"I had worked on Belinda's shows onboard the QM2 and at that time we had a starcloth manufactured that had various images sewn into it. Having seen a brief video clip of the SoftLED I thought that this would be ideal for the QE2 projects, and this was proven in a full-scale mock up provided by Architainment Lighting." Architainment Lighting is the UK distributor for SoftLED and Color Kinetics products.
"The stage is a lot smaller than the previous project and there is not a lot of room for large pieces of scenery for all of the shows so lighting became a massive part of two of the shows." The cloth was mainly bought for the first of the four new productions, Hit Me with a Hot Note - a major music show based on the history of Soul Music from gospel through jazz bars, Ray Charles, Tamla Motown and Disco.
Routledge says: "I was at first concerned by the distance of the audience from the drape but this was not an issue so we opted for the Medium-X resolution, with the LED nodes on 4" x 8" spacing, which has been very successful." He added: "By combining the SoftLED with the powerful control of a Hippotizer Media Server controlled via a GrandMA, I was able to make fast changes to the look of the drape. Simple images were manipulated to create stunning variable images. I had the opportunity to create simple textured backgrounds or fast-moving backdrops to match the look and feel of the show. As the shows were time-coded I could make the video cuts hit the exact beat of the music and stop frames on musical pauses."
Routledge also specified Colour Kinetics ColorBlast 12's LED wash fixtures to provide a flexible way of lighting the whole cyclorama and rising voile at the rear of the stage. A number of new fixtures were also added to supplement the ships rig comprising of High End Studio Spot CMY Zooms, Studio Color 250's and Chroma-Q scrollers.
This is the first time the QE2 has had full production shows onboard and a full refit of the Grand Lounge has been necessary to make these shows feasible. The shows director and producer Belinda King is a keen advocate of the technology "The SoftLED was simply magnificent and totally transformed the venue. 'Hit Me with a Hot Note' demanded major music lighting on a small stage. This was made possible with this new technology and gave us unlimited looks to punctuate the action onstage."
New Video projection with a Barco G5 was designed by Alex Leinster as well as creating some graphics for the SoftLED. A revolving lift, scenery automation and edge lighting installed into the stages rostra were part of the scenic refit designed by Jack Tripp. The shows have been fully automated and controlled by MIDI by a brand new Dataton Show control system programmed by Andi Pygott.
(Lee Baldock)
