dbn's team was led by Pete Robinson. Their brief included the lighting of a live performance stage on the Pier Head and providing complimentary lighting onto the Liver Building itself, which framed a large format projection show created by Czech AV specialists Macula, using 35000 lumen Christie projectors.
On the Liver Building, dbn had ensured that light filled the space between the outer limits of the centrally positioned projections and the edges of the building, in the process, highlighting its full architectural features and extending the visual viewing surface to cover the entire front fascia.
This was achieved using four four Studio Due CityColor wash fixtures, six i-Pix BB4 LED wash lights and four Clay Paky Alpha Wash TH moving heads, all strategically positioned on the ground at the foot of the building. These were augmented with four CP Alpha Beam 700s stationed on top of the FOH control tower, about 150 metres away and specifically focused to catch the top of the Liver Building.
Robinson explained that their previous experience of lighting the Liver Building for the 'transition' event at the end of Liverpool's Capital of Culture Year in 2008 definitely helped with creating a lighting scheme for this event. However, they took a completely different approach both times due to the unique and individual nature of the projects.
The adjacent Cunard Building (the second of Liverpool's famous 'Three Graces') was also illuminated for the occasion by dbn. They used a combination of City Colors, BB4s, ArchiLEDs and StudioLED 600s, the new Studio Due LED City Color replacement - a colour changing wash light with a zoom. There were also additional CP Alpha Wash THs and Alpha Beam 700s, topped off with some SGM PALCO colour changing LEDs to ensure that all elements of the structure were well lit, again accentuating the form and features of the building.
All this architectural lighting was controlled via a Jands Vista T2 console operated by Pete Isherwood, running the new generation Vista v2 software, with another T2 console running in full tracking backup.
dbn provided a Hippotizer media server which was linked in to the projection system so they could apply block colour - mapped exactly to the projection surface area - to fill that space for the warm up/'holding' period before the video show fired up. This avoided having a massive and unattractive black hole in the Liver Building lighting scheme.
(Jim Evans)
