Robe lights American Idiot in Buenos Aires
- Details
Robe moving lights are central to creating the raw vibe with Spiiders, Spikies and Squares prominent on the rig, and being used to the maximum by the two Ariels.
These products were chosen for the flexibility and creative scope they bring to lighting two other shows also playing at the Broadway Theatre – the cirque-musical extravaganza Mahatma and the erotic show Taboo.
All shows utilise the same rig but look completely different, so some of the fixtures are re-positioned and re-rigged while Mahatma also features some additional Robe Pointes.
American Idiot – the stage adaptation of Green Day's 2004 album - was inspired by many things including the ground-breaking work of The Who and their original 'rock opera' Tommy
The 32 x Spiiders are all on overhead trusses installed in the theatre roof and are used for all the stage washes and colouring – of which there is plenty in the show.
The Spikies are dotted all around the video screens upstage where their small size and light weight and the high speed continuous pan and tilt made them ideal for the position and the tasks being asked.
Twelve of the 16 Squares were used upstage of the back wall, blasting through the 6mm video screens, with four on the floor – brought on and off and positioned manually for certain scenes - for more in-the-face effects.
Producer Ariel Ponce ‘El Gato’ enjoyed the many challenges encountered in lighting American Idiot.
The programming was an intense process. The video content was finalised in the pre-production process, so they had to start programming - there are over 230 multi-part cues in the grandMA2 - without having the material to refer to, and then tweak once the video was on the media server.
CDM Productions is supplying all the lighting for American Idiot, Mahatma and Taboo, having made a large Robe investment earlier in the year which was delivered by Argentinean distributor, TSD Group.
(Jim Evans)
