For the Super Bowl XLIX Pepsi Halftime featuring Katy Perry, the special effects portion of the production was remarkably flexible. "We change the show up until the day of- in fact, we made changes on Super Bowl Sunday, because of the camera shots. We try to maximize the best shot that the director, Hamish Hamilton, is going to take and the best effect at that moment," explains production designer Bruce Rodgers of Tribe Design.
Both the open and the finale of the Halftime featured special effects, specifically pyro. "For Roar, the first song, we had the nice big opening pyro hit with gerbs and comets, on the downbeat with the first vocal right behind her on the lion. As for Fireworks, that was always going to be a song that we were going to be able to do and shine," notes Grega.
For the finale inside, Grega and his team from Strictly FX used an impressive amount of Ultratec low smoke product, including silver gerbs, mines, comets and white, red, blue, orange and yellow airbursts. "We also had 20 pyro positions on the rooftop- they were spread out about 125ft apart, and up there we had fully consumable aerial shells, mines, comets , crossette plates, mine plates and comet plates."
Inside the stadium, there were 210 pieces of pyro shot for the finale; outside there were approximately 800 blasts and bursts. "There's a delicate balance between the two visual worlds on site- one world of the 'live show' in front of 80,000 and then television audience of 114.5m. We usually base FX cues on our musical interpretation of the track and or the artists/dancers choreography but on the Super Bowl it is about the whole visual experience," Grega explains.
Perry also flew during the finale on a custom rig that featured a sparkling tail of pyro. Grega says, "For Katy's fly gag, we used a Le Maitre ice fountain, which was shot wirelessly with FireOne and their four channel wireless receivers." Rodgers adds, "The ice fountain that Mark added to the fly rig was another creative touch that we have come to expect from Mark as a designer."
The Halftime was also the world premiere of a new proprietary product- the Strictly FX Liquid Propane Urn, which appeared during I Kissed a Girl. Grega says, "The Urn is our classic design, where you have a standing flame and then an accent effect. For this show, we re-wired them so they could shoot liquid, so that they could be really big." Six of the Liquid Propane Urns were featured during song; those flames went to a maximum height of 35ft. Four TBF Five Masters flame units- which Grega nicknamed the Five Fingers of Death- were also placed behind the duo.
The flame units used on the duet with Kravitz were flanked by Ultratec G3000 Mega Fog Bursts. "Everyone loves CO2, and it's a great gag, except in February in Arizona, where there's relatively no humidity, and CO2 is heavily reliant on humidity to produce the effect," Grega says. CO2 was out, but Grega had the Mega Fog Bursts. He explains, "It was my go to for this show, and it worked great. It did exactly what we needed it to do, which was to instantly produce a big column of smoke."
Another proprietary product- the Strictly FX Smoke Blade- was used to reveal special guest Missy Elliott.
(Jim Evans)
