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Black Light Embraces the Elements in the Enchanted Forest

Perthshire is known as Big Tree Country and the annual Enchanted Forest walk has become a very popular attraction for both locals and tourists at The Hermitage, situated near the town of Dunkeld and owned by the National Trust for Scotland.

Open to the public from 22nd October to 7th November, this is the first year that Black Light has designed and installed the lighting for the Enchanted Forest. “The Hermitage had come up with a theme of the four seasons, but that wasn’t entirely practical. For example, how do you portray ‘summer’ in a forest at night in the middle of autumn?” asks Black Light’s Paul McGreal.

“We thought that having focal points was important, as opposed to a linear route which is more-or-less the same throughout. Four was an ideal number of focal points, and we felt the four elements - Earth, Fire, Air and Water - lent themselves very well to the environment the lighting would be placed in.”

Paul was given complete freedom to use any parts of The Hermitage’s extensive wooded grounds, so he selected a route that would allow natural features to be enhanced to maximum effect. As he says: “We didn’t want to let technology take over.”

From the top of the walk, the public was guided through a section of colourful tree lighting and lighting nets, before encountering the Air area. “The obvious place to do Air was in a clearing, so we chose the biggest one we could find,” says Paul.

To enhance the atmosphere, wind chimes were put within easy reach to provide an interactive element, while sails hung on Prolyte truss emphasised the airy, windy nature of the piece.

The next element was water. Here one of the forest’s follies overlooks a spectacular waterfall in the River Braan, which was lit by Studio Due City Colors to provide an ever-changing cascade of colour. The folly itself was lit inside with rippling effect lighting, adding to the watery ambience.

Next was the Fire theme. Here Paul used a combination of fire cans, red and orange lighting and a 6 x 4m water curtain (supplied by Water Sculptures) to provide an atmospheric juxtaposition of the fire theme against the background of the river. This was also the first time that such a water curtain has been used in moving water.

“It was obvious that Fire would the most dramatic focal point,” says Paul. “Lighting the water curtain to look like flames, combined with real flame in the fire cans and the backdrop of the trees, made it a key stopping point for visitors.” Additional interest was created here by the fact that it looks across to a 212 feet high Douglas Fir, one of the contenders for the hotly-contested title of Britain’s tallest tree.

As they moved on from Fire, the imagination of visitors was caught by fingers of light moving through the branches further on. Leaving the sound of the river behind, the strains of an eerie soundtrack also pulled them towards what proved to be the Earth area.

Here, a constantly moving Space Flower and conventional lighting combined with a suitably eerie soundtrack to provide the impression of an opening directly into the bowels of the planet.

From Earth, walkers enjoyed another section of uplighting, where complementary colours were paired, followed by a section lit only by fire cans. They emerged into the venue’s car park past some white-lit trees, providing an alternative texture to the colourful imagery of earlier in the walk. “I had a deliberate colour strategy in mind. I wasn’t going to just splodge rainbow colours everywhere,” says Paul. “To ensure there was true variety between the focal points we used pairs of colours in sections, the light net, the section lit just by fire and the white light towards the end.”

Although the four elements theme was Black Light’s idea, elements that Paul couldn’t control were those from above. October was a very wet month in Scotland and this caused a few problems with the vast amount of cabling and fixtures that were out in the open air. Harnessing the River Braan as part of the canvas also caused challenges.

“There were enormous cable runs involved, due to the sheer size of the site, but the biggest challenge we faced was from the rain,” says Paul. “For example, the water curtain was placed half a metre above the river level, but on one morning it was over a metre under water.”

But overall the installation stood up extremely well. “Throughout the Sunday evening there was a deluge which closed part of the A9,” Paul continues. “But everything on site worked fine. The only problem we had was when a visitor accidentally broke one of the bulbs in the festoon lighting.”

Power for the installation was provided by four 150kVa and one 30kva generators, supplied by Speedy Hire, while staff from The Hermitage ensured that nobody was left in the forest at the end of the evening.

A sensible precaution was all visitors having to wear the glowing hoops that you see at fairgrounds and fetes. This was so that they would be visible in the darker sections and it added another colourful element to proceedings. But seeing a bus full of the public all wearing them round their necks was quite surreal!

“This is the third year the Enchanted Forest project has been run and we’ve had a very positive reaction,” says Paul. “It’s the first time the highlighted sections have been done and the reaction from people who have come every year was that this was a bit different, but very popular.”

Ben Notley, event manager for the National Trust for Scotland was very pleased with the result. “Paul and his crew not only understood the project team’s brief, but more importantly have understood and been able to interpret the unique nature of The Hermitage. Throughout the event black light has proved willing to respond and make changes without any fuss, helping to make this years Enchanted Forest the great success it's been.”

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Black Light Embraces the Elements in the Enchanted Forest

2nd November 2004

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