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Spectacular Success as Black Light Enchants The Forest Again
Black light has played a pivotal role in bringing over 10,500 visitors into the legendary Perthshire Big Tree Country, by designing and building a spectacular lighting and video installation for the annual Enchanted Forest project.
For 17 consecutive nights in late October and early November, visitors were thrilled by the spectacle, with black light’s work recognised by an interview on prime time BBC news programme Reporting Scotland.
Last year saw the company take on the challenge of the Enchanted Forest for the first time, the event taking place at The Hermitage, Dunkeld. However this year, the company faced a double challenge - firstly how to produce an even better show and, secondly, working in a brand new venue.
Several different areas of woodland were looked at as potential venues by landowner the Forestry Commission. Faskally Wood, near Pitlochry, was chosen after consultation with black light project manager Paul McGreal about the creative possibilities it offered. “The site surrounds a small loch, so there was a lot of potential for using the water as a canvas,” says Paul. “It meant visitors would see the various installations from many different vantage points, providing a constantly changing view.”
The Forestry Commission Scotland runs the event under the banner of the Perthshire Big Tree Country Initiative, whose partners include Perth and Kinross Council, Scottish Enterprise Tayside and Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust, with additional funding from Event Scotland. With such major organisations involved it was an endorsement of black light’s creative talent that the company was given a free hand in the project’s theme and design.
“The brief we were given was very straightforward,” Paul continues. “They wanted it to offer value for money, to be spectacular but visibly different from last year and for it to be interesting enough for people to want to stay on the site for over an hour. Other than that we had complete creative freedom, which was a huge responsibility.”
The fact that black light achieved the aims is acknowledged by James McDougall, of the Forestry Commission Scotland, chairman of the events steering group and someone who knows the pitfalls the event can throw up. He says: “We worked very closely on the concept and development with black light and had every faith that they would come up with design that made the most of the site and met our needs as a landowner. They provided excellent service and we had a very good working relationship.”
The site covers more than a mile of paths, so black light’s extensive hire stocks were vital to the project’s success, ensuring every part could be lit in a visually exciting manner. As a starting point, the team went out of its way to avoid the obvious. “It would have been very easy to string festoon lighting along the paths, but that would have been extremely dull for visitors,” says Paul. “Our way is to throw light at features and use the bounceback to light the path, ensuring that everything provides optimum interest.”
But that was merely the beginning - black light was called upon to do far more than lighting! The team designing a wide array of different elements, including the concept, design and fabrication of a floating video screen and bespoke AV production, a water screen with second, separate AV production, neon candles placed on custom designed and built miniature boats, a bridge brought to life with light nets and an illuminated waterfall.
Another element was the Spooky Wood, eerily lit with flame cans and dimmed, coiled rope lights resembling snakes, while fog from a Le Maitre Stadium Hazer added that `all-important sense of mystery.
Arriving on coaches, visitors were guided under an Airstar illuminated arch and along the spectacularly lit waterside path to an area where a large format video screen was floating on the loch. Here they enjoyed a specially-commissioned audio visual presentation on The Circle Of Life.
As the presentation continued, visitors became aware of a constantly shifting canvas behind the video screen, where colour changing and movement of the lighting across the loch added to the sense of the movement of water.
“We came up with the Circle Of Life theme from the location,” says Paul. “It soon became apparent that it worked on many different levels. The idea was that every visitor - however old or young - would get something from it, as well as enjoying the sheer spectacle of the lighting, video and sound.”
After the AV presentation, visitors were free to wander at their leisure through the rest of the site, enjoying the wide variety of creative visual and audible effects.
“The video element was placed near the beginning, because it encouraged people to look more closely at the woods, the loch and what they are about,” Paul continues. “The entire production was deliberately designed to achieve that aim.”
In the Spooky Wood, a small tent was found to be the most effective form of weatherproofing for the hazer. “We had to make sure there was a power supply on each side of the path, because we had to shift the tent every night depending on the wind direction,” adds Paul with a wry grin. Just one of the many unusual tasks that putting a huge lighting installation into a forest requires.
The 2005 Enchanted Forest was a spectacular success, with extra coaches having to be laid on to avoid disappointing many people. Such was the importance of the event to Scottish tourism and the spectacular success it achieved, BBC Scotland’s flagship news programme Reporting Scotland filmed a major report at the site, interviewing Paul McGreal and several thrilled visitors.
“We are really pleased with the project,” says Paul. “We aimed high this year, but we achieved everything we set out to accomplish and more. Despite occasionally inclement weather, we had virtually no technical problems and visitor reaction has been universally positive. The BBC interview was fantastic recognition for all the work that we put in.”
Jennifer Moran, business relationship and marketing manager for VisitScotland Perthshire adds: “black light successfully transformed Faskally Wood into a spectacular light and sound show. From colourfully lit trees, illuminated pathways, a fleet of brightly illuminated boats bobbing on the water to living rock faces - the forest truly did come alive.”
Photos by Robin Johnson
7th November 2005
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