Light Initiative sparkles for SuRie at Eurovision
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LI worked with long-term client creative show director Dan Shipton of Black Skull Creative on a series of 18 video-mapped LED chevrons that created the perspective guiding 'corridor' of light in which the artist performed. The design was created to read as a flat video visual from the front, then stretch out to show depth and distance when viewed from the side.
"I wanted to close down the space on stage so that SuRie could completely own her environment," says Shipton. "However, it was not conducive to keep everything within a restricted space for the entire song and equally important was the opening up of the stage to tell the story of the song to the audience and to allow SuRie to connect with her fans. Storm's message is one of openness and strength of unity and this had to be illustrated in the scenic element and how that worked with the television cameras."
From the beginning, it was clear that LED and a diamond motif was a key visual aspect of SuRie's performance and her brand. The motif featured in her BBC You Decide 2018 performance and again in the official Storm music video, before it took centre stage at the Eurovision finals. From the beginning, Shipton was in talks with LI about how to carry this through to the live show's production.
"As soon as I started researching the show design I was on the phone to Light Initiative to discuss ideas," says Shipton. "I sent over a sketch and said 'I have this crazy idea, I want it to look like this and I don't know necessarily what product it is, but this is what I am thinking.'"
Shipton and Bryn Williams, Director of LI, then began a rich collaboration process with a series of calls, spreadsheets and technical sketches, and during one late night call, a bag of Lego, a couple of Kit-Kats and some Play-Doh before arriving at the final chevron concept.
"Because of the highly bespoke nature of the set design for the UK entry, it could only be built with the specific LED products that LI could provide and not with off-the-shelf pieces," says Shipton. "LI worked with the ESC production directly to ensure that the product could be delivered within their specifications and protocols. The LI team have been amazing at working that all through and taking those worries away from me and the BBC."
In terms of on-the-ground support for Shipton and his team, Joe Ratcliffe, LI's build technician, was on site throughout the ESC process, supervising delivery and installation of the fixtures. The video map, provided by Light Initiative, was installed onto the Eurovision Green Hippo Hippotizer media servers in order to play the custom video content.
(Jim Evans)
