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PRG Products Shine On Sheryl Crow

This year, Sheryl Crow moved in a different musical direction with her latest CD Wildflower. The songs on Wildflower are more orchestrated than one would normally expect, and when Crow decided to do a limited 12 date tour, she added another dimension to the production: a 12 piece string section conducted by David Campbell. Crow's longtime Production Designer Paul "Arlo" Guthrie of Toss Film and Design created a lush, textured production and chose PRG to provide gear and road crew.

For Crow's tour, Guthrie used two critical pieces of gear from PRG: the Virtuoso VX console to control the entire system, and the PRG Series 400 System for power and data distribution. The Virtuoso was the only console that Guthrie trusted to keep the production running smoothly night after night. "The Virtuoso has stability, excellent media server control and the design enables me to get to all the function controls quickly," he states. Some of the Virtuoso VX features include 30 submasters on three pages, inputs for MIDI Show Control Commands, MIDI notes, MIDI Time Code, and SMPTE Time Code, as well as 2D, 3D and spreadsheet views on a graphical user interface. "The Virtuoso was perfect for this show. It is really solid — you don't want a console that isn't reliable when so many elements of the show are being run from it," Guthrie explains.

The PRG Series 400 System was also a critical part of the tour. "The Series 400 distro is fantastic. Any time you have fewer cables and less connections, it's going to be easier and faster. It's also been great to be able to change DMX universes from the racks when troubleshooting," the client explains. For more information on the PRG Series 400 System, please visit http://www.prg.com.

"We used a lot of diverse products for the tour, including 100 VersaTubes on ladder trusses upstage behind a kabuki reveal," notes Guthrie, "and 24 VL3000's, 30 VL5's and 10 VL1000AS luminaires. "The orchestra had a big presence on stage right, so I added tiered staging to the 2' riser that the piano, drums and keyboards were on to keep the whole backline on one plane. I illuminated the orchestra with VL1000AS units using the shutters to define them and also to keep light from spilling onto the set," the designer explains.

One of the most visual songs on this album was Where Has All the Love Gone. "For that song, we started with a fantastic animated cartoon in the style of a children's story book. I kept the lighting really simple using the blue base of the projection material with some nice builds in the swells," Guthrie comments. Basing the lighting palette on the video is something that Guthrie did throughout the production; in other instances, he put a new spin on Crow's favorite tunes. "I did purposely change the palettes of some songs she has done for a while to keep it different, and I also love having every light in just one color," the designer adds. The color palette ranged from cool blues to intense orange and congo, while visuals included stylized white and blue flowers, as well as a few unexpected touches, like aquarium fish.

While on the road, PRG keeps Guthrie's productions running smoothly and professionally. However, the work really starts in pre-production, and one of the reasons that Guthrie stays with PRG is his relationship with Account Manager Curry Grant. "I've worked with Curry for nearly fifteen years and had the pleasure of collaborating with him on all sorts of projects. He's worked on nearly every single job I have done in the US, so it's great for me to have someone that I can trust. He's always given me well-prepped, reliable gear and great people," the client notes. For Crow's tour, the crew consisted of Crew Chief/IT Lead Ronnie Beal and technicians Jeff Anderson and Anthony Ciampa. "I had an awesome crew that I couldn't do without," remarks Guthrie.

More dates are in the works for PRG and Crow's Wildflower tour. "We will be doing more shows in January in the Midwest," the designer notes.

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PRG Products Shine On Sheryl Crow

9th December 2005

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