"We wanted to create a 3D experience for the audience," agrees lighting designer Paul Normandale, "And bring some of the video content to life, blurring the lines between screen and reality. We went to Specialz as they did such a great job on the last tour and this mechanical, visual, yet tourable challenge is very much their area of expertise."
To this end, Specialz was charged with creating a huge 3m diameter reflector, a set of bespoke dollies pre-rigged with Sharpys and last but certainly not least, two mechanical robots, George and Mildred respectively and standing approximately 15' high apiece. Specialz's Dave Smith begins with the reflector: "The initial idea came from the design team of Marcus Lyall and Adam Smith who essentially inverted accepted lighting protocols and put the entire rig on the floor. The traditional way to create height, angles and perspective would be to use mirrorballs but this design team likes to think outside the box."
"The complete reflector stays off stage until required; then it's deployed via two Kinesys motors straight from its case. It comes with a protective cover to stop people touching the surface and to protect from dust. There is also a lightweight quick-change cover which is used to cover the reflector when it's being rigged so that the gag is not given away whilst being deployed."
The lighting dollies are essentially a mobile framework to enable Normandale to reverse the normal show environment by putting the lights on the floor, rather than in the air and use the reflector. "The dollies are mainly rigged with Sharpys along with Solaris LED Flares and SGM X5 Strobes," says Smith. "Everything is pre-wired and cabled so it can roll out of the truck straight onto the stage, get plugged in and work straight away, so the final weight load was crucial. The dollies were a simple way of moving a fair few lights with time constraints as it is a very tightly scripted show."
"The robots have been part of our video footage for the last decade at least," says Lyall. The originals were tin robots that Adam borrowed from his mum. When we were considering how we could bring some of the screen imagery to life, the robots were just there, waiting to be transformed into a reality on stage. And everyone said: they must have lasers in their eyes! We went to Specialz with our design as we knew, from past experience, this was a concept that would require their particular brand of ingenuity and proficiency. We wanted something that might utilise the best in lighting and effects but looked essentially low-tech - a 1950's version of a robot if you will."
Lyall concludes, "Considering the amount of mechanism within the robots, along with the built in Ayrton MagicBlades, O LED in the eyes, Look Solutions smoke machines, MAC Auras, video PSUs and lasers with everything built in and pre-wired, it is a testament to the quality of their build that we've had absolutely no reliability issues whatsoever, particularly when you consider the band are playing the festival circuit at present where load-in/outs and changeovers can be pretty fraught.
"Specialz has delivered on this project in bucket-loads: they took a slightly silly idea very seriously and turned it into a workable and remarkable reality. How you achieve that is a whole Black Art of its own and Dave and his team at Specialz are masters of it."
(Jim Evans)
