Adrenaline rush for Ivan Zak in Zagreb
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Sven is one of Croatia’s leading LDs, known for his flair and imagination, he has been specifying Robe’s BMFL range fixtures on various shows for the last year.
In addition to the massive brightness, he loves the “seamless CMY colour mixing system, creative gobos and ultra-precise dimmer”. In fact the BMFL is so “feature packed” that he’s still discovering some new combination or effect on every show, which is a big thing for a power-user like Sven who by his own admission is one for either finding faults with technology or getting bored with it really quickly! Happily neither applies with the BMFL!
For the Ivan Zak show, he was given an open brief for the design, beyond the no-brainer that it needed to be a “big arena pop spectacle”, which he delivered in some considerable style.
The ‘Z-A-K’ trussing was highlighted with 2-lite blinders all on separate dimmer channels allowing them to be mapped into a wide range of chases including one that spelt out his name in lights – a classic piece of pop aesthetics.
In addition to the 20 x BMFL Spots, Sven chose 48 x Robe Pointes and 16 x MMX WashBeams, all delivered by rental company Eldra.
The Pointes were positioned all along four long trusses emanating from the ‘Z-A-K’ centrepiece, with the BMFL Spots hung on separate parallel trusses. The MMX WashBeams were on a front truss and used for keying and specials on Zak and his band.
On the day, Sven arrived first thing in the morning having come directly off another gig, and didn’t leave the grandMA2 console for several hours, finishing up the intense programming session five minutes before the doors opened. “I was delighted to know that we had rock-solid reliable Robe gear on it that was just going to keep working and not delay anything,” he says.
On site he also worked closely with HRT television lighting director Vesna Grgurević. He chose the video playback content which was prepared and played back for the show by David Plečko from Eldra, whose lighting project managers Dario Katačić and Domagoj Pribanić were instrumental in making everything technically possible and run smoothly on the night.
(Jim Evans)
