The 50 metre wide, seven metre high screen was used to show a specially commissioned film directed by Robert Butcher and Liam Lyons with a score by Jonathan Goldstein and produced by HP:ICM, in front of this screen was a huge water ‘lake’ which concealed submerged water and pyrotechnic effects which accompanied dynamic moments in the film; the roof supported a comprehensive lighting system and was covered by a 35 metre diameter fibre optic star cloth.
The audience viewed the spectacle either from a half crescent ‘beach’ which overlooked the lake or from a five metre high bridge that spanned the Big Box at first floor level, the rear wall was a huge semi-circular gauze lit to reflect the various colour themes contained within the storyline. The film, which celebrated Volkswagen cars and company identity, lasted for seven minutes with interspersed mist, rain, fountains, water curtain, gas flame and lighting effects and ended with a one-minute light and laser show.
Lighting Designer for the ‘Big Box’ theatre was Durham Marenghi who was employed by HP:ICM to light the experience and to co-ordinate the lasers and the various elemental effects. Marenghi used over 100 Martin MAC 2000, 600, 500 and 300s for the design with Vari*Lites providing zoom wash lighting with the VL2416, the lasers were supplied by Tarm and programmed by Kai Kasprzyk. No smoke or haze was used, to keep the projector beams transparent, but the lighting and laser beams were made visible by the innovative use of an ‘on demand’ real water atmosphere.
The lighting and rigging equipment was sourced from Rock Service in Germany with Alex de Ney as site co-coordinator, Nick Jones was the HP:ICM production electrician with the Wholehog II programmed by John Sinden. The show was modelled by Durham in WYSIWYG and rendered: lit images of the virtual ‘Big Box’ were incorporated into the film storyboard to illustrate the proposed environmental effects to the client.
