dbn is a regular collaborator with Walk The Plank, known for their 'out-of-the-box' approach and imaginative, eye-catching public art presentations which challenge, engage and appeal to wide and diverse audiences.
dbn's Stephen Page and Nick Walton lit the two one-off shows which formed two of the main spectacular set pieces for the festival.
Using the River Hull as the narrator, Voices of Freedom , the opening night spectacular took place along its banks in between the Scale Lane Swing Bridge and Myton A63 Road Bridge which is about 120m south.
Directed by Nick Clarke and produced by Ellie Turner for Walk The Plank, the dramatic action included a boat moving up and down the river with one of the main characters on-board standing on a tower, and Hull's own Freedom Chorus choir performing on the bridge.
The work took the audience back to the days when Hull was built as a port to distribute wool from across Yorkshire as ransom for Richard The Lionheart.
Scale Lane Bridge was illuminated with five Clay Paky Sharpys and five Sharpy Washes helping to establish the 'voice of the river' through the medium of light. The voice appeared during the narrated elements of the especially composed sound-track by Graeme Stewart.
Additional bridge lighting came in the form of Spectral LED PARs plus around 500 fairy lights which brought a magical glow to the space.
To light the river and the relevant surrounding buildings, Stephen utilised four of dbn's new high powered Studio Due RGBW CityColor LED FCs - the latest ones - their intensity and excellent quality of light proving perfect for the application.
He also deployed four CP Mythos and 10 x Alpha Beam 700s in dbn custom weather domes either side of the river bank, together with some Atomic strobes, with the data signal to the far side beamed via WDMX wireless links - essential as both bridges opened during the show(power was provided on both sides of the river).
CP GlowUp battery powered LED uplighters on the boat were also controlled via WDMX.
Stephen ran all the lighting using a Jands Vista S3 console located on the east side of the river using a combination of time-coded and manually executed cues.
Across town, on a piece of wasteland near Hull's docks, on the Saturday night of the Freedom festival, dbn's Nick Walton took up position behind the Avo Pearl Expert console being operated by Mike Durgan for the incendiary Over and Out, designed by WTP's pyro expert Pete Finnigan to demonstrate the power and beauty of fire.
Based around a (scenic) 12m tall lighthouse, the show featured three key actors plus local volunteers and was directed by Carrie English for Walk The Plank, complete with a special soundtrack created by Pablo.
Nick had actually lit the show before in Newcastle when it was part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. This time it was specially adapted for the new space in Hull.
In this instance, the role of lighting was to incorporate the structure and highlight the actors who work on three different levels of the lighthouse as well as across the floor immediately around it.
Eight i-Pix BB4 LED binders were secured to the tower and 100m of egg-strobes were draped up and down it.
Eight Studio Due ArchiLED 150 outdoor PARs were positioned on the floor in front - chosen for their tight beam and durability in adverse weather - the second environmental consideration, and a further 24 generic flood fixtures also on the floor were used to light the actors from different angles.
Further away, to create some massive washes sweeping across the
