A night in Namibia for Joss Stone
- Details
This much anticipated, high-profile and instantly sold-out gig – which saw Stone play a duo set accompanied by acoustic guitarist Leon Michael King – needed to be lit beautifully and appropriately, a task for which the theatre called on the talents and creativity of LD Ramon le Roux of A&R Technologies.
Ramon chose to augment the house rig with Robe moving lights, supplied by Windhoek based rental company dB Audio, and he specified 12 x Robe Spiiders for the main wash fixtures and seven 600E Spots for the hard-edged luminaires, all rigged on the house trusses.
Ramon’s industry career started at the Warehouse Theatre, and he worked there as resident LD and lighting systems tech for around three years before spreading his wings, an experience that means he is well acquainted with what will and won’t work in the space.
For front generic lighting, he utilised three 25-50 profiles and a couple of 2K Fresnels gelled in CTB, which easily covered the space, together with a dozen of the theatre’s LED and conventional PARs. For atmospherics, they also hung a collection of dimmable lightbulbs at varying heights in the roof above the stage
Ramon received a brief from Joss Stone’s production team which included keeping it simple and straightforward, nothing too busy or noisy or distracting … and no green!
“The challenge was to produce subtle, fluid and well-balanced lighting harmonious with the spirit and vibe of the show,” he explained.
He positioned the Spiiders where they would add most to the overall size, depth and feel of the stage. He thought it was important to do this with them due to “their versatility and the fact that they are loaded with ‘specials’ potential”.
Four were on the back truss, one on each of two side trusses – left and right - four on the deck in an arc around the upstage, with the other two at eye-level on ground-based trusses also at the back.
In these multi-level positions, he was able to use them for numerous tasks during the show depending on the mood and emotion of the song. Some scenes would feature just a handful of bright and tightly focused beams interplaying with the darkness and negative spaces, while others would see all 12 Spiiders interacting with the rest of the rig in big, bold all-encompassing statements.
He operated the lights using a grandMA dot2 console, and was fortunate enough to get a reasonable amount of pre-viz, programming and prep in ahead of the performance.
(Jim Evans)
