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Pixel Power at Live 8
UK lighting designer Peter Barnes - whose design was also adapted as a basis for the Paris show - wanted to create plenty of visual eye candy for both cameras and the live audience, with what was primarily a daylight show in London. He wanted the brightest and highest impact LED fixtures with which to do this, and chose 120 PixelLine 1044s and 14 of the new PixelLine 110ecs.
Barnes created zig-zagged LED borders to the onstage trusses, using 72 Pixelline 1044s, and then added another 40 around the PA wings in a U- shape. The 110s were used at the bottom of the PA scrims firing out into the audience.
He also used PixelDrive for controlling the content running through the Pixel fixtures. The ability to drag, drop, rotate and resize video sources via PixeDrive proved invaluable for the design, as none of the battens were rigged straight. The batten’s own onboard effects can also be controlled from PixelDrive, making it possible to have fast strobe sequences, as seen with The Who and Paul McCartney.
Show lighting director for the BBC was Bernie Davies. All lighting equipment for the Hyde Park show was supplied by PRG London.
Pixel team’s Chris Ewington and Radical Lighting’s Simon Carter supplied the PixelDrive laptop for control, running the latest software version. To celebrate the Live 8 occasion, they added some additional new functionality and features which will now come with all PixelDrives.
Sound Trigger enables any attribute of the fixture – pulse, colour, strobing etc – to be connected to a sound trigger. PixelDrive offers user-definable sound triggers that synch precisely with the music, using elements of the sound frequency spectrum, e.g bass, hi-hats, guitar, etc.
The new Particle Generator functions similarly to visualisation programmes on media players, producing movement via oscillations, bar graphs, etc. A really excellent feature for busking and improvising, it allows large quantities of Pixel products to be programmed exceptionally quickly.
For Kasabian at the Wireless Festival, the Thursday before Live 8 - held on the same site - Ewington and Carter helped LD Vince Foster programme a stunning Pixel show in just 20 minutes.
The Preset Function allows the user to take a snapshot of PixelDrive from the laptop and store as a playback on the lighting console’s Cue Stack, from where all the attributes can be tweaked.
Another 10 PixelLine 1044s and PixelPUPS were used to internally light the onsite interview bubble in Hyde Park. These were supplied by ELP (LD James Campbell) and chosen for their low heat properties and high quality light output. Another ten 1044s and 10 PixelPAR 90s were used to externally and internally up-light the interview bubble.
The lighting rig for Live 8 Paris, staged in front of the majestic Palace of Versailles, also featured the distinctive look of zig-jagged PixelLines. They utilised eighty 1044 battens, supplied by main lighting contractor Regie Lumiere. This was also run on a PixelDrive system triggered from the WholeHog II console.
French distributor Sonoss supplied the Rome event via locally-based Limelite with PixelLine 1044s and 110s. These were used downstage for framing the stage and upstage for making an arched entrance either side.
5th July 2005
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