Open to the public from 22 October to 7 November, this is the first year that black light has designed and installed the lighting for the Enchanted Forest. "The Hermitage had come up with a theme of the four seasons, but that wasn't entirely practical. For example, how do you portray 'summer' in a forest at night in the middle of autumn?" says black light's Paul McGreal. "We thought that having focal points was important, as opposed to a linear route which is more-or-less the same throughout. We felt the four elements - Earth, Fire, Air and Water - lent themselves very well to the environment the lighting would be placed in."
McGreal said: "We didn't want to let technology take over. From the top of the walk, the public was guided through a section of colourful tree lighting and lighting nets, before encountering the Air area. The obvious place to do Air was in a clearing, so we chose the biggest one we could find," says McGreal. To enhance the atmosphere, wind chimes were put within easy reach to provide an interactive element, while sails hung on Prolyte truss emphasized the airy, windy nature of the piece.
The next element, water, was set in one of the forest's follies overlooking a waterfall in the River Braan, and was lit by Studio Due City Colors. The folly itself was lit inside with rippling effect lighting. Next was the Fire theme where McGreal used a combination of fire cans, red and orange lighting and a 6 x 4m water curtain (supplied by Water Sculptures), the first time that such a water curtain has been used in moving water. "It was obvious that Fire would the most dramatic focal point," says McGreal. "Lighting the water curtain to look like flames, combined with real flame in the fire cans and the backdrop of the trees, made it a key stopping point for visitors." Additional interest was created here because it looks across to a 212ft Douglas Fir, one of the contenders for the title of Britain's tallest tree.
As the audience moves on from Fire, fingers of light moving through the branches and an eerie soundtrack pulls them towards the Earth area. Here, a constantly moving Space Flower and conventional lighting combined with an eerie soundtrack provided the impression of an opening directly into the bowels of the planet. From Earth, walkers enjoyed another section of up-lighting, where complementary colours were paired, followed by a section lit only by fire cans, finally emerging into the venue's car park past some white-lit trees.
October was a very wet month in Scotland as McGreal says: "There were enormous cable runs involved, due to the sheer size of the site, but the biggest challenge we faced was from the rain, for example, the water curtain was placed half a metre above the river level, but on one morning it was over a metre under water." Overall the installation stood up extremely well. Throughout the Sunday evening there was a deluge which closed part of the A9," but everything on site worked fine. The only problem we had was when a visitor accidentally broke one of the bulbs in the festoon lighting."Power for the installation was provided by four 150kVa and one 30kva generators, supplied by Speedy Hire. Ben Notley, event manager for the National Trust for Scotland was very pleased with the result. "Paul and his crew not only understood the project team's brief, but more importantly have understood and been able to interpret the unique nature of The Hermitage. Throughout the event black light has proved willing to respond and make changes without any fuss, helping to make this years Enchanted Forest the great success it's been."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
