At the technical and creative core of City of Light 2003 - an accessible, historical take on Liverpool to celebrate it winning the European Capital of Culture bid for 2008 - was a fabulous 40m wide by 20m high water screen which formed the projection surface for the show, featuring video, laser projections and lighting effects.
A three tiered production platform, designed by site manager Stu Stalker, was built on the concrete foundations of the lake's old boat house to house all the technical infrastructure. The audience viewed the show from the natural slope across the other side of the lake. Two 5W green DPSS lasers were supplied by I-vision, who've worked with LCC for many years. A highly effective collection of graphics was specially created for the show, programmed by I-vision's Gerry Stevens working closely with Forde. The lasers were operated for the event by Chris Webber using a Pangolin system.
Lighting was supplied by Reflex, a design and rental company from Hoylake on the Wirral. Working to Forde's brief, the Reflex team was led by Ben Harding and Ian Tomlinson. Eight Clay Paky Golden Scan HPEs were rigged on the top deck of the structure, and used to beam patterns onto the centre of the screen. These were augmented by eight Martin MAC 600s rigged on the second level, and two Studio Due City Colors also on the top deck. Three City Colors per side were used to illuminate the trees and foliage, and the picture was completed with two Dominator searchlights. All lighting was controlled from an Avolites Pearl desk. Sunderland-based Buffalo, with Ray Anderson at the helm, supplied two 275kVA twin packs, one just dealing with the waterscreen pumps and the other doing all the other production elements plus public safety lighting, exits and entrances, emergency and security lighting, general site lighting and festoons.
Projection - a fusion of video and static slides - was co-ordinated by Jon Hodgson of Creative Technology, engineered by Peter Wilms and operated by Kevin Evans. A Pani BP6 Gold with a single PIGI scroller on the front was used for the statics, and a Christie X10 10,000 lumen DLP projector ran the video. The video artwork was created by Martin Wallace of Nova Film & Video and the sources were stored on Doremi hard drive. Scroll artwork was created by Paul Chatfield, and the whole show was run using a Dataton control system.
Northampton-based Tour Tech took care of the audio with a crystal clear V-Dosc system comprising six elements a side, and four subs in a block, along the middle of the top tier of the production structure. Powered with LA48a amps and processed via XTA DP226s, the time-coded audio feed was supplied off the video track. The show was run through an Allen & Heath GL2 desk, engineered by Tom Gordon and Miles Harrison.
The centrepiece of the show was supplied by LCI and tech'd by Wayne Haxton. It's one of the largest waterscreens available in the country, and runs from two 75kW Grundfus pumps which push the water into two specially designed plate nozzles. Over a ton of water is in the air at any one time and it moves 90 litres per minute at a pressure of 215psi.
(Lee Baldock)
