Founded in 1996, the multi award-winning WaterTower Theatre is a not-for-profit professional theatre company in Addison, Texas. It produces six main stage shows each season in its flexible, state-of-the-art facility, which is part of the Addison Theatre Centre.
The Centre already owned two Jands Vista consoles - the ultra-compact M1, and the original Vista T2 model, but recently added the range's flagship L5 console to their inventory.
Dan Schoedel of FullStageProductions.com, who was the lighting designer for Bonnie and Clyde, comments, "We actually upgraded from our existing Jands Vista T2 to the L5 during the show run. This is one thing that I love about the Vista line - the fact that the software is the same across the entire hardware range, making the transition from console to console totally seamless."
Dan specified a fairly large rig for the show, which included Elation Design Spot and Power Wash fixtures, Chroma-Q Color Scrollers, and K-9 Pup and Bulldog fixtures.
"I rarely let the board ops programme on the Vista system since it's so much fun to design with!" Dan continues. "I find the ease of programming saves me time and effort, and as a result, it lets me refine my design. The Timeline Editor lets me quickly add depth to transitions and cues that I wouldn't spend the time doing on other consoles. The Vista also helped me manage the variety of movers/color changing fixtures with ease."
One of the major successes of this production was the inspired projections and visuals. These were created by set designer, Sarah Brown, working closely with in-house technical coordinator, Scott Guenther, who did the media design for the projection surfaces.
"The projections were handled by ArKaos MediaMaster Pro 4.0 software running on a Mac Pro, with two projectors. A Panasonic TP-DW830 8500 lumen projector was used for the centre hanging cloth and a BenQ SH960 5500 lumen projector for the rigid side projection screen," says Scott.
"ArKaos was used in Fixture mode on the Vista system. We were very happy with the level of control from the ArKaos Profile, while maintaining the ease and workflow of Vista. In fact, the integration with Vista was our favorite feature. Running the media from the lighting console allowed for great control of the images and great flexibility in connecting the media and lighting together, as well as being able to run / trigger these from just one device."
Dan adds, "In addition, we set up the Vista to trigger all of the audio cues on a separate computer that was running QLab. This enabled us to fire off lighting cues and sound cues at the exact same moment. This was critical, especially when it came to gunshots."
The Jands Vista consoles and the ArKaos MediaMaster Pro 4.0 software were demoed and sold to the Centre by North American distributor, A.C. Lighting Inc.
The Jands Vista console range and ArKaos Pro media servers hardware and software line-up will be showcased at PLASA Focus, Orlando, in February on the booth of exclusive North American distributor, A.C. Lighting Inc.
(Jim Evans)
