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Kinesys Live!
Kinesys automation and control systems have been specified for several recent high profile concert tours including The Killers, The Feeling, Muse, Nelly Furtado and Keane.
The Kinesys system – renowned for being flexible, accurate and very smooth – is being increasingly chosen by lighting designers to add a new visual dimension to their creative canvas. A 14-way Kinesys system – along with all rigging and crew - was supplied by Summit Steel for the UK section of The Killers tour. This was a sub-hire to lighting rental contractors Siyan.
Lighting designer Steve Douglas’s upstage truss featured four contemporary chandeliers – consisting of steel wire rope drops of lights - rigged onto a truss flown on two Kinesys motors. This was brought in and out at the appropriate moments.
Downstage were three box-shaped lighting pods, each suspended on four Kinesys motors - all ½ tonne CM Lodestar JJs running at up to 21-metres-a-minute. The pods were moved into about 10 different positions throughout the show, all but one move completed in the dark.
Head rigger was John Maxwell, and the Kinesys Vector control system was operated by Erland Webb, who said: “It’s great to be able to so quickly reposition and update the system when moving between different venues.”
For The Feeling, LD Tom Lesh specified an 8-way Kinesys system essentially as a set element, after using it on Muse throughout Autumn 2006.
His design for “hotly tipped” UK rockers The Feeling included four giant lampshades and four mirror balls, all of which were hung individually on Kinesys converted CM ProStar motors. The system is used to bring these in and out of view throughout the performance, and it’s incredible smoothness allows the lampshades to ‘dance’ – seamlessly - in the set’s powerful closing number, ‘I Love It When You Call’.
The mirror ball concept originally came from lead singer Dan Gillespie-Sells, who wanted some ‘planetary’ content in the show, which Lesh then developed into the four flown balls. However, he didn’t want them hanging in view for the whole set. Lesh then introduced the lampshades as a simple but effective scenic element and decided to automate all of these to expand his creative horizons.
Lesh comments: “The system has worked very well in the theatre and city hall sized venues we’ve done on this last leg of the tour.” Along with all lighting and rigging, the Kinesys equipment was supplied by Neg Earth Lights and operated by Russell Matthews.
On Muse, Lesh had utilised a 10-way Kinesys system operated by Andy Beller. This lifted a conically shaped MiPix ‘satellite’ screen effect to reveal the drummer at the top of the show. Another six points of Kinesys were used to move three 8ft sections of upstage trussing in and out of the action, each rigged with two 4.5k BigLights.
Kinesys Vector control and Liftket motors with Kinesys Elevation 1+ controllers (to make them variable speed) plus two positioning, variable speed, beam trolleys were supplied by Neg Earth for Nelly Furtado’s UK and European tour.
These were used to move a large Barco MiTrix screen up and down and to track it upstage/downstage, and this was an integrated element of Brad Wagg’s lighting and visual design. The system was built, looked after and operated on tour by Dan Wiseman - having worked previously with the system on George Michael’s 25 Live tour - who said: “The support from Kinesys is excellent – as always.”
12th March 2007
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