Stage Electrics, who supply all production lighting and media server equipment for the production, has made a significant investment in Martin Professional's EvenLED, purchasing 140 panels of the latest 16 bit version. Each colour mixing LED panel measures 1sqm and is fully DMX controlled. Also used on the set are Martin MAC TW1 tungsten washlights.
The entire production is backed by a vast 14m by 10m sky cloth. Upstage of the cloth is a BP screen and behind that are 140 EvenLED panels.
Lighting Designer for the show is Paule Constable assisted by associate Beky Stoddart. Constable, who recently won the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design for The Chalk Garden (her third Olivier award), comments on the EvenLED system.
"As soon as I heard about EvenLED I knew it was the way forward to light this cloth," she says. "I wanted to use the panels because I wanted to paint the cloth - to play with highlights and darkness and not have to use generalized flood lighting from below and above.
"I could bring out the edge of the cloth or light the sky in deep blue and keep the clouds white or use moving cloud footage. It was fantastic. The sky never looks the same twice. I was also really happy to be able to light the sky completely from behind so it is the source of the light as the sky is - we aren't lighting onto a flat surface but animating it from behind."
See Martin Professional at PLASA Focus - Leeds 2009 (April 28 - 29)
(Jim Evans)
