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Lord of the Rings in West End with grandMA
On 19th June 2007 the gates to Middle Earth will open in London when ‘The Lord of the Rings’ - the stage version of JRR Tolkien’s classic trilogy which played to great acclaim in Toronto - will officially open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The journey into the realm of Tolkien’s fantasy is, at £12.5m million, the largest and most expensive musical to be seen in the West End. The entire rig is being controlled by two grandMA full-size, one grandMA light, one grandMA ultra-light and seven NSPs. grandMA 3D and grandMA onPC software were used for the pre-programming of the show.
“We used the grandMA due to the complexities of the lighting rig; it consists of approximately 200 moving lights and 300 conventional lights, and the requirement that after the opening night the lighting operator also controls special effects and triggers the Catalyst video system. Therefore we needed a stable and secure multi-user control platform,” explained associate lighting designer David Howe. “During the three month preparation and detailed technical process, three programmers (moving lights, conventionals and special effects) all worked on putting the elements of the show together on separate grandMAs.”
Lighting designer Paul Pyant uses an epic rig which includes 70 VL3000 Q Spots, 11 VL3500 Q Spots, 32 Clay Paky Alpha Wash Halos, 14 DHA Digital Light Curtain Halos, 26 Martin Atomic Strobes, over 300 ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, 30 ETC Source Four Revolutions, 70 conventional PAR Cans, 100 Wybron CXI Scrollers and 15 Wybron Ram Scrollers.
The Lord of the Rings, which premiered in Toronto, is being produced by Kevin Wallace and Saul Zaentz. The show is directed by Matthew Warchus, choreographed by Peter Darling, designed by Rob Howell with lighting by Paul Pyant. Working with Pyant on the show are associate lighting designer David Howe, assistant lighting designer Dan Large, production electrician Gerry Amies and his team, Theatre Royal chief electrician Steve McAndrew and his staff, and moving light programmer Jonathan Rouse. The show’s production managers are Stewart Crosbie and Simon Marlowe. White Light UK and Q1 Production Technologies from Canada supplied the lighting equipment.
photo: Kevin Wallace Ltd.
5th June 2007
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