The National's senior lighting programmer John McGarrigle says, "We had just four weeks before the beginning of tech to convert the entire show - and one of the consoles we were moving from has no export function. We had no option but to sit in front of it for two weeks, reading all levels and parameter information from its displays, and painstakingly enter the data into Eos. We then had two weeks of visualisation with ESP Vision, where associate designer Paul Hackenmueller and I had a full 3D model of the Olivier, and worked our way through the show cue by cue."
With just a few days for tech, the lighting team made good use of the Eos system's discrete multi user functionality, working on three different desks networked together. "Sometimes I would work live with Robert Wierzel, the lighting designer," says McGarrigle, "while associate lighting programmer Andi Davis worked blind (offline) on cleaning up, or on general notes that didn't need him to look at the stage.
"We also had assistant lighting programmer Dan Haggerty on an ETC Ion dealing with the patch and data distribution, which is no small task given the show has to rep with Hamlet - fielding questions from the crew, getting the rig working for us, and generally acting as the trouble-shooter between control and rig."
The story line of Fela! unfolds through a complex hybrid of dance, theatre and music. "The lighting itself is fairly full on - it never stops moving," continues McGarrigle. "We have about 900 cues, just over 100 moving lights, 170 scrollers, and about 400 conventionals, along with LED units and various ancillary things like strobes and smoke.
Fela! Is on at the National Theatre until the end of January, with a live broadcast to cinemas around the world on 13 January 2011.
(Jim Evans)
