The hotel's AquaStar Pool is where A-Listers fresh from the Golden Globe Awards, Oscar Nominees Luncheon or one of the 100 or so other red carpet events held here annually frequently gather to mingle. Now the famous pool deck has become even more dazzling, thanks to a collection of Chauvet Professional and Iluminarc fixtures installed by AMP'D Entertainment.
The new lighting system is intended to give the iconic pool deck an updated, vibrant look. Given the variety of top drawer functions that take place at the pool, flexibility (along with a generous serving of colour) were the key factors in selecting the fixtures used.
"There are many colour schemes that we are running on an annual day-clock control system, as well as schemes that will be accessible via local manual overrides or via a custom web interface accessible via any web enabled device," said Arteen Kharrat, owner of AMP'D Entertainment, who served as the designer and lead installer on the project. "Colour was a major factor in this modernization. However our main goal was to make the pool deck more organic and flexible without bringing in additional equipment."
Kharrat explained why flexibility was an extremely important factor in this design. "The pool deck is a major part of the hotel, with literally hundreds of events on it each year," he said. "The pool is the only hotel-owned Olympic sized pool in Los Angeles. There is a restaurant adjacent to the pool deck that serves three meals a day, and a very lively bar and evening scene down there as well. Overall this was all about creating a wide range of options and being organic so we could light the space nightly per the requirements of the occasion."
Kharrat and his team achieved this goal by drawing on the versatility and colour rendering capabilities of the Ovation E910-FC colour mixing ERS-style fixture and Colorist Pod 7Qa RGBA fixture. A collection of 22 Ovation E910-FC units and 24 Colorist fixtures were installed around the pool deck under an overhang for protection from the elements, but above eight existing 17' tall hedge walls.
"We set the Ovation and Colorist fixtures in place with custom offset mounts to an aluminum framing that the hedges grow against," said Kharrat. "These positions were chosen because there were existing incandescent ellipsoidals already in place there; the Ovation and Colorist units were mostly updated replacements of them. The previous fixtures were used to lay nothing but texture on the pool deck. Now with the new fixtures, we're able to have soft washes in conjunction with gobo textures, so we can create more versatile and stylish looks."
In addition to the fixtures installed around the pool deck, 16 Colorist Pod 7Qa units were mounted in a large tropical planter that is used to provide privacy for the poolside restaurant. Another nine Colorist fixtures were mounted near the tops of three very tall palm trees to lend added pop to the pool design.
The system is controlled via an Interactive Technologies Cue Server Pro CS-900. "This allows day-by-day time-clock control and many universes of control via ACN, utilized extensively across the property," said Kharrat. "Our client has an iPad App controller for custom color schemes for events. For larger more involved events, we can come in with moving lights and other supplemental equipment and patch-in via DMX or CAN into the system."
(Jim Evans)
