Tag Archive: Clancy Flynn

1. White Light Sees REDD at the Barbican

   1 October 2019 09:54 Leave a Comment

   

   White Light has recently supplied the lighting equipment for REDD; a brand-new dance show at the Barbican Theatre.

   Devised by the Olivier Award-winning hip-hop partnership Boy Blue, REDD is a piece of dance surrounding the five stages of grief. Told through the movements of nine dancers, it offers an introspective journey into loss and examines how we are affected by those irreversible moments in our lives. It features a lighting design by Charlie Morgan Jones.

   Charlie comments: “REDD is a beautiful show which takes its audience on an unforgettable emotional journey. In terms of lighting, it’s an interesting piece as there is no actual set! With that in mind, my main brief was to create the five distinct ‘worlds’ of grief – the solitude of depression, the featureless denial, the sharpness of anger, the bold bargaining and the brightness and hope of acceptance”.

   

   This was the first time that Charlie had lit a dance piece, although he emphasises how he “approached this show as I would any other – although I do appreciate the importance of side light in dance pieces”.

   Creatively, the team decided that the lighting rig would be on display throughout the entire show, becoming an extra character in itself. As a result, Charlie had to draw on equipment that would be artistically appropriate as well as aesthetically attractive.

   Charlie contacted Jonathan Haynes at WL in order to draw on his perfect rig. He explains: “The bulk of the work on REDD was done with 48 Par Cans with long top hats. I absolutely loved playing with different intensities in order to create the five worlds. It always amazes me quite how different a Par at 60% looks in colour compared to a Par at 30% and I was able to use this variety to create the feel that the show needed.

   He continues: “I also draw on 10 ETC Lustrs to bring very occasional colour to the piece and 11 Vipers to highlight moments which demanded a crisper look”.

   

   Due to the nature of the piece, this meant that Charlie had to be very adaptable with his design. He explains: “The music and choreography were changing right up until press night due to the enormously creative process. As such, it meant that the LX team had to be completely on the ball – aided by the wonderful CSM, Carly Hook. Similarly, the entire show is run off time code (a new experience for me in a proscenium arch environment), so I spent a great deal of time working out the timings of each of the 400 light cues!”.

   REDD has now opened and will run until Saturday 5^th October.

   Charlie concludes: “This was my first experience of working with Boy Blue and at the Barbican and it was a brilliant process. The in-house lighting team were excellent and enormously helpful and supportive; as was my Associate Lighting Designer, Clancy Flynn. Similarly, the Hire team at WL were once again extremely helpful during the process and only ever a phone call away; support that’s invaluable for any designer”.

   Photos courtesy of Carl Fox.

2. White Light in the Picture for Canon Camera Launch

   18 October 2018 10:16 Leave a Comment

   

   Canon recently held the launch of its new camera the EOS R at Shoreditch Electric Light Station, London. The camera giants invited journalists along to take part in an experiential experience in which they were transported to a utopian land 400 years in the future. The experience was produced by award-winning theatre company Les Enfants Terribles, known for their work on Alice’s Adventures Underground. Having provided the lighting on a range of immersive projects, White Light was called upon to supply the equipment for this particular launch.

   The lighting designer for the event was Charlie Morgan Jones, who comments: “Canon wanted to launch their new camera yet do so in a way that was interactive and provided the journalists in attendance with an unforgettable experience. Les Enfants came up with the concept that a Canon ambassador was lost in the future and it was down to the invited journalists to ‘find her’. The set design team created a variety of spaces, including the Lab, Missing Persons Room, Museum of Curiosity, Worker’s Space and the Gym; each of which contained clues and potential pointers as to where the ambassador might be. The finale is that they find her in a space named Utopia and she does a beautiful aerial act which they photograph using the new Canon camera, thus allowing them to try out this latest model and all of its settings”.

   Charlie’s own brief was to create a lighting design that not only helped tell the story and add to the immersive experience but was also allow the camera to take the best photos possible. Charlie comments: “I’ve never done an event like this before where the lighting had to be so precise in terms of hitting certain lighting levels whilst at the same time retain my own aesthetic for the live audience. The team from Canon actually came round with a light meter to ensure we were hitting the exact levels and we often had to adjust our lighting brightness accordingly”.

   When Charlie first visited the site, it was a complete empty space. Using only the renderings and drawings he had, he approached the WL team and worked closely with Jonathan Haynes and Jim Dewhirst to obtain the exact fixtures he required. He explains: “This was a very unique project in the sense that it was very ‘theatrical’ yet wasn’t taking place in a theatre space as it were. After speaking with WL, I decided to draw on the ETC Source Four Minis which proved invaluable for the smaller spaces where we simply didn’t have the space for a large rig. A lot of the rooms required powerful lighting yet for this to be done discretely and I feel the Minis are the only fixture that are able to achieve this”.

   The largest space used in the experience was the Utopia area. It was here where the entire launch would culminate, with an aerial performance from the ambassador. Charlie explains: “The biggest feature in Utopia was the sun, which was a monster to create. It comprised of 19 par cans, 32 pin spots and a lot of LED tape (although I suspect my Chief LX Paul Walmsley and his masterful electrics team secretly loved making it!). The space also utilised 8 x MAC III Performance, 3 x MAC TW1s and a range of Robert Juliat DALIS”. Over the main acting space, 14 x ETC Lustr 2s provided general coverage, acting as a ‘big light’ to ensure the cast could be seen clearly by the camera.

   As with a lot of events taking place in bespoke environments, the set up time for the project was extremely tight. Charlie explains: “We had three days to set everything up and we were working alongside the construction team who were simultaneously building the set. Also, due to the fact that there was very little free space in the main areas, we actually had to position the lighting desk in another room, meaning all the programming was blind. That said, the Lighting Programmer, Shane Button, was fantastic and it often involved a lot of trial and error with me speaking down a radio to him, acting as his eyes. I was really lucky to be surrounded by a brilliant team, including my right hand man LX Paul Walmsley as well as Charlie Hayday, Gareth Clough, Clancy Flynn and Paul Salmon who were all equally fantastic!”.

   The launch was a huge success, attracting journalists from across the globe. It also marks yet another example of WL working with Charlie. Charlie comments: “This was a fantastic project to work on and unlike anything I’ve ever lit before. I want to say a huge thanks to all the WL team for being so accommodating and for offering guidance from the initial planning stages, all the way through to final delivery”.

   Photos courtesy of Charlie Morgan Jones and Canon Ambassadors.

3. White Light Puts on Horror Show with Toxic Avenger

   23 October 2017 08:38 Comments Off on White Light Puts on Horror Show with Toxic Avenger

   Based on the 1984 cult classic, The Toxic Avenger tells the story of the citizens of Tromaville who are crying out for a hero. Enter Melvin Ferd the Third who is tossed into a vat of toxic waste and transformed into The Toxic Avenger, New Jersey’s first superhero! Following sold-out runs at Southwark Playhouse and Edinburgh Festival, the show is making its West End debut at the Arts Theatre. White Light has been called upon to provide the lighting equipment.

   The Toxic Avenger is written by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan who are the Tony Award-winning team before the hit West End musical Memphis. It is lit by Nic Farman, who has worked on the show since its first London run. He comments: “I’ve worked with the director, Benji Sperring, many times before and my brief for this production was to have a lot of fun and be brave with my design. We often like to create bold stage pictures filled with colour and, for this show, it was especially important to create the cartoon style world in which the musical is set”.

   The show first opened at the Southwark Playhouse last year and Nic believes that the musical still embraces its B-Movie origins. He comments: “For the West End version, we wanted to ramp up the rock feel of the show and add more gig lighting to a rocky soundtrack. Similarly, the Southwark version was in thrust, whereas the Arts is in a proscenium arch, meaning we had to think about how to keep the audience as fully engaged as they were in the smaller space. As a result, takis, the designer, gave us a low apron to help get the cast down to the audience levels and I was allowed to light right out into the crowd”.

   This change in space meant that Nic had to make some additions to his previous rig. He comments: “I have drawn on a lot of Chauvet Professional units, who have been particularly supportive of me and the show. We have Maverick Mk2 spots, Maverick Hybrids, Ovation FC profiles and Ovation battens which all allow us to create great impact with colour and beam work. We also hired in some GLP X4s and X4 Bar 20s, with the bars working really well as backlight blinders. I also spec’d Elation Six PAR’s which have become my go to LED par because of their high output.

   He continues: “The other facet of the design is that we inlaid sections of the floor and pipework that makes the set up with pixel tape. Clancy Flynn, my Production Electrician and Programmer, built a system around my design”. Clancy explains: “We have 50 universes of Enttec pixel tape in the set, all controlled over ArtNet from a HippoCritter triggered by the lighting console. The control system was designed to maximise animations over the tape while keeping DMX channel requirements to an absolute minimum. WL supplied the Hippocritter media server that manages the images played over the tape, as well as the Pixelators that act as the LED drivers. They also sorted out the sale of the tape, PLink injectors and drivers we required.”

   The show, which has now opened to critical acclaim, marks Nic’s official West End debut. He comments: “Seeing the show grow from the fringe to the West End has been brilliant and doing that with a great team around me has been a joy. I couldn’t have picked a better show to be my first West End musical as the lighting plays an important role in the story telling, as well as reinforcing the music and managing to do a couple of jokes of its own.

   He adds: “I couldn’t have got the show off the ground without Clancy, who oversaw all of the load in, prep work and designed the network to run the pixel mapping. David and Jamie at the Arts were incredible at facilitating putting in a tricky show and couldn’t have been more helpful, as were Chauvet Professional who helped make the show look how I hoped it would. As always, a massive thanks to WL for their support, especially Jonathan Haynes and Jim Dewhurst, who helped us spec the show from the pixels through to the rig”.

   Photos courtesy of Irina Chira.