The historic
Villa Cornér della Regina, which dates back to the 16th century, is surrounded
by ancient grounds and a swimming pool. It has been completely restored to
offer a warm unique atmosphere. The luxurious hotel Relais is a perfect place
to spend your holidays, but also for weddings, business dinners, meetings and
any other event that needs a special setting.
In July, the
renowned textile manufacturing company Isko organized a big event at Villa
Cornér, which included a show of next season\’s collections. Menabò, an all-round Forlì-based
marketing and communications group, was asked to organize the event, which in
turn called in SG Lighting for
the lighting rig and design.
Menabò and
SG Lighting have already worked successfully together at previous events, such
as the illumination of the Castle of San Salvatore in Susegana, in the province
of Treviso, during a similar event (http://youtu.be/vna6ZLeAS0Y).
This and other corporate events have attracted the attention of agencies who
want to give their clients something more than just \”refreshments\” in
a beautiful setting.
For this
reason the Villa Cornér corporate event was transformed into a show, thanks to
the skilful lighting design of Giambattista
Scarpellini, owner of SG Lighting: \”my company has increasingly specialized in sound, video and
lighting for corporate events and I am lucky enough to have highly specialized
and extremely professional equipment,\” he said.
Scarpellini
was referring to his vast collection of Clay
Paky lights, and the GlowUps in
particular, which are portable battery-operated IP65-rated
\”uplights\”. \”Since I
have been using these small colour-changers, I have drastically changed the way
I work: battery operation means
I can install them without laying cables all over historic houses or, worse
still, all over gardens. I can
therefore install them extremely quickly, and they really save me precious time
I can then devote to dealing better with other aspects. The clients are obviously very pleased,
because they get a \’clean\’ job with minimal environmental intrusiveness in half
the time.\”
Clay Paky
GlowUps have light sources consisting of heavy-duty power LEDs, which last
thousands of hours, in keeping with energy saving and environmental
sustainability requirements. The power is provided by a high capacity lithium
battery, like those used in most modern mobile phones. It is very lightweight
and makes the unit truly portable. It can be recharged several times without
any memory effect.
The GlowUp
is an intelligent dynamic light projector. It performs the colour and shade
change sequences chosen by the user from among the many stored inside fully
automatically. Each unit is independently controlled and multiple lights are
synchronized through Wi-Fi devices built into each unit.
Of course,
the fact GlowUps are easy to use does not mean that the inspiration and
creativity of the lighting designer is superfluous! To light the sets at Villa
Cornér, Scarpellini went for an unconventional choice: \”instead of evenly illuminating the walls, I opted for accent
lighting, working on the contours and outlines. This gave the set depth, and was an excellent backdrop for the fashion
show. I projected unobtrusive
visual effects on top of these light beams, such as stars or floral patterns,
using two 7000 ANSI lumen full HD projectors. The idea was to incorporate all the lighting elements in a scenographic
context that enhanced the show and – at the same time – highlighted the
setting.\”
However
there was another thorny problem to solve: how to create a disco environment
inside the villa in a long narrow room where the power was barely adequate for
the sound and it was not possible to hang structures. The problem was solved
with 36 GlowUps placed around the walls. \”An
extraordinarily successful result!\” according to Giambattista
Scarpellini and his team.
