Felix Lighting of La Mirada, California, provided the Pointes for The Guitar Center Sessions at SXSW which took place in March. The event captured a series of incendiary live performances by Soundgarden, Snoop Dogg, Damon Albarn, Phantogram, The Wild Feathers and many more for exclusive future viewing on the Audience Channel.
The show's longtime lighting designer/director of photography, Victor Fable created the lighting design for the event.
Fable has been with The Guitar Center Sessions, which started in 2010, since the third episode. Once a year, the show travels from its Los Angeles home in the GC Hollywood Vintage Room to new locations, and this year's destination was the rooftop of the historic four-story Starr Building in downtown Austin.
Battling 40 mph winds on the first day and rain on the third and final day, the production team had plenty of challenges to overcome, but the bizarre pre-spring weather posed minimal problems for the hardy and robust Pointes.
The views over Austin provided stunning backdrops for artists during the afternoon shows which featured plenty of emerging, buzz-worthy talent, with the evening sessions reserved for the major headliners.
The Pointes were prominent in the lighting rig, with a design featuring nine 'pods' - two positioned stage left, two stage right and five running across the upstage. The five upstage pods housed four Pointes each making a total of 20.
"From the start, I wanted the Pointes to be central to the camera shots," Fable explained.
Focusing on looks for the camera - rather than a live audience - he needed flexible, feature-packed fixtures. "I like to mix things up," he said. "And for a television show you try to make every song look as individual as possible."
In their pods, the Pointes were concentrated together on the stage for "a really sharp backlight," he noted. "The fixture is very flexible, well engineered and a really great concept."
Felix Lighting added 48 x Pointes to their inventory in early January. "We're keeping them busy on lots of shows, and we're thinking of adding other Robe products to the stock soon," remarked Felix's Charlie Malings.
To assist Fable at SXSW, Malings dispatched crew chief Mike McKinnon and lead lighting tech Gus Pantoja. Fable also hired freelance programmer Susan Rose in order to help make the production a success. The shows are scheduled to air in May.
(Jim Evans)
