Magic & mischief in the park for grandMA3
- Details
This production was staged at Fort Canning Green within Fort Canning Park, ran for four weeks, and was directed by Guy Unsworth, featuring an industrial inspired ‘Athens’ set design by Richard Kent.
Gabriel’s starting point for lighting the show was the impressive cityscape set, which comprised 17 scenic chimneys and resembled a giant industrial complex with flourishes of futurism and some nods to classicist architecture, and, naturally, the special outdoor location.
With approximately 226 lighting fixtures on the rig, 6,321 parameters of control plus five smoke and haze generators, Gabriel chose a grandMA3 light console complete with a grandMA3 processing unit M to run everything.
“I chose grandMA3 for the streamlined design workflow it offered in conjunction with Vectorworks, and with the use of MVR and GDTF,” stated Gabriel.
A grandMA3 onPC was connected in a multi-user session so console operator Derrick Wong could run lighting cues while Gabriel was still building the show during technical rehearsals. The onPC also served as backup when the show was handed over to SRT for daily running.
A QLab controller was interfaced to the MA console via OSC for sound-related lighting triggers, and for receiving linear timecode running complex music / lighting sequences.
Both Gabriel and set designer Richard worked on Vectorworks, and the entire set, including his lighting rig, was designed in 3D.
This 3D plan was then exported to MVR and directly imported into grandMA3, so when the 3D information was fully ported over, he could visualise precisely how the light would fall on the set in grandMA3 3D Stage View.
The grandMA3 specific feature that he found the most powerful in building lighting for this show was Camera View to Selection Grid.
Seventy Astera NYX Bulbs were rigged on the chimneys in arrays across multiple rows and columns, so the Camera View aspect of Selection Grid allowed Gabriel to apply colour or dimmer effects along whichever XYZ axis he preferred.
This saved some serious time. If he had still been working in grandMA2, he would have had to create multiple Groups with Selection Order information.
Gabriel worked closely on lighting AMSND with associate lighting designer Genevieve Peck, assisted by technical manager / Chief LX Peter Chi and console operator Derrick Wong, plus a team of six follow-spotters.
