latest news headlines
Springtime in Bahrain with MA Lighting
Organised by the Bahrain Economic Development Board, the ‘Spring of Culture’ gathered a wide variety of artists and performers together in a number of venues around the kingdom. In front of the historic Arad Fort an amphitheatre was constructed for the major concert performances. Bahrain production company AVL Concepts brought in Dubai-based Nige Holbrough as lighting designer and consultant to oversee the installation of the rig and reconcile the performers’ varied requirements.
“From the outset I knew that grandMA was the control system I wanted, but there are not many consoles in the local rental market yet, and non were available for the shows, however, with a MA 2Port Node, a tablet PC and a DMX fader wing I could have the next best thing,” explained Holbrough.
The first act he used the technology for was Youssou n’Dour. “We had an overnight turnaround from the previous show, and the final positions of the band were only worked out at the sound check on the afternoon of the concert.” Using grandMA 3D Holbrough had prepared a “busking” show and updated the position presets when the band was on the stage: “With grandMA 3D networked on another laptop it took only a few minutes to touch up a dozen stage focuses for 22 moving heads.”
Holbrough faced a few challenges during the show: “Most of the songs were sung in Youssou’s native Senegalese. I had an assortment of colours and beams placed on executor buttons on the tablet PC so I could quickly match the mood of the song with a touch of the stylus, whilst I put position and movement chases on the physical faders of the DMX wing along with intensity so I could fade the lights or bump positions with the tempo. There was quite a lot of interaction with the audience, so having groups of fixtures with a fly-out position on a fader made it easy to swing some lights into the audience when needed.”
The Japanese Drummers of Osaka Dadada Dan Tenko had a tightly choreographed performance. Their LD, Quintus of Belichting ran the show in a theatrical “cue list” style. During rehearsal the evening before the show the exact positions of tightly focussed moving lights were plotted into presets, again using grandMA 3D. With beams “chasing the mouse” Holbrough was easily able to keep up with their rapidly changing formations on stage. After the performers left the stage the lighting designer recorded the looks Quintus required into a single executor sequence. Then they worked through the steps on screen to assign and adjust individual step times. “Quintus had not worked with the grandMA onPC before and afterwards commented ‘I was surprised how quick the TabletPC was’,” related Holbrough.
For The Chehade Brothers and Tony Hanna it was back to busking mode again. System tech Roy Eid had worked with the band previously in his home county, Lebanon. Taking on the role of LD for them he elected to run the generics from a Rock Desk whilst entrusting Holbrough to manage the movers using the grandMA onPC. Once again the combination of console and visualiser proved it’s worth, both for focussing the stage positions and during the show. “Tony Hanna started out at the DSC mic position, but then began to move further and further away from it. With grandMA 3D I was able to track his movements with some of the fixtures as if they were truss mounted follow spots. Using the mouse it was easy to follow him with multiple fixtures on separate trusses, I could not have got the same smoothness and accuracy using pan and tilt encoders” said Holbrough. Looking back on the shows he added: “Undoubtedly, nothing beats having a grandMA console, with faders, buttons and wheels, but when that is not available the combination of grandMA onPC and MA 2Port Node means I can have the operating system I prefer in my bag wherever I go.”
As well as operating the lights for Brasil Brasileiro Daniel Ridano also represents MA in Latin America. When a shipping error and the Easter Holidays delayed delivery of a grandMA desk due from a German rental house he brought a grandMA ultra-light with him on the plane. With it he was able to take his existing show, programmed on a grandMA full-size and adapt it the rig supplied in Bahrain. “Unseasonably wet weather severely limited his programming time, and rain during the opening number resulted in the first show being postponed, but during the second night he could be seen dancing happily behind the desk,” said Holbrough.
24th April 2007
HEADLINES
news archive
search stories
FOOTNOTE: Select the news type you require in the red band above; this will enable you to see the current news stories from that section
© 1999 - 2012 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
