by the video people who are doing the next Crowded House video clip – they did some really nice arty stuff which the band prefer rather than home movies, if you know what I mean.”
Dave used a total of sixteen LC Plus panels, supplied by Concert & Corporate Productions, which he described as really crisp and bright.
“They are seriously bright!” he remarked. “I ran them at only 12% to get a balance between the system and the LC Panels because at 100% they just blew everything away! It didn’t matter how much light you had in the room you wouldn’t match the LC Panels.”
The LC Plus panels differ from the original Martin LC panels in several ways. Firstly they have a different control system that allows greater flexibility in the way that they can be positioned. Previously the LC Panels could only be hung in a vertical rectangular but with the LC Plus the panels can be hung in a variety of ways – such as diagonally – and the controller adapts accordingly. The LC Plus panels are IP65 rated so they are suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications. In fact a true IP65 protection rating and wide operating temperature range of -20° to +40° C means the LC Plus is suitable for most types of outdoor entertainment including permanent installations such as theme parks, cruise ships or other outdoor areas.
The LC Plus panels are connected using Martin’s proprietary P3-100 system based on Gigabit Ethernet technology. This ensures reliable operation as well as continuous status monitoring of the panels.
”I love the new LC Plus panels and the P3 is an awesome processor; it’s just so easy to use and makes everything very simple,” added Sean McKernan, CCP’s Production Manager. “With the panels having Cat5 on them the set up is a breeze – quick, simple and it works first time. Addressing is simple too – in fact there’s nothing hard about them! They just plug in and they work.”
Concert & Corporate Productions also supplied sixteen Martin MAC700 profiles, eight MAC 700 washes, sixteen MAC600 profiles, eight Atomic Strobes and Unique hazers.
MSFEST 2010
Posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010
Over 90 VuePix P18 Outdoor panels took a centre stage at MSFEST 2010, one of the Tasmania’s biggest music festivals. More than 13,000 festival lovers were treated with some of Australia’s best music, including Eskimo Joe, Karnivool, Evermore, Kisschasy, The Potbelleez, Goodwill, Jessica Mauboy and many others.
Being an all ages festival, MS Fest is primarily aimed at the youth market, however the line up and the general festival vibe is conducive to anyone wanting to have a great day. The 2010 event was an outstanding success, the organizers were able to raise over $150,000 to aid people living with Multiple Sclerosis and The MS Society of Tasmania.
The energy of the crowd was split between the Main Stage and Clubbers Stage. On the Main Stage VuePix panels were linked as a massive 8.4m wide and 5.4m high screen at the back of the stage and used to show live camera feeds mixed with VJ vision and imagery.
On the Ministry of Sound Clubbers stage VuePix panels were split into two screens, one behind the DJs flown from the roof and the other ground mounted in front of the DJ risers. The back screen configuration was 5 x 4 panels making it approx 6m wide x 2.4m high and the front screen was 5 x 2 panels making it approx 6m wide x 1.2m high. This set up fully covered the stage from floor to roof and was a very effective use of a small stage space.
The 30 VuePix P18 panels were supplied by local Alive Technologies with additional screens supplied by Cliftons.
The production organiser’s and LD Steve Granville were very happy with the VuePix screens performance. David Bell from Alive Technologies Group comments: “In past years the only screens in the state were too heavy and bulky to even think of flying them in the back of the stages. But now with the introduction VuePix P18 panels it was possible to maintain the same quality and resolution while flying the screen from the stage roof“. The screen was also an integral part of the visual effect of the show as it could be seen during the daylight, as where majority of the lighting did not come into play until dark. During the evening the main stage screen had to be even turned down to 45% intensity so that it did not overpower the artists on stage, such was the visual performance of VuePix P18.
Bell adds: “We have found that more and more clients are asking for the VuePix P18 screen by name, we could not be happier with our decision to purchase this extremely flexible product. There is also no other product of this nature in Tasmania at the moment which is giving us an edge when putting together shows.”
VuePix® on the George Michael Concert
Posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010
Late February 2010, George Michael hit Australian shores for the first time since 1998. Known for being a consummate performer, not only did he deliver and a great performance, but a stunning stage setup with massive LED screens for his fans that have waited 22 years to see him perform in Australia.
VuePix® P18 LED Mesh Panels were used extensively on stage for additional graphics to be streamed from the main screen. Four screens comprising forty Panels each, 4 Wide x 10 High, two of the screens being above the band on either side of the stage, and the other two were positioned out wide, facing out providing visuals for the audience at the sides of the stadium.
The popular panels VuePix® LED Mesh panels have been used extensively on some of the biggest events, tour and television shows to great effect. The VuePix® P18 LED Mesh Panel continues to be a success with wide usage from touring productions such as George Michael, Powder Finger and many trade events.
VuePix® P18’s for the tour were supplied by the Technical Direction Company (TDC). With a demanding tour date schedule, VuePix ® P18 was ideal – not only great visual performance, but the innovative VuePix® LED Mesh system making assembly/set up and breakdown extremely fast and easy.
George Michael has enjoyed one of the most successful and enduring careers in the history of pop music, selling more than 100 million records globally and encompassing six US No. 1 singles, a Grammy award, three American Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award and two prestigious Ivor Novello awards for song writing. His record “Faith” has sold over 20 million copies alone.
Pro Shop LED Outdoor MulitPARS weather the storm
Posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010
It was the weekend that the worst storm in 100 years hit Melbourne leaving a $50 million trail of destruction across the city, with torrents of water – waist-deep in some places – thundering through homes, shops and schools.
It was also the weekend of the famous Moomba Festival which unfortunately lived up to its’ full name of the Moomba Waterfest Festival! As the rain bucketed down, you may have expected a few technical faults with the outdoor lighting at the event but not with the amazingly resilient Pro Shop LED Outdoor MultiPARs.
Harry the Hirer had the soggy task of providing all production for the event which included a main stage and three satellite stages at the Festival. The stages were lit using a combination of fittings including twenty-four of their new Pro Shop LED Outdoor MultiPARs.
“The Pro Shop LED’s were fantastic – they stood up to the storm and kept working throughout the weekend,” commented Simon Finlayson, General Manager of Harry the Hirer’s Lighting, Audio-visual & Rigging Division. “We’ve found them durable enough to withstand the heat and dust of large outdoor events, and small and discrete enough to perform at high profile corporate events where technology is usually required to be hidden. Their output and colour saturation is up there with the decent LED products in the market.”
Suited for both permanent and temporary outdoor installations, the Pro Shop LED Outdoor MultiPAR provides a vibrant and saturated output for a variety of applications such as architectural and natural features.
Along with another recent acquisition of Pro Shop Honeycomb 36 units, the Pro Shop LED Outdoor MultiPARs have been used by Harry the Hirer at a number of events this year including -SCG Test – VIP area, Australian Open Tennis, L’Oreal Fashion Festival, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Gold Coast Motorcycle show, Australian Grand Prix and a number of corporate functions.
Tiësto puts ArKaos and Martin LC panels to the test
Posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010
One of one of the worlds most important electronic music acts, Hollands DJ/producer Tiësto bought his Kaleidoscope production to Australia in January and February taking in concert shows in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
The Kaleidoscope World Tour is produced by Unlimited Productions BV, a young company based in Tiësto’s native Netherlands, with the visual content designed by Moment Factory, Montreal.
Phaseshift Productions supplied the lighting and crew for the Australian tour with the largest production held at Melbourne’s Hisense Arena. A massive fifty-eight Martin LC Panels, totaling 116m², were the main visual element in the show. Comprising of a main screen and some side hangs, the LC Panels displayed visuals that had been specifically designed for them by Tiësto’s lighting designer. Whilst Phaseshift supplied the majority if the LC Panels extra Panels were sourced from Careillie, Entertainment Installations, and Resolution X.
”The LD actually had three different renders of all the visuals to use depending on what size venue they were playing,” explained Simon Aitken. Phaseshift’s Lighting Production Manager on the tour. “It was important that visuals didn’t get squashed and kept their aspect ratio. The images were all custom images with many controlled by Tiësto on stage so that he was mixing visuals as well as audio.”
ArKaos MediaMaster was chosen as the show’s media server because, as a DJ, Tiësto has no set list: every show is therefore different and may contain a number of new songs which he has never played before. MediaMaster proved to be the perfect solution as it can run pre-programmed content while still allowing live interaction with the music and the songs when needed.
Koen De Puysseleir, Light and Set Designer for Unlimited Productions explains: “We had several challenges for this Kaleidoscope Tour; of course we needed a media server system that is 100% reliable and really interactive, but it also had to be compact enough in order for us to bring it with us on any commercial flight as the distances between most of the shows are too big for shipping equipment with trucks.
”The entire video control setup for the tour fits in my hand luggage in the plane. Not bad for two professional and reliable media servers plus controlling!”
All cuts and mapping of the visuals were done within the content itself. One MacBook Pro, running MediaMaster, plays the content in its native resolution as one single image which is sized to the 6m-high screens through a Folsom ImagePRO scan converter.
The second MacBook Pro triggers visuals on the DJ booth, making extensive use of MediaMaster’s built-in ability to scale and rotate visual layers, to add even more interactivity to the show.
“We’ve been pushing MediaMaster almost to its boundaries by running HD content on different layers while using ActionScript3 audio-generated content through a plug-in we wrote and some custom effects for use with the software’s live camera input,” continues Koen.
“Working with Alpha Channels and the impressive audio-generated content that reacts exactly with the music is a real improvement to our show. The real-time effects give some very dynamic and exciting new ways to play back live cameras on the screens.”
“But most important, MediaMaster is rock stable; at this point we have done many shows and it has never failed on us.”
Martin MACs supplied the main bulk of the lighting with twenty Martin MAC700 washes on a main circular truss, twenty-six MAC700 spots were over the audience with a further thirty-eight MAC700 spots rigged on the back truss on the floor symmetrically. Sixteen MAC250 washes with beam kits were used on the quarter-circle trusses with twenty-four Martin Atomics with scrollers on vertical pipes between the screen sections.
”They mixed the lighting with the visuals amazingly,” said Simon. “It was great to see a dance party where the lights didn’t move! It was all about intensity not movement.”
Crew in Melbourne – Simon Aitken, Jeremy Nolan, Matt Downs, Andrew Killengray, Lachlan Sinclair, Rohan Wilson, Michael Corbett.