Tag Archive: Theatre Lighting Suppliers

1. White Light Provides Royal Albert Hall with LED Upgrade

   14 January 2020 11:18 Leave a Comment

   

   White Light recently supplied the Royal Albert Hall with a range of Martin MAC Encore fixtures, continuing the phased upgrade of the in-house lighting rig.

   Located in South Kensington, the Royal Albert Hall is one of the world’s most iconic concert halls. Founded in 1871, it has played host to some of the biggest artists of all time and seats over 5,000 audience members.

   As it hosts concerts on an almost nightly basis, the venue possesses its own in-house kit which is used by incoming shows. The rig has to be extremely flexible in order to adapt to such a varied programme, as well as needing to be energy efficient and sympathetic to the needs and requirements of a wide range of different lighting designers and productions. The existing fixtures, whilst having served their time very well, were due for upgrading in line with the Hall’s ongoing replacement program. As a result, the venue approached WL in order to invest in some LED alternatives.

   

   WL’s Business Development Manager Jonathan Haynes explains: “I met up with the Royal Albert Hall’s Lighting Design Manager Richard Thomas who told me about their existing set up and what he was looking for to replace the ageing fixtures. The main priority was that the new fixtures were LED and provided a tungsten colour match that was at least as bright as the fixtures they were replacing. They also needed to be quiet, as well as have the ability to provide a high output in cool white to cut through the rest of the rig for aerial work.”

   WL put forward a range of options and held an on-site demonstration at the Royal Albert Hall for the lighting team to see each one in situ. Jonathan explains: “It is so important to shoot out fixtures in the venue for which they are intended, to see how they react to the conditions, throw distance etc. After discussing suggestions with Richard and his team, it became obvious that the Martin MAC Encore Performance CLD was the best option”.

   The Martin Mac Performance CLD integrates cutting-edge LED technology with a proprietary and innovative light engine carefully engineered to generate pristine, full spectrum light with ultra-high colour rendition. The feature-packed moving head offers unparalleled 6000K crisp, neutral daylight. Its advanced colour mixing system delivers the full palette from smooth and subtle pastels to rich and vibrant saturated colours.

   

   Richard comments: “Integrating the Encores into the rig has revolutionised the way we are able to light certain areas of the Hall, as well as offering a whole new palette of gobos, colour potential and framing options that previously did not exist. Added to that the increase in reliability in the rig means less maintenance time required over a typically busy week. We have received many positive comments from a whole host of lighting designers in just the few week after their install”.

   

   Jonathan adds: “The Encore is an extremely popular fixture, used right across the industry. It’s one we’ve invested in heavily for our rental stock to meet the demands of some of the UK’s biggest touring and West End shows that we continue to supply. The small form factor, combined with high output and whisper quiet performance meant it was a no brainer for this application. Ultimately, it was the right product for the right location”.

   The Royal Albert Hall invested a total of 18 fixtures which have all been successfully delivered and are now in pretty much constant use. The investment reinforces the continued relationship between WL and the concert hall, and adds to a large stock of Martin MAC Viper Wash DX fixtures that were purchased last year, along with ETC Lustr Series 2 LED Profiles and ROBE MegaPointes. The venue also recently replaced its stock of Robert Juliat Cyrano Followspots; again all purchased through WL.

   Jonathan concludes: “We have a very close relationship with the Royal Albert Hall and it is great to be involved in yet another project for this iconic venue. As a company, we relish being able to work closely with the team and offer them technical solutions that are bespoke to their exact needs; something we were able to do one again on this occasion”.

   Photos courtesy of Richard Thomas.

2. White Light Brings Night of the Living Dead to Life

   3 May 2019 13:23 Leave a Comment

   

   White Light has supplied the lighting equipment for Night of the Living Dead LIVE! which is currently spooking audiences at The Pleasance Theatre, London.

   Based on the iconic George A. Romero film, Night of the Living Dead LIVE! tells the story of a group of strangers holed up in a farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania. With hoards of the undead approaching, will any of them make it out alive? The show is lit by Nic Farman, who comments: “I hadn’t actually seen the film version prior to working on the show but I allowed myself to watch the first 20 minutes. This was so I could get a feel for the style of the cinematography, but also not become fixated on recreating the film on stage from a lighting point of view”.

   Despite not wanting to be an imitation of the film, the production did remain true to the Romero classic. Nic explains: “The interesting thing about the show is that we’ve tried to recreate it as if it were a black and white film. The Designer Diego Pitarch has created a monochrome set of the interior of the farmhouse in which the action is set. The costumes are all black and white and the actors are in make up to appear greyscale. My brief was to buy into that concept and to keep us in a black and white world, which was quite daunting, especially as creating a rich colour palette is often part of my work.

   

   He continues: “The first act stays quite faithful to the film, but as the show moves forward, it becomes a number of ‘what if’ scenarios. As a result, towards the end I was able to start sneaking colour back in as the action on stage gets more frantic and ridiculous. It’s been interesting working out how to create certain parts of the show when colour has been stripped away. For example, there are a lot of fire effects through the show outside of the scenic windows so we spent a long time playing with intensity effects with pure white light to achieve those looks”.

   To achieve his design, Nic approached WL to draw on a range of suitable fixtures. He explains: “We have a number of Martin MAC Viper Performances on this show which are mainly used as a gobo wash in the wonderful pure white they produce. We also use their animation wheel capabilities each time the show ‘resets’ for the next scenario. Initially I thought the limited colour palette would be restricting but, as the show developed, it became really striking. It came down to trying a number of options, including introducing some blue key light in an attempt to sell the black and white. In the end we pulled all colour for the majority of the show and the quality of the white light output the Vipers have gave us the best results”.

   He adds: “The key light through the windows and doorways is a combination of Showline SL Bar 640s, Chroma-Q Colorforce 12s and GLP XBar 20s. A number of High End Dataflashes gave me the classic horror strobe which works to reveal a number of the ‘Ghouls’. The rig is completed by Martin Mac TW1s which allowed me to be flexible on specials with a nice soft edge. This was really important to give us control of what we were seeing on stage as we stripped back to near darkness in trying to create as scary an atmosphere as possible”.

   

   Night of the Living Dead LIVE! runs until 8^th June 2019. It has been extremely well received by audiences and has also been nominated for a host of OffWestEnd Awards, including Best Lighting Design.

   Nic concludes: “Thanks, as ever, goes to Jonathan Haynes and Chris Delaney at WL for their support throughout. Also thanks to Production Electrician Sam House, Nick Ward and the rest of the team at The Pleasance who worked hard to ensure the show developed as I hoped”.

   Photos courtesy of Clare Bilyard.