Production News
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.
Rob Thomas Tours with Varilite
Posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Benoit Richards has been lighting Rob Thomas – as a solo singer or lead singer for Matchbox Twenty – for nearly ten years and Rob’s recent tour in support of his album Cradlesong was no different.
Expanding on ideas used for Rob’s first solo tour, Benoit opted to use video element that could be controlled by his lighting console.
”I like to be in charge of the whole visual experience,” he commented. “The video element had to fit into his budget as well as his category of venues he was going to play. In North America we normally play theatres or cut down arenas so to have a show with a full set of LEDs, video crew and cameras was impractical. That’s why I came up with the concept of using six High End DL3 digital lights for projection and a curtain / screen concept that was gong to be very theatrical and help me reveal a big piece of white laundry! The double curtain track allows me to slowly reveal the big screen so that by the middle of the show when you see it for the first time you accept it rather than have to deal with it from the beginning.”
The screen is actually curved thus recessing it away from the lighting rig helping to prevent potential light back spill onto it. The video set up helped dictate which lighting fixtures would be ideal for the rig; thirty-four VL500 tungsten fixtures and eleven VL3000 fixtures.
”In Australia we’re playing bigger venues than in North America so the DL3’s are stretched and on the verge of not being bright enough,” he said. “The wise decision was to pick VL500 80 volt tungsten lights (twenty-two in the air and twelve on the floor) as they fit the colour temperature of the show and consequently make the VL3000 and the eight High End ShowGuns stick out more as the only types of discharge sources.”
Benoit says that he is really happy using the VL500’s and he views them as newer VL5’s. During the tour he discovered a little trick to using them.
”If you pre-heat the VL500 at 1% you can really save a lot of lamps!” he revealed. “Force the console to never go below 1% and your lights will live.
”I love the silly zoom on the VL3000 it just makes that light completely different from one song to another because you can use it as an overhead moody, wide-open wash and all of a sudden you can bring it back into a tight beam. They’re really cool and the gobos are very interesting even thought they’re the stock ones.”
In between lighting Rob Thomas in Australia Benoit was also busy gearing up for the three Australian George Michael shows which also used Vari*lites.
Bollywood Blockbuster
Posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010
The highlight and one of the biggest productions of the Sydney Festival was the free concert by superstar composer A.R. Rahman which transported Parramatta to India as the city turned into a spectacular mix of colour, light, dancing and music that would not have been out of place in a Bollywood blockbuster. The concert, held in Parramatta Park was estimated to have attracted 75,000 visitors to the area. They were treated to an amazing show as A.R. Rahman performed a three hour set, backed by an entourage of more than 40 musicians and Bollywood dancers on stage.
Chameleon Touring Systems provided the massive amount of lighting for A.R. Rahman’s lighting director Roosevelt Dsouza with Brad Gander supplying the lighting design and Tony Davies in charge of the site lighting design. Big, brash and colourful was the request.
The production was particularly heavy on set lighting utilising the best in LED gear from Show Technology including 204 x Studio Due CityLEDs, 100 x Pro Shop LED Tubes, 48 x Pro Shop LED PAR cans, 60 x Pulsar ChromaStrips and 32 x Pro Shop Honeycombs.
”The Studio Due CityLEDs are situated in the façade of the set but in India they used ordinary household bulbs patched to single dimmers,” revealed Brad. “With the CityLEDs we obviously reduced the amount of dimmers whilst creating the same effect. The Pro Shop LED Tubes were placed around perimeter of the ‘X shape’ on the set floor whilst the Pulsar ChromaStrips and the Pro Shop Honeycombs were situated within the steps which were a major feature of the set. A further 48 x Pro Shop LED PAR cans were also in the set pieces.”
Forty-eight Martin MAC2000 profiles and twenty-four MAC2000 washes were used for stage lighting with sixteen of the MACs on the stage floor whilst the rest were flown. Conventionals included 200 x Par Cans, 48 x Profiles, 6 x 8 Light Molefay units, 8 x Molefay duets, 48 x Par 64 ACLs and four Robert Juliat 2.5k follow spots. Brad used a MA Lighting grandMA to control all of the set lighting.
Site lighting including trees and VIP areas utilised 40 x Studio Due CityColors, 28 x 4k Balloons, 24 x Pro Shop LED Honeycombs and four Pro Shop 500mm LED balls.
Ronan Keating tours with Martin
Posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Perth-based Concert & Corporate Productions are the proud owners of eight Martin MAC 301 Wash™ LED fixtures and they couldn’t be happier.“The MAC 301 Wash™ – small fixture, small price, small power draw, low running costs but with MASSIVE output and effects,” commented Sean McKernan, CCPWA’s Production Manager. “The MAC 301 Wash™ packs a lot into a small yet powerful fixture. The response of the MAC 301 Wash™ is good and fast, and its zooming function makes it very versatile. I can see it becoming a standard on productions. We love them and so do our clients. They are officially our favourite light!”
One of the first gigs that saw CCPWA’s MAC 301™ LED moving heads in action was Ronan Keatings held at Sandalford Winery in the Swan Valley. This was the first show of a world tour for lighting designer Hunter Frith and the first time that he had used the MAC 301™ fixtures. Also in his rig for this show were MAC700 washes and profiles as well as MAC2000 profiles.
“I love the MAC 301™ fixtures!” Hunter commented. “I like that the MAC 301™ fixtures are so small and the lens in them is fantastic. The beam angle is nice and solid, I like a fat beam. Although they weren’t the fixtures that I specified, I was very happy with them.”
By the time that the tour played Sydney Entertainment Centre, the lighting was supplied by Phaseshift Productions and instead of MAC 301™ fixtures there were MAC250 Beams as well as MAC2000 profiles.
”I liked the MAC250 Beams but unfortunately I don’t have the correct profile for it in my console so there was some stuff I couldn’t quite figure out,” explained Hunter. “That was quite frustrating but it still worked and it worked fine. I like the fact that they are nice and bright although I would like a little bit more control over the beam angle. They’re also fast – I like them a lot and they’re definitely a great light.”
In Perth there was no video wall at the back of the stage but the rest of the tour saw a wall of Martin LC Panels, nine metres wide with a four metre drop, running video content designed by Pete Barnes.
Powa Productions Likes It Like That
Posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010
This February 2010, Guy Sebastian began his first tour in over 12 months performing songs from his forthcoming album – ‘Like It Like That’. The tour hit theatres around the nation including Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. Powa Productions were the official lighting, audio, staging and logistics supplier for the tour.
With designs by Powa’s lighting designer, Simon (Junior) Johnson, the lighting for this tour features warm subtle tones on stage with sharp beams of light across the stage, with a star effect backdrop to create the mood complimenting Guy Sebastian’s music. Junior selected to used eight Robe ColorSpot 700EAT’s and eight Robe ColorWash 1200AT’s as the main spot and wash lighting for the stage. Also supplied were iLED Star Drapes for the back of the stage, along with 27 LED Par Cans along the lighting rig and Robe Hazers for atmospheric effects.
Junior says “I chose to use of Robe 700 fixtures for quick zooming for live gigs and the Robe ColorWash 1200AT’s for the brightness of colours it produces reducing the amount of fixtures needed”. Four Robe ColorWashes were arranged on the floor of the stage for cross lighting and four on the front bar for special lighting for Guy Sebastian and the band.
Powa Productions has recently invested in another Avolites Pearl Expert to further enhance their touring capability. Both consoles have been working continuously on gigs since July 09. Junior says “We chose the Pearl Expert Because of ease of programming and the constant freeness to the Set list. I needed a console that we could takeover and busk on with ease. The Avolites consoles are unbelievable for this as everything is at your fingertips and not having to scroll through menus to get to palettes and groups”.
Junior says he loves the simplicity of the console in the way that it ‘thinks like an LD’ instead of like a computer. Junior has been operating Avolites desks for the past 14 years and has grown up using the Avo classic software. This was the first tour that he has done with the new Avo Titan software and what a change it has made. Junior continues “Cue lists are easier, copying fixtures is as simple as copying a cue, fixture exchange works a dream with only having to do minimum palettes updates.
Overall Junior couldn’t be happier with the performance of all the Robe fixtures. He loves how bright the Robe ColorWash 1200AT’s are with the PC lens and loves the quality chunky beam they produce. The Avolites Pearl Expert is his desk of choice and couldn’t be happier with all the products on the tour.
JARAG’s bring the Boiler Room to the boil!
Posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010
Every year the Boiler Room at the traveling circus that is the Big Day Out is a mass of seething bodies and pumping music. The light show is always a talked about event with Jamie Centofanti the man in charge and Chameleon Touring Systems supplying the lighting.
This years’ stage design was essentially four fingers, spreading from upstage centre out towards the room. An important feature of this stage design were the two large sequin walls consisting of over 38,000 silver 30mm sequins, acting as the backdrop for this stage, and also opening and closing vertically as a door to allow access for risers being prepared offstage. Onstage were twelve Martin MAC700 profiles that shone onto the sequin walls although it was the wind from a couple of DMX fans that set the sequin walls off the most, according to Jamie.
Also on stage were twelve of the newly acquired JARAG 5 fixtures which were flown. Twelve more JARAGs on verticals at the rear of the stage were added for the headlining act Groove Armada.
”Once you’ve worked the JARAGs out – bearing in mind there are only basic personality files available due to the fact they’re so new – they really are an amazing product,” said Jamie. “They completely change the way you work with tungsten, and blinder effects in your rig. I haven’t had a play yet with pixel mapping but the onboard effects are great; you’re running in a six-channel mode and the amount of stuff that is already pre-programmed into them is amazing.
”Using the JARAGs as blinders really reinvents the whole concept of blinders; you can play with the speed of them, the attack and decay, and there are several different types of cross-fades built in.”
Two MA Lighting grandMA consoles were used for control with an ArKaos Media Server providing the visuals.
The Boiler Room is essentially a tent tour; at the Gold Coast and Adelaide it is in an eight-pole circus tent, stretching out to a ten-pole tent in Melbourne. The Sydney Boiler Room is a series of halls 65m wide x 200m long.
In the tents there was a ceiling canopy made of white camouflage netting top-lit by eighteen Martin MAC2000 washes. To either side of the main dance floor area were a series of sub-hung frames, containing the room lighting system including thirty Martin MAC700 profiles, forty Martin Atomics, sixty-two DWE duets,
For the Sydney show the camouflage nets were hung vertically behind the sub-hung lighting system and rear-lit with eighty Pulsar ChromaBanks.
Photos: www.inthemix.com.au
Clarity on Carols
Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Australian Lighting Director/Operator, Sam Walters, selected LSC Clarity as his main lighting controller for the IGA Lord Mayors Christmas Carols held at the Brisbane Riverstage in December.
Walters commented “I chose the new LSC Clarity system due to the efficiency in the way it handles Moving Lights and LED programming. This was my first real outing with Clarity and although the software is extremely powerful, I didn’t find it complicated at all. Actually I would have only looked at the manual 3 to 4 times during the whole programming session.”
Christmas Carols events, held each year in Australia’s major cities during the summer month of December, are generally performed on outdoor stages. The events are televised nationally and attract large audiences, both at the venue and at home. Brisbane’s event attracted some of the cream of Australia’s talent including Guy Sebastian, Marina Prior, James Morrison, Troy Cassar-Daley and Paulini.
Brisbane Concert Lighting was again the main equipment supplier, supplying all control from LSC Lighting Systems, including Clarity (using 6 DMX universes) with two VX20 wings, five e24 Dimming Systems, five Delta Power Distros and three Delta DMX splitters. The LSC control equipment looked after 44 Martin Moving Lights, 32 LED Par 64s, 32 LED strips and over 72 Fresnels, Pars and Profiles.
Walters continued “Clarity’s effects engine is extremely powerful and doesn’t leave you wanting anything. The LED pixel mapping is a massive time saver and allowed us to achieve really complicated looks. The 32 LED strips were mounted behind Perspex panels in the stairs. Being able to run video and JPEG images through the stairs was such a big hit and gave the cameras some really interesting backdrops. ‘Freesets’ has changed the way I do palettes for moving lights. Being able to work with just one fixture creating all the colours you want and then being able to apply that colour to the entire rig of movers and LEDs was extremely impressive. Using scaled ‘Freesets’ (eg; A rainbow from Red to Blue) through the LEDs down the stairs was a really fun way to get interesting colour textures in the set with minimal effort.”
LSC Clarity was launched late last year to industry acclaim and has found enthusiast operators from the television, touring, events, education and worship market segments. The Clarity lighting range of products include the VX Series Programming and Playback wings, the QX range of USB-DMX convertors and of course the powerful Clarity Lighting and Media control software range. Its intuitive programming plus its phenomenal function list make it one of the most powerful, feature-rich PC based lighting control systems on the market today.
Walters continued further “I have always been hesitant when it came to computer based lighting software but the VX20 wings do a great job of bridging the gap, you feel like you’re driving a real console. Having the wings is a must when operating ‘on the fly’ and is great for getting all the cues on faders and under your finger tips. LSC gave me great support in getting up and running and removed any fear I had about placing the software on such a high profile event. The software is extremely impressive and I look forward to seeing where it ends up in the future as development continues”.
Gear used on the show:
1 LSC Clarity CT/U using 6 Universes of DMX
2 VX20 Clarity Wings
5 LSC e24 Touring Dimmers
2 LSC Delta 6 x 20a Distro
3 LSC Delta 12 x 13a Distro
3 LSC Delta DMX Splitter
12 Martin MAC2000 Profile II
12 Martin MAC600
8 Martin MAC550
12 Martin MAC250 Wash
32 PAR 64 LED Tri Colour
32 LED Strip 1m
28 2k Castor Fresnel
40 KUPO PAR 64 MFL
4 Source 4 Profile
Martin LC Panels join the Family
Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Hailed as one the best nightclubs in Australia and two time winner of Australia’s prestigious ‘Nightclub of the Year’ Award, Family in Brisbane is a dynamic venue that even after years of operating is still a hot destination for clubbers.
One of the ways the club keeps fresh is by investing in new technology and their latest acquisition of ten Martin LC Panels has delivered amazing versatility for the venue’s production manager Matt Smith. Matt is actually production manager for all of the Katarzyna Group’s venues including Cloudland and the Empire.
”I have always liked Martin products particularly as they’re such a reliable brand,” he said. “We hired some LC Panels in for a few shows and I really liked them so we bought some! They go together really quickly, they’re amazingly light and I love their transparency. And of course they’re very bright – we don’t ever run them anywhere near 100%. Basically it’s a very easy product to use.”
The versatility of the LC Panel plus its lightness – you only need one person to carry it – is great for people like Matt who always has time constraints.
”It’s a good product for moving around and is very quick to set up which is great as I like to experiment with them,” he said. “I like to change the room around every few weeks and it’s not difficult to do with the LC Panels.”
Initially Matt composed the LC Panels into one 4 metre x 5 metre screen but since then he has created several set ups with them including five 4 metre x 1 metre strips, a circle in the middle of the room and next he is aiming to make a ceiling out of them.
”It’s great because we can do all these crazy set ups with the LC Panels but when a promoter comes in and says he wants one big screen it’s not too hard to do,” added Matt. “I like to place lights, such as strobes and molefays, behind the LC Panels to take advantage of their transparency. I’ve also placed smoke machines behind them which looked really cool.”
Matt reports that the VJ’s at Family love the LC Panels using ArKaos MediaMaster video software to create stunning visuals with ease.
Making an Impression with AC/DC
Posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010
Fresh off the success of its multi-platinum comeback album Black Ice, which debuted at No. 1 in 29 countries, AC/DC embarked on its first concert tour in eight years. Known for its theatrics as much as its rhythm-heavy rock tunes, the band wanted to show its fans that, after 30 years in the business, AC/DC still has a flair for the spectacular. So designers for the Black Ice World Tour took inspiration from the album’s first single, “Rock ’N Roll Train,” and concocted a full-size train to come crashing through animated video screens in fiery flames to kick off the show. The massive 13,000 lb. locomotive remains on stage as a smoking centerpiece for most of the concert.
To light the train during the group’s performance, LD Cosmo Wilson, who has been with AC/DC for nearly 20 years, along with Designer Patrick Woodroffe, chose GLP Impression RGB LED moving headfixtures. Twenty Impressions are positioned on floor stands around the base of the train. They are used to uplight the fiberglass locomotive, which sits parked at a 32° angle on top of an 8’ backline deck.
“The train is an old 1920s-style steam engine, and it becomes the centerpiece of the show until the last four songs,” said Wilson. “It smokes and we use a lot of pyro on it, but for the actual lighting of the train, which is done from the bottom, we use Impressions and nothing else.”
An extremely compact moving head that can be mounted on a 14” center, the Impression is powered by 90 Luxeon K2 LEDs that can match or exceed the output of a 575W discharge fixture. Wilson learned about the Impression from another lighting designer, Michael Keller, who made it his mainstay fixture on John Mayer’s most recent tour. “I’m a big par can guy, so I was looking for a good, bright, par-style LED light, and Michael Keller told me about the Impression,” said Wilson.
“As it turned out, we decided to use the Impression to light the train, because its profile is so small. This allowed it to fit on the backline around the train.”
Performance-wise, Wilson says that he is extremely pleased with the Impression’s brightness and rich color saturation. “It’s fantastic – it’s a really intensely bright light and the colors are great. It’s got a nice, bright beam like a par can, although we’re not using it in that type of application. It works really well on the train.”
During a song from the new album, “War Machine,” Wilson wanted to paint the train in a saturated dark green and achieve an edgy, surreal look. “I put saturated green light on the train from below with the Impression. Then from behind I put on this little corona of lavender with one of our other lights. This made the train look unreal, almost like something out of a comic book. I kept getting comments from people on how unreal the train looked. If it hadn’t been for the brightness and color saturation of the Impression, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this look.”
Wilson says that in the future, he wouldn’t hesitate to use the Impression in overhead par can-type applications. With a power draw that’s 50% less than a comparable-output 575W discharge lamp and minimal heat generation, the Impression offers the very benefits that prompted him to look for an LED light that could replace par cans to begin with.
“The problem with (traditional) par cans is that they use a lot of power and put out an immense amount of heat, especially when you’re talking 200, 300 or 500 par cans. Promoters today don’t want to pay for generators,” Wilson said. “Until now I hadn’t found an LED with a good enough beam that shoots far enough to copy what a par can does. But now that I’ve seen the brightness of the Impression, I can definitely say it would work in par can situations where it’s rigged up in the air.”
Wolfmother calls for Clarity
Posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
LSC’s Clarity is the console of choice for Lighting Designer Dave Haus, for the current Wolfmother “New Moon Rising” world tour.
Haus and his company Prodigy Lighting Design are based in Maryland USA. He is a lighting designer and programmer and owns a number of his own consoles. He came across Clarity last year whilst programming a live TV broadcast in Colorado, USA where Clarity was part of the house rig.
“I found it to be very intuitive and easy to program” comments Haus. “So much so that after the gig I immediately contacted the USA distributor Applied Electronics and purchased my very own VX20 Wing and software”.
On arriving in the Europe with the Wolfmother Tour, Clarity continued to be a real time saver for Haus when he was faced with combining their touring fixtures with the local house rigs.
He went on to say, “Clarity’s easy patching and powerful cloning functionality really works well – turning up at a different venue each night we’d have the rig patched and ready to go in no time at all. It is an extremely versatile and powerful console”
Wolfmother, now on the final leg of their world tour are in Australia where they will be opening for the phenomenal AC/DC Black Ice World Tour.
LSC Clarity is truly feature packed and offers seamless integrated control of any type of light on a stage be they PAR cans, LEDs, moving fixtures, Scrollers, LED matrix walls and even Media Servers.
JARAGs blast Them Crooked Vultures!
Posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010
Them Crooked Vultures – the supergroup of Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stoneage, Kyuss), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) – has just finished an impressive Australian tour with a rig supplied by Chameleon Touring Systems.
Lighting designer Dan Hadley opted for eleven Martin MAC700 profiles, nine Martin Atomic 3000 strobes with scrollers and six Martin StageBars as side lighting for the band plus an assortment of par cans and lekos.
“I normally choose Martin and I’m particularly fond of the MAC700 profile as it is compact, bright and the animation wheel is a nice option as opposed to just rotating gobos, commented Dan.
However the scene stealers on this show were the twenty-one JARAG-5 which lit up the stage in spectacular fashion.
Dan has used the Chromlech JARAGs on several previous productions the first being a TV show in France with the band MGMT.
”I really liked them so I used them with MGMT and also with Devo for a couple of shows,” he said. “I liked them so much I put six of them on Sonic Youth’s tour last year knowing I was going to be ramping up and putting them on this tour.
”You can get the movement and excitement of video without actually having to look at video which can be extremely distracting. I think it’s a shame that people spend so much of the day looking at their phone or their computer or their television and when they finally spend money to come to a rock show and we put them in front of another big screen playing video.
”Years ago I went to see The Who at Madison Square Gardens and although I was only ten rows from the stage, I caught myself looking at the video screen up next to the PA even though there was nothing going on. It’s bright and moves in an unpredictable fashion so I think that your eye is naturally drawn to it instead of watching the band play. With Them Crooked Vultures, people especially want to see the band play.”
As well as getting some movement from the JARAGs, Dan loves that he can use them to ‘light the living hell out of the band too’!
Eight JARAGs hang from the truss on wire rope forming an arch whilst the rest are mounted on stands. All are hung on the diagonal so Dan had to bitmap it at a 45 degree angle and program accordingly.
To do this Dan uses a MA Lighting grandMA, a console he decided to learn specifically to run JARAGs.
”The JARAGs and the grandMA work incredibly together, they’re great,” he remarked. “There are several different ways that I can program the JARAGs on the grandMA; my favourite is using the bitmap effect which behaves in its own way but I can set a fader to control the speed. So if it’s something in the show where I have to follow the band either speeding up or slowing down, then I tend to use the bitmap effect. I also find that I can use it running just with dimmer modulation which runs it in a more true HTP fashion.”
Martin gives The Wiggles the necessary colour and movement
Posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
The Christmas event that has become an institution – the Wiggles Tour – added a twist to its last production by playing in the round. As in previous years, Phaseshift Productions supplied the lighting and crew but playing in the round with a central ‘carousal’ meant that the planning process took much longer.
”It was a good six to nine months in the planning stage with all the different departments,” explained Lawrie Videky, managing director of Phaseshift. “The logistics were huge with things like cable management and a whole new structure being made.”
The tour saw Phaseshift’s new pre-rig truss (containing 120 Pars) put to use lighting the left and right sides of the catwalk as well as the main centre of the arena.
”Basically it was like a ‘mini-tattoo’!” said Lawrie. “Then there was a centre octagon shaped truss that was hinged together and broken in the centre to accommodate a flying track.”
Lighting designer Alex Saad lit the majority of the show with twenty-eight Martin MAC700 washes and twenty-eight MAC700 profiles. A total of eight MAC2000 were used for the quick change entrance way where they painted colourful wallpaper. An inflatable ‘toddler-friendly’ crowd buffer encircled the stage and was lit internally by twenty-four Martin StageBars, ideal for the job with their cool LEDs and multicolour options. Twenty Kupo 4-lites were also in the rig.
”With lighting The Wiggles it’s all about colour and movement to enhance the performance,” stated Lawrie. “Credit must be given to the crew who put in a big effort and long days on the tour.”
Credit is also due to production manager Robe Miles and set builder Alex Rosemount.
Eskimo Joe light up the day with JARAGs
Posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010
With 1800W power and with a control of 25 independent lamps the Chromlech JARAG – now available in Australia from Show Technology – opens a new chapter in luminous creativity. A fully integrated electronic card inside the device enables instantaneous implementation with no additional dimmer needed; only one direct power supply and DMX line are sufficient.
All these characteristics ensure that the JARAG can deliver a broad spectrum of effects and whilst the JARAG looks amazing when used to create walls of light displaying videos, patterns or animated text it also delivers punch when used as individual light sources.
Dave Jackson of Phaseshift Productions used eight JARAG-5 units for the Eskimo Joe performance at this year’s Big Day Out festival. Each unit was mounted onto stands of varying heights, and placed on the stage floor behind the band.
With the Band due to play every show in the afternoon, the JARAG-5 units offered an alternative to LED lighting for daytime productions.
”I found the JARAG’s to be a much better alternative than LED’s especially when the sun is belting into the stage at 4pm,” remarked Dave. ‘”During the festival run I’ve received a lot of positive feedback and great comments about them. I’ll be using our JARAG’s on the Soundwave festival next.”
During the performance Dave used no other stage lighting just the JARAG’s which he ran macros through to create occasional patterns.
The John Butler Trio get energy efficient with MAC 301™ fixtures
Posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010
The John Butler Trio “One Way Road” Tour which has just finished touring Australia was carbon neutral. Emission associated with the tour (such as electricity generated from the shows, air and road transportation including touring party and freight) was calculated and a reinvestment was made into renewable energy projects. This effectively balanced out the impact the “One Way Road” tour had on the climate and is a positive investment to assist the current situation of global warming. People traveling to the concert by carbon transport even had the opportunity to purchase a Green ticket which incurred an extra cost of 50 cents – this money was also donated to renewable energy projects to help make this a truly carbon neutral tour.
The obvious path for lighting designer Dave Jackson was to use LED fixtures in the show and so he opted for the new Martin MAC 301™ LED moving head wash light. A total of sixteen MAC301™ fixtures are in the rig: eight on the front truss and eight on the back truss.
”I was a little bit hesitant to use them but they proved to be quite good,” remarked Dave. “They have nice colour saturation and are great as front truss profiles. I needed to design a rig that ran off one 32 amp and we did.”
Twelve Martin MAC250 Beams were also in the rig: six on the back truss and six on the floor. Added to that were eight Martin StageBar54 LED fixtures to light the cyc and four Kupo 8 Liters.
”it was a fairly standard set up as John doesn’t like a lot of movement or flashy stuff,” added Dave. “It’s all about setting scenes and the MAC 301™ fixtures were perfect for that as you get a really nice beam out of them that contrasts well with the narrow beams out of the MAC250’s.”
These photos were taken at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre where the production was supplied by Entertainment Installations.
Photos: Zac Shenker
Turning on the Christmas Lights
Posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010
Clifton Productions Perth has continued their involvement with the City of Perth through event organiser Hamish McSporran from Spirit Productions with the – ‘2009 Turning on the Christmas Lights’, celebrating the beginning of Perth’s festival season.
The Festival of Christmas was launched mid November with the iconic ‘Turning on the Christmas Lights’ by Perth’s Lord Mayor, Lisa Scaffidi.
Cliftons Perth has recently taken delivery of another 180 x P25 VuePix LED mesh panels, with 123 panels being used as the main visual display on stage for the welcoming of Christmas. This large quantity of panels was split up to form 3 screens which were arranged in a semi-circle on curved truss.
Michael Wood from Cliftons Perth says, “This years event was themed around ‘Santa in Space’. The stage area was designed to create a futuristic spaceship look. The VuePix panels were arranged in 3 separate screens that could be run together or individually allowing different looks and backdrop images”.
Michael continues, “The VuePix panels were used for their versatility – ability to show video, still images and effects. The panels low weight allowed them to be hung from tri-truss ground support structure. The panels are able to be hung in a curved format rather than just being able to have a flat arrangement.”
In addition, four iLED Star Curtains were used behind the screens, with a quantity of LED Bank 108 HO fixtures on the truss to give a RGB LED colour changing effect.
8 x Robe ColorWash 1200ATs, 12 x Robe ColorSpot 1200ATs and 8 x Robe ColorSpot 700EATs were used for their high output to project and wash Christmas patterns against the Post Office building with bright colours. Michael says “We love using Robe products for their reliability and light intensity for use in large spaces like this one”.
“Overall the client and organiser of the event were very happy with the outcome, both Robe and VuePix products performed faultlessly”, says Michael.
Michael was also the Lighting Designer for the event, and concludes to say, “The versatility of the Robe and VuePix products allows the creative ideas to come together with relative ease, I really enjoyed working with these products”.
Fleetwood Mac Go Their Own Way With VARI-LITE
Posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010
Veteran rockers Fleetwood Mac have returned to Australia with their Unleashed tour garnering rave reviews wherever they perform. Their lighting designer Paul ‘Arlo’ Guthrie is a Melbourne boy who has lived in the United States for the past fifteen years lighting many influential artists such as Sheryl Crow, Chris Isaak, Kanye West, Crowded House, and Whitney Houston. Arlo has always favoured VARI*LITEs and this tour is no exception with a rig of 6 VL3500 Spots, 6 VL3000 Spots, 2 VL3000 Truss Spots, 8 VL1000 TS, 14 VL3500 Washes and 7 VL500 80V.
“I always prefer VARI-LITEs because I like their colours, the beam quality, their accuracy and the dimming; it’s very smooth which I always thought lends an organic feel to a show.” he stated. “I just like everything! The Fleetwood Mac show is mainly about rich layers and subtlety so those fixtures suit the requirements beautifully.”
For Fleetwood Mac the VL3500 Spots are used as key lights with the framing shutters whilst the VL3500 Washes are used all over the stage as a base wash layer.
“Because of the trim heights and throw distances I needed a super bright beam like the VL3500 Wash,” explained Arlo. “All of the VL1000 tungsten units are at the side on ladders to try and replicate an old school kind of feel with a tungsten colour temperature. The band really wanted something that was very simple yet classic and without any haze or atmosphere there was more focus on the quality of the light. So I took some of the band’s heritage as a springboard for the lighting design.
“I’m using the VL500 units as floor lights; I really like the way they dim and the tungsten bulbs, it’s like the good old days with floor pars.”
Arlo is also using 2 VL3000 Spots as truss spots which is an old trick of his.
“I disconnect the pan and the tilt, all of the programming is in the board so the operator just points them at the back of Stevie or Lindsey,” explained Arlo. “That way I can control all of the fades and colour changes so it’s all synchronised with the other lights. I’ve been trying for a long time to get VARI-LITE to make an actual truss spot!”
Viva the VARI-LITE VLX!
Posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Last month Richard Neville of Mandylights was lucky enough to be flown by a ‘never-to-be-disclosed-Australian-client’ to Las Vegas in order to light their half-yearly northern hemisphere meeting.
Held at the Sands Expo Centre, the event included a day of conference, a gala opening and a concluding party. Being a great fan of VARI-LITEs meant that Richard naturally opted for a VARI-LITE rig and his luck continued when he was offered the chance to use the new VLX Wash by local production supply company Cinelease. The VLX Wash offers all the benefits of LED technology and the best visual performance characteristics of traditional automated luminaires.
“I understand that Cinelease bought the first 24 VLX fixtures that VARI-LITE sold and we were the second show to use them,” revealed Richard. “Originally I asked for VL2500 Washes to accompany the 26 VL3000 Profiles and 16 VL500 Washes in the rig, but Cinelease had bought the VLX Washes about four weeks before this show, so they suggested I use them. In fact, they offered them at a lower price than the VL2500 Washes because they’re basically a cheaper unit to run due to fewer lamp replacement costs.”
So not only did Richard get to used one of the most talked about lighting fixtures on the market, he saved some money too! According to Richard, the VLX Washes and the VL3000 Profiles worked brilliantly together.
“The VLX Washes are really bright and the colours are fantastic,” he reported. “In my opinion it’s the first LED fixture that you can take seriously as a moving light. You can get really nice pastel colours out of it as well as strong saturated colours. It has a really cool deep blue that compliments the VL3000 Profile’s congo colour well. The zoom is incredibly even and at no point does the beam deliver any kind of colour shadow. It’s just a perfectly uniform beam.”
Richard found he could do some fabulous zoom chases with the VLX Washes as it only takes about half a second to move the zoom from fully narrowed to fully flooded.
“The zoom goes from super-narrow where you can get a really solid narrow beam – which is great for all your ballyhoos and that sort of thing – to a full wide flood as well,” said Richard. “It looks like the same zoom range as a VL2500, which has a great zoom range, but is obviously faster. The VLX Wash incorporates everything that is great about all the other VARI-LITE fixtures and a whole lot more.”
Richard believes that VARI-LITE is the first lighting manufacturer to put some serious thought into what happens to the LED fixture 50,000 hours down the track as the LED’s age. Not only have VARI-LITE looked at how to replace the LEDs but they also have an ingenious colour calibration system in place.
“The VLX Washes have these really nifty colour calibration discs which are like sensors that they put on top of the unit and it can calibrate it against other fixtures,” explained Richard. “So if a couple of years down the track you sub-hire some VLX Washes that are newer than yours, you can calibrate them really easily across the range, so that they colour match themselves.
“The VLX Wash has a really even dimming curve, although I did find a little bit of muddiness when it’s down really dim, but apparently that’s getting fixed. What else – they’re quiet, they don’t get hot and they’re incredibly light! The colour mixing, the speed of the colour mixing and the fantastic colours themselves…I’d happily put them on a theatre show as the pastels, like roses and salmons, that you can get out of them are great. They really hold their own; you can treat them as a real moving light as they’re not a gimmick or eye candy.”
Richard is so certain in the abilities of the VLX Wash he has specified them for a couple of touring shows next year as he is confident Australian production companies will be purchasing them.
“The VLX Wash is exactly like all the other VARI-LITE fixtures; it’s not full of macros that make it do stupid things, it’s just a good, solid moving light,” he concluded. “I really couldn’t fault it and it’s the first fixture in a long time that I’ve been able to say that about.”
VARI-LITE Extravaganza Tours Australia With Britney’s Circus
Posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
The Britney Spears travelling carnival that is her “The Circus Tour” is designed to evoke the wonder, magic and mystery found under the Big Top. It features twelve dancers, four aerialists, eight circus performers, five band members and of course Britney herself; all of whom perform on a massive in the round stage. All of them needed to be lit with speedy, accurate lighting as they parade, tumble, fly, dance and generally appear and disappear all over the place.
No easy task, but one that lighting designer Nick Whitehouse has met head-on, resulting in an amazing lighting design featuring well over 200 VARI-LITE automated luminaries. The VARI-LITE tally includes 58 VL500s, 80 VL3000 Spots, 64 VL3500 Washs, and 16 VL3500 Spot fixtures. Nick is one of the world’s top lighting designers (Justin Timberlake, Kylie) and naturally he makes sure that he is up to date on all lighting technology available. He always however, ends up with VARI-LITEs stating that they’re reliability and their optics surpass everything else on the market.
Covering a set designed in the round, accentuating the movements of circus performers, keeping the band lit, and making sure that the lighting design can hold up against the controlled chaos onstage are all challenges successfully overcome by Nick. Fortunately, he was also a member of the production team that invented the set design, as well as, the video and lighting and this is evident in the seamless integration of all these elements. Steve Dixon, Bryan Leitch and William Baker were the other brains behind the production.
Inspiration for the set was the traditional three-ring circus and naturally the trussing mirrors this. The large central circular stage incorporates a large circular video screen above it and this also houses VARI-LITEs enabling Nick to bring them down low and behind the performers onstage. The ring of VARI-LITEs include 16 VL3500s and 16 VL3000s, whilst within that, rigged from the underside of the “doughnut” deck, is a ring of 10 VL500 washes. The two small rings of trussing hold 12 VL3000s and 12 VL3500s.
Nick also developed a unique setting of placing lights around the outside rim of the centre stage ring inside the stage floor. The ring of beams shooting upwards is both effective and creative. The ring consists of 16 VL3500 Washs and 36 VL500s sitting in a custom height stage channel so they are flush with the stage.
“I love the VL500,” remarked Nick at Sydney’s Acer Arena. “I always loved the VL5’s and these are really the brand new version with DMX and everything onboard, making it a simple, light weight, little fixture that looks amazing. I love the beam and I love the colours. And of course they’re tungsten too.”
Another idea to ease the difficulty of lighting in the round, is the eight pods that provide the top and side light. Carefully engineered to ensure that they don’t block sight lines yet deliver lighting down low where required, each pod holds 2 VL3500 Washes and 2 PRG Bad Boy spots
Nick’s affections also spread to the VL3500 Wash, which he describes as the best wash light on the market.
“I use them on everything that I do,” he said. “The ones I have placed outside of the set do a lot of the key light on the dancers. They’re great because I can zoom down almost to a pinpoint and pick out the performers I want. The ones above the stage and in the stage floor are simply amazing. Again, I love the beams that come out of this light. I really like that you can turn them into a Syncrolite-style light or into a 65 degree wash. The colours are great and the brightness is brilliant. The ability it gives me to go from a washed-out look across the whole stage to a fantastic series of tight beams shooting across a sold-out arena is unmatched in the lighting world. It is the only wash I need.”
“The VL3000 Spots are my spot of choice. I know what they do, I know where they do work and where they don’t. I think their optics are excellent. The VL3000 Spots are my texture. They do a lot on the stage and they are the backlight for the performers. They’re also key light on the stage as well. To me they help bring the energy off the stage out into the crowd. We use them for their great beams and the gobo break-up’s. They are always out in the crowd doing something.”
Powa Rocks the Queen
Posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009
The Queen Tribute Show – ‘Its Kinda Magic’ – strives to recreate one of rock’s most successful acts for Queen fans, new and old around the world.
Back in Australia for the first time in 2 years, ‘Its Kinda Magic’ tour has played in venues across the globe seating from 1500 up to 4000 patrons in countries such as America, Canada, Europe, Middle East, South Africa, New Zealand, Indonesia and Australia.
Powa Productions were the official lighting, audio, staging and truck supplier on the Australian leg of the tour that ran from June through the August of 09. Simon ‘Junior’ Johnson from Powa Productions was not only the Lighting Designer for the Australian tour, but the entire world tour. Junior elected to specify Robe fixtures due to their size and overall weight when touring.
14 x Robe ColorSpot 575’s and 10 x Robe ColorWash 575’s were the main moving lights on stage, following with 140 Multipars, Robe 1500 FT Smoke Machines and Hazers.
Junior says “Queen were all about big banks of colour so the cans are grouped together in 5 x 16 lamp pods with movers arranged around the stage and back truss to fill in the gaps, also 4 towers with pars to help give the lighting some various heights.” Along with 4 light Blinders with Scrollers and Strobes. The Pods were rigged on ¼ ton motors hung off the back truss so that Junior could change the heights of the pods thus creating different looks throughout the show.
Many reviews have praised the show the best Queen tribute ever seen, saying the Australian production is the best of its kind in the world.
Junior says ‘Everyone was very happy with the whole look of the production for the tour. I am especially happy with our Robe 575’s as they are so reliable, we haven’t had a single problem with them yet!’
Green Day put the Martin MACIII to the test
Posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Green Day is currently on their mammoth 21st Century Breakdown world tour which started earlier this year and is scheduled to continue towards the end of 2010.
The band has just finished the Australian leg of the tour where they received amazing reviews for their professional, endurance-testing shows where anything goes. Also never missing a beat and behaving in the expert manner are the thirty-seven Martin MACIII spots featured in the lighting rig.
”The MACIII’s do a really good job for the throw distances that we have as some of them are very long,” commented Kevin Cauley, lighting director for the tour. “Our upstage truss is trimmed at 42ft off the ground so there are some very long throws required.
”This is the first show that I’ve used the MACIII’s on and I think they’re great. The effects wheel is awesome. It’s just a really good, heavy-duty light and the crew has had no real problems with them. We’ve found that the lamps in the MACIII’s are lasting a good five-hundred hours longer than Martin suggested. We were quite impressed by that.
”The colours are great and I even like the stock gobos! How often do you like the stock gobo set? The lamp strobe function is very neat and a new tool to play with.”
The rig has five fingers of truss as well as wing trusses to increase the breadth performance area and all contain MACIII spots. The lighting designer for the show is Justin Collie of Artfag.
The lighting intent for the show was to try to retain the old-school punk feel but to bring it into the current times with ideas such as LED elements. In true Artfag manner, fixtures are joined together to create a whole new lighting fixture within themselves in fact the most dominant fixture in the show is called the LED Fag Pod; two I-pix BB4 LED fixtures that sandwich a Martin Atomic Strobe with colour changer. A total of thirty-nine of these gems are distributed throughout the rig.
”They’re more of a visual element than casting actual illumination on the artists,” said Kevin.
For control Kevin is using a MA Lighting grandMA, a console he describes as his absolute favourite and that he has been using it for a long time as it’s also the choice of the Artfag guys.
”I love the way you can set up the interface to do whatever you want,” he said. “Because we have all the I-pix BB4 fixtures and they’re essentially a four cell fixture with individual control over each cell, we pixel mapped the whole thing to get some really cool looks out of them. That was one of my favourite things with the pixel map. Timecodes are always fun for when you’re just playing around and want to record something for playback. I’m a big fan of timecode and using that within a cue stack to do something you may be fiddling with and just decide to record it.
”One of the things I like the most about the grandMA is being able to change instrument types fairly easily and without much trouble. I’ve done a lot of club shows where this is so useful.
”The 3D visualiser is very cool, I love it especially the new one.”
All production and crew travel with the tour.
LSC Clarity Delivers for Oktoberfest Marathon
Posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Oktoberfest 2009 saw the premiere of LSC’s new Clarity lighting control software and VX20 wing for the central attraction, The Musik Haus, being the main stage of five indoor and outdoor stages that ran into the night on October 15, 2009.
ARC, who presents Oktoberfest, is the organisation responsible for Uni of NSW Student Life with the brief to actively encourage students to take part in a life changing university experience. It would appear ARC takes their brief very seriously. So seriously that this Oktoberfest, held in and around the Roundhouse at the University of NSW, entertained and refreshed 8,000 students and staff and prepared them for the oncoming exam season.
Driving Oktoberfest’s Main Stage in the Musik Haus, LSC Clarity received a serious live outing and came through with flying colours. The music programme was a combination of live music, DJs, as well as some DJs with live enhancements like trumpets or drums. The Rig in the Musik Haus was 8 x Mac 600, 4 x Mac 500, 8 x Technobeams, 8 x Mac250 Entours and 8 x HoneyComb LED 72.
As always in such large and diverse events programming time gets squeezed, but Zac Shenker, the lighting programmer and operator for the Musik Haus reports that Clarity performed extremely well and with the VX20 wing provided a platform to quickly develop and easily manage the recording of Cues and effects. Zac commented that the Freesets function in Clarity is the answer to a dream saving hours or programming time.
For an operator busking a marathon 6 hours of live shows, maintaining different and interesting looks is a challenge and Clarity achieved it with elegance and distinction. Clarity was installed on a laptop, without special configuration, and was supported by an external monitor to display the dockable video windows. Zac
Zac, a full time Computer Science and Digital Media student, has been working in lighting from his early teens in School. As one of the two regular lighting technicians for ARC, Zac and a crew of 8 lit, rigged and programmed the lighting and audio systems for the five stages for Oktoberfest. Additional equipment for the temporary stages was supplied by Chameleon.
VuePix™ On Australian Idol
Posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
The Technical Direction Company (TDC) has recently acquired several hundred VuePix™ P18 SMD LED mesh panels, with 60 of them going straight on this year’s Australian Idol 2009 series.
This years Australian Idol has totally been transformed with the ‘wow’ factor the VuePix ™ P18’s provide. Not only are the new VuePix™ P18 SMD LED mesh panels underneath the stage area, additional VuePix™ P25 RGB LED mesh panels are rigged on vertical curved truss around the stage. 8 vertical fingers have been created in a teared effect. Each P18 panel is 1552 x 576 mm, while the P25 panels are 600 x 600 mm. All graphics are run seamlessly through the screens simultaneously.
VuePix™ is known for its rich colours and modular design that allows amazing screen configurations and graphic reproduction. Whether creating video content or when graphic based material is used, VuePix™ delivers an impressive display output with maximum flexibility of use – which is a key for ‘live’ work when requirements change from act to act.
As the leader in the Australian video technology market and being constantly involved in prestigious live events around the nations, TDC has a commitment to providing high-end display technologies. TDC’s Managing Director Michael Hassett has invested heavily in VuePix™ LED mesh panels as an ideal solution for many applications, when his company is called on, particularly where LED panels are to cover very large areas.
For not only have TDC’s VuePix™ LED mesh panels been used on Australian Idol of late, they have been used on many high profiled events such as the ARIA Awards, MTV Awards, Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, numerous dance festivals, and on the 2009 NRL Grand Final Concert.
AFL Grand Final Breakfast
Posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
The North Melbourne Grand Final Breakfast is a breakfast function organised by the North Melbourne Football Club for the morning of the AFL Grand Final. The breakfast marks the traditional beginning to Grand Final day and is one of the big social highlights on the Australian sporting calendar. Watching the event is a ritual for many footy fans and the function plays a huge role in the pre match build up for the AFL Grand Final. The breakfast includes a Grand Auction, with all proceeds being donated to the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
Clifton Productions were employed to provide lighting and visuals for 1500 guests that attracts the who’s who of Australian sport, politics and culture and includes performances from some of the biggest acts in town.
28 x Robe ColorSpot 1200AT and 24 x Robe ColorWash 1200AT’s were used for room washing and rigged above the triangular stage. Also rigged, hanging from the fingers above the stage were 6 x Robe ColorSpot 700EAT along with 31 x iLED LEDSource 36’s for multi colour stage washing. 8 x iLED ColorBank 54’s were placed inside cones to illuminate up these set pieces.
On the back of the stage 10 x iLED Star Drapes were installed with a VuePix P10 display of 12 panels behind the band stage. This was driven by Catalyst media server and switched from the generic holding slide to funky graphics for each of the performances on stage.
Behind the main table on stage, a banner of VuePix P6 LED panels were configured 10 panels wide by 2 panels deep. This screen was primarily used for sponsor’s logos in the background of this table. With a resolution of 1280 pixels, this screens images were processed by a Folsom ImagePro. All room visual media was operated by James Pavey from Clifton Productions. Lighting Tech’s were Aaron Humber and Justin Ogge, with Lighting Designs by Alex Saad and Don Collins.
Production Manager Brad King from Cliftons Productions says “Everyone was extremely happy with the room visuals and overall effect of the AFL Breakfast. This event was a great success and we are happy to be apart of this yearly event again”.