The recent run of Shakespeare's Richard II, with David Tennant and directed by RSC's artistic director, Gregory Doran, kicked off at the RSC's main Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, before moving to London's Barbican last December.
Tim, who serves as associate artist for the RSC as well as the Chichester Festival Theatre, specified seven Color Force 72 RGBA colour-mixing fixtures to light metal chain 'legs' rigged across the stage to a height of 8m. The battens were placed directly above the chains in a custom containment to shield the units from the audience.
The production's set designer, Stephen Brimson Lewis, explains, "My design for Richard II required many thousands of metres of fine metal chain, and this surface needs careful handling, as all the changes of mood and space were created through a precise lighting design and very little other scenery. The Color Force 72 LED battens gave us the precise control we needed to transform the chains with dramatic colour changes and subtle intensity. The design was a true collaboration between scenic and lighting design, made possible by the use of the Chroma-Q battens."
Tim worked with Stephen to specify the Color Force units after extensive testing of the colour, brightness and dimming with the chains staging at the RSC workshops, to prove he could blend the battens with conventional units and their colours. For Richard II, the battens were required to blend into the colour palette used in Tim's conventional lighting rig, which was mainly emitting a wide range of pale blues and warms through Lee colour correction filters.
"I recommend the Color Force battens all the time because of the incredible colour mixing - I don't think there is another batten on the market at the moment that has got the ability to do pastel colours as well as they do," says Tim. "The spread and amazing output from these relatively small battens works well - and of course they dim just beautifully."
(Jim Evans)
