Obsidian in control on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day
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Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day is one of the most important holidays in Quebec and across French Canada, a day to display the region’s fleur-de-lys flag and celebrate its Francophone identity with parades and outdoor concerts. With a storm in the forecast however, the Martin Deschamps show was moved indoors, on very short notice, to the Rolland-Brunelle Cultural Centre in Joliette, Quebec. Although the 24-hour notification meant a bit of unexpected work for Roy, he was undeterred as he knows Deschamps well, having done three albums with him and is scheduled to light his upcoming tour.
Roy comments, “I had a previous Saint-Jean Baptiste show already programmed and although I didn’t have the same lighting gear in the new venue it was easy for me to update the show and all my cues. There is a feature in the NX4 called cloning and swapping that allowed me to choose the fixtures on my regular show and replace them with the new fixtures. It’s really quick and all my cues are still there as before. Instead of building a show with 400 cues over several hours, it took me a few minutes to change everything over. I didn’t have to start from scratch, and didn’t have time for that anyway.”
Despite the fact that Obsidian Control Systems has only existed for a couple of years, Roy has a long history with the platform from back when it was the M-Series. “I actually started with the Maxxyz console prior to the M-Series so I’ve known the development team for many years. I was an M-Series user for a long time, and then transitioned over to Obsidian and Onyx,” he said. “I was involved with the M1 from the beginning and eventually purchased one and became an expert. I eventually did trainings on the console and when Obsidian took over continued to do trainings on NX and Onyx through Elation distributor SF Marketing here in Canada.” SF Marketing supplied the NX4 board for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day show.
On the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day show, he used a light plot from a previous Martin Deschamps show to control a rig of Elation SixPar 300IP and Elation Arena Par Zoom lights along with Lekos and ACLs. The show was broadcast on Facebook Live on 23 June and featured Martin Deschamps along with guests Nanette Workman, Breen LeBoeuf, Reney Ray, Marco Calliari, and Lou Granger-Deschamps.
