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Beam Me Up: Wybron BP-2 on tour with the Killers
The number of tools lighting designers and technicians have at their disposal is not inconsiderable; every year, as technology improves and diversifies, manufacturers introduce more and better ways to tackle creative problems. But there's something about stumbling upon the perfect tool for the job, the one thing that can do exactly what you need it to, that has obtained near-Holy Grail mythos among LDs. For Steven Douglas, that one thing was the Wybron BP-2 Beam Luminaire.
Douglas, who has worked with a slew of top-level acts, like Alicia Keys, the Arctic Monkeys, Britney Spears, James Taylor and Kanye West, to name just a few, is the show/lighting/video designer on the current tour for the Killers, the Grammy-nominated post-punk revivalists.
"The concept of the design was a very modern feel with multiple different LED fixtures as part of the show," Douglas said. "We we trying to inject a little fun back into arena rock shows. There are 41 MAC 2000 Washes, 34 VL 3000 Spots, 52 ColorBlast 12s, 18 i-Pix BB4s, 18 GLP Impressions, and 27 Atomic Strobes with scrollers."
But, as large and diverse as this setup was, it didn't solve all of Douglas' problems. "I needed a fixture to do a classic ‘tungsten floor light' look for one particular song. We had experimented with various MR-16 battens and omni photo floods, but as the band's singer uses a wired mic, it was causing too many problems, so they had to go. I've always loved the look of both the beam and the fixture itself when I've used other beamlights in the past, but they were always quite heavy. My idea was to have someone in the pit holding this light as a floor followspot, and the Wybron beamlight was the perfect solution. It's light enough to hold in hand for a five-minute song and still retains the necessary punch and classic look I needed."
The Wybron Beam Projector produces an extremely intense, narrow, soft-edge 10-degree beam of light several times more intense than an ordinary spotlight of similar wattage. And it weighs in at only 11.3 pounds, light enough by far to use in hand.
An A-list crew for the Killers includes Mike Kapler, FOH/media servers, who has toured with the Killers for all of this year and most of the previous tour, as well as touring with bands such as Linkin Park. The crew chief, Jim Petrusson and Mondo Figeuroa, the dimmer tech, have just finished touring with the mammoth Billy Joel/Elton John production. And Darren Knorr, who's in charge of moving lights, has just finished up touring duties with Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles.
19th October 2009
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