MA Lighting was chosen after a comprehensive two-year evaluation period, which included extensive 'field trials' and involved the RSC's head of lighting Vince Herbert plus his departmental team of 18, including programming specialists, operators and technicians.
Three of the new consoles are deployed in the RST and The Swan. In both venues, the first one is the active desk, the second is for backup and media server programming, and the third is located in the stalls, used for focussing and tech sessions plus for offline work during non-technical periods.
Touring and transferring shows were major considerations. With many of the RSC's productions moving around the globe, they needed an easy and straightforward method to swap lighting show files between different venues.
At the RST, the grandMA2 light will be controlling approximately 70 moving lights and about 300 generics - primarily Source Four profiles and Source Four PARs - most with scrollers. Together with media servers, this represents a serious amount of intelligence needing intuitive programming and playing back. The number of moving lights is expected to increase to around the 100 mark in the near future. In the Swan Theatre there are currently about 20 moving lights and another large generic rig - also with most instruments fitted with scrollers.
Working closely with MA UK and Germany, a full training programme was instigated for all the relevant RSC staff on the new consoles and how the MA system works. The first production to use the new grandMA2 system at the RST is King Lear directed by David Farr, designed by John Bausor with a lighting design by Jon Clark.
(Jim Evans)
