Kiefer Sutherland goes Rogue in the UK
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Positioned on six towers that spanned the upstage deck, the Rogue R2 Wash fixtures provided stunning back washes that accentuated Sutherland and his bandmates on stage, in addition to creating mood-evoking aerial effects.
“Before I sat down and did some renders, I met with Kiefer’s music manager to learn about his vision for the show,” says Williams, owner of DanDoesLights. “Understandably, given his vast experience as an actor, Kiefer wanted a theatrical look, which I thought fit the driving concept behind this tour very well. There is a very distinct and powerful storytelling element to his music and we wanted to reflect this in our design.”
Williams punctuated his design with multiple dramatic moments, downlighting Sutherland and the other band members at different points in the show. “There was the view that these are all very talented musicians, so we should concentrate on lighting them as well as Kiefer,” he says. “Toward this end, we highlighted lots of the band members solos with spots at points, without much no else going on. With some of the slower songs, we would start with small spots on band members and then the looks would ‘grow’ with the song.”
To accentuate the dramatic effect on his design, and vary looks during the show, Williams used his lighting to create apparent changes in the stage’s dimension. At times, he wove the band’s prominent backdrop into this design by washing it with the Rogue fixtures, relying on their ambient light to backwash band members.
At other times, he flipped his lights over to create aerial looks from the Rogue R2 Wash fixtures in front of the backdrop. “This gave us quite a big dynamic change from the silhouetted ‘whole stage lit’ look,” concludes Williams. “The aerial effects quickened he pace and a filled a lot of space, even though we had a small number of fixtures.”
(Jim Evans)
