A Day Trip to Blackburn

Exchange, Blackburn, during set-up

Rob was delighted to be able to squeeze in a day trip to Blackburn to help an old friend, lighting designer and visual artist Jen Kagan, with her project to use light to bring new life to the Blackburn Cotton Exchange as part of the Blackburn Festival of Light.

Rob has known and worked with Jen since 1993’s production of Piaf starring Elaine Paige, and their work together has included both re-creating existing productions (including David Hersey’s designs for Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Oliver! and Oklahoma!) and creating new designs for show such as Pan in Australia and the 2004 tour of Miss Saigon.

Jen has gone on to a successful career creating events and experiences that use the techniques of lighting and stagecraft to create interactive installation work to tell unique stories.

The Blackburn project sought a light-based scheme to bring the Cotton Exchange building - long subdivided into cinemas, now stripped back to its ceiling and walls but in a rather run-down state - to life, both to remind people of its grandeur and to raise the possibility of it taking on a new life, possibly as a performing arts venue.

Jen’s scheme combined lighting and video projection playing through the dramatic windows that run the length of the building.

With the project supported by local supplier HSL, an assortment of efficient, reliable equipment is in use - an important consideration given that the scheme must run for three months with minimal running costs and maintenance requirements. Control is from an ETC Ion console, which receives MIDI triggers from a series of ‘doorbells’ positioned outside the venue, allowing passers-by to trigger different events within the building; the Ion, in turn, triggers the video playback system, and also starts and stops the lighting at the start and end of each evening using real-time events.

Rob spent a day in Blackburn helping to configure the Ion, setting up a user-friendly magic sheet interface, a cue structure, chases, MIDI triggers and more (as well as focussing a few lights!), and then provided telephone support as the project moved to its opening night.

The project is in action now, and runs through to February 2019.

Blackburn Cotton Exchange Light Project: [link]
Jen Kagan: [link]
HSL: [link]
Blackburn Festival of Light: [link]

It’s Panto Time - Oh Yes It Is!

Pantomime season is in full swing across the UK, and Rob has just completed two pantos in two weeks, programming for lighting designer David Howe and producer QDos.

The shows were Aladdin at Glasgow’s beautiful, epic King’s Theatre, and Peter Pan at the wonderfully intimate, focused Theatre Royal in Nottingham - quite different spaces, but both giving their audiences (many discovering theatre for the first time) an intimate connection with the wonderful, uniquely British performance style that is panto.

The rigs for both shows were supplied by HSL in Blackburn, just two of the fifty-plus pantomimes the company is supplying this holiday season. As a result the rigs included quite a mixture of equipment, including Martin Mac Viper Performances and Mac 700 Washes, Mac101 LED wash lights, Vari-Lite VL3000 Spots and more, controlled in both cases from ETC Eos consoles. Best of all: a trick exploding moving light controlled from the lighting console, to great comic effect!

Rob was delighted to work with David Howe once again, having not sat alongside him at a production desk for - well, for some considerable time! They were well supported by production electrician Ed Locke and the wonderful, welcoming crews of both theatres.

Both shows run until early in the new year…. though such is their success that tickets for either are hard to come by.

Aladdin, Glasgow: [link]
Peter Pan, Nottingham: [link]
QDos Entertainment: [link]
David Howe: [link]

Helping The Lighting Programmers Of The Future

Rob has recently completed his autumn season as a visiting tutor at Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, something that has become a regular feature of his autumn over the last few years.

In these appearances, Rob works with students on the College’s Creative Lighting Control course to help them improve both their console programming and their understanding of the way shows are put on stage. The aim is not to improve their ability on any specific lighting console, though of course that happens naturally as part of the sessions. Rather, it is to put them under the kind of pressure lighting programmers encounter in the real world, in a more controlled environment - in the same way that aircraft pilots get to practice in a simulator before being let loose with real passengers.

“This came from a realisation that both I and the course leader Rachel Nicholson had come to, that however well people think they are teaching themselves a console in a room with WYSIWYG and the manual, they subliminally set themselves exercises they already know the answer to, and so come to think they know everything about the desk,” Rob explains. “The problem is, the first time they sit next to a lighting designer who asks them to do something different, they get stuck. That moment in a theatre at the start of tech is not a good moment to get stuck!”

Instead, Rob “plays the role of grumpy lighting designer,” as he describes it, to groups of just two or three students at a time. The exercise uses a real show he has lit in the past - Tommy from the Royal Academy of Music in 2011 - modelled in WYSIWYG. Students have to patch the rig and set-up their showfile just as they would in the real world. Then work starts on lighting the busy opening number of the show - a three-minute, thirty-plus cue sequence including all manner of movement and chases. At first there are pauses and discussions as problems are encountered, but the aim is to get to a speed where you could keep up with a real rehearsal with real performers and a real, impatient director, learning along the ways such niceties as not just plunging the stage into darkness. “The result is that I’ve now lit this sequence more times than any other set of cues I’ve ever done,” Rob notes. “But it’s also fascinating each time to see what trips people up and, through that, to help with their deep understanding of both the way consoles and theatre technical rehearsals function. I think the result is that they go out into the real world better prepared - and certainly the success of some of the people who’ve come out of the course to become highly successful lighting programmers seems to back that up.”

Rose Bruford’s Creative Lighting Control course: [link]

Lighting, The Fringe and the EU

Rob will be part of a free event discussing the future of entertainment lighting generally, and particularly with regard to the EU’s lighting regulations, for those working in fringe and smaller scale theatres.

The workshop, to be held on November 21st, has been organised by theatremaker Russell Lucas, who noticed that no-one from these smaller scale theatres had attended the events on the subject that the Association of Lighting Designers had organised at the National Theatre, despite the potential that the new rules would dramatically impact their ability to keep using their existing lighting equipment.

Rob’s involvement stems from his work with the ALD and the larger entertainment lighting community in trying to understand the impact of these new Ecodesign regulations, and in then working with the EU helping them to understand the issues their rules could have on entertainment lighting and the revisions required to make their effect less damaging.

While these changes have largely been achieved for this round of the regulations, the workshop will look at what is likely to happen as the EU work on the next version of these regulations over the next five years, when it seems they will become much stricter over what kinds of lighting equipment can be used and what can’t. The workshop aims to encourage theatres to start planning - and saving up! - for the changes they will have to make now, rather than waiting for five years then realising they’ve run out of time.

The workshop will take place at the Camden People’s Theatre in London NW1 on Wednesday November 21st from 11am-1pm. The number of places available is limited: book now!

Further information & booking: [link]
Further information about the EU and Entertainment Lighting from the ALD: [link]

Tree of Codes - Hong Kong

The acclaimed dance show Tree of Codes, which Rob created with director-choreographer Wayne McGregor, visual artist Olafur Eliasson and composer Jamie xx, opens tonight at the New Visions Festival in Hong Kong.

Three performances only - catch it while you can!

[link]

Giudizio Universale at PLASA 2018

Photographer: Antonello&Montesi

Rob will be talking about the spectacular show Giudizio Universale, which he lit with Bruno Poet earlier this year, at the 2018 PLASA Show.

Giudizio Universale combines lighting, projection and live performance to tell the story of Michelangelo and the work he created for the Sistine Chapel. The show, produced by Balich Worldwide Shows, is playing now at the Auditorium Conciliazone in Rome.

The PLASA Show runs from Sun 16th to Tues 18th September at Olympia in London; the talk takes place from 1-2pm on Monday 17th September. All are welcome; you can sign up for free tickets for the PLASA Show and then for the talk at the PLASA Show’s website.

PLASA Show 2018: [link]
Giudizio Universale: [link]

Tree of Codes: Hong Kong

Photographer: Joel Chester Fildes

Tree of Codes, the acclaimed dance show created with director/choreographer Wayne McGregor, visual artist Olafur Eliasson and composer Jamie xx, is back, this time playing in Hong Kong as part of the New Vision Arts Festival.

The show will be at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre from 19-21 October 2018. 

Tree of Codes Hong Kong: [link]

A Day In Batley...

Rob made a return visit to Batley in Yorkshire at the beginning of August, to run a workshop on lighting for the Batley & Spen Youth Theatre.

This is the remarkable group formed last year to present a unique production of Les Miserables as a memorial to the late Jo Cox MP. Rob visited the company last year to provide them with an introduction to stage lighting. This year it was lovely to see familiar faces who'd had an amazing time making that show, and new faces keen to be part of the company as they made a brand new show called Deeds Not Words.

With thanks to the efforts of Donna Munday, Abbey Wright and in particular Will Alder, and the help and support of White Light, a fun morning was had by all learning a bit about the history and possibilities of stage lighting, and then playing with some of the very latest LED lighting technology.

It was a pleasure to be asked to be involved. Best wishes to all involved for the show. And see you all next year?

Batley & Spen Youth Theatre: [link]