Elizabeth Coco adds depth with Chauvet
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“Every year the church does spectacular Christmas and New Year’s Eve services, but due to COVID they had to reinvent things,” recalled Coco. “We did a series of filming over the course of seven days that included gospel performances from the church, as well as some partnering houses of worship in the area. From this, we created videos for the holidays as well as one for release later in 2021. I really enjoyed the challenge of taking on this project.”
In the process, Coco not only expanded her creative horizons, she also discovered the capabilities of the Chauvet Professional Maverick series, as her “surprise rig” included six MK3 Spot and 12 MK1 Spot fixtures.
“The performance of these fixtures was amazing,” said Coco. “The zoom range and pixel masks of the MK3s were perfect. I was so excited when I walked in the door and saw a case of them sitting on the deck waiting for me, because I had heard about them. I decided to place them directly behind the performers. I kept them in narrow zoom at all times to make them really visible with haze and create different beam shapes in the air.
“They didn’t have ArtNer or sACN easily accessible at this site, so we couldn’t dual control and map the MK3s,” she continued. “But I’m actually glad, because I didn’t have the time to really use that functionality either. Instead, I ran the MK3s in 128 channel mode and I relied on the pixel mask options built into the fixture. I stored various masks as Toggle sequences on my X keys with a master speed fader for the ability to grab them quickly and control the rate.”
Coco ran her Maverick MK3 Wash fixture at 20-30 percent intensity, so their pixels showed vividly well on camera behind the performers. She also layered RGBW movers over a stack of static colour sequences to create “a cohesive look” onstage.
Although, she’s built up an impressive body of work lighting buildings, Coco was able to draw on her earlier experience when using the Mavericks and her other fixtures for the First Baptist videos. “Lighting for film is definitely a different approach than what I’ve been doing a lot of lately,” she said. “However, I also still do a fair number of broadcasted awards shows and filmed business conferences. Plus, my background and training before buildings and interiors for events was in theatre, TV, and commercial film, so making the transition recently for this project was thankfully smooth.”
