Award winning lighting designer Francis Clegg applied his
imagination and magic to the latest Snarky Puppy UK tour, where his penchant
for creating interesting and different visual environments is perfectly suited
to the band’s improvisational instrumental jazz-pop sounds.
Colour Sound Experiment was delighted to be the lighting and
video supplier for the tour. The west London based company has worked on other
projects with Francis, part of creative practice design MIRRAD, including most
recently, Giggs and Kano. “You know that a design will look fresh and
alternative when Francis’ name is on it,” commented Colour Sound’s H (Haydn
Cruickshank).
Francis worked on Snarky Puppy’s 2015 UK tour, their first with
full production. He finds the fluidity and organic nature of the music and
performance very inspirational. Every show is unique, and that provided a clear
starting point for the visual design which also had to be infinitely flexible.
This tour also took the production levels up a notch with the
addition of a remote operated robo-cam (utilising Panasonic AW-UE70 4Ks) system
which was also operated by Francis along with lighting and the live mix, who
took the challenge of multi-tasking in his stride.
Onstage in the full set up – were 10 x 2m wide super-light
screens custom made by Hangman, arranged in two rows of five on two separate
trusses.
These were all rigged on Robe MediaSpinner 50 ATs, which proved
a neat solution, with a Portman P1 retro lamp on the reverse side of the
screen, chosen for complete contrast and for their way-cool, highly distinctive
flower-like appearance and warm tungsten output.
The projector was a single Barco 30K positioned at FOH and the
four robo-cam signals were fed into a Green Hippo Amba media server via a
4-in-1-out Quad-Split from Decimator Design, allowing any camera to be flexibly
assigned to any screen.
Francis controlled them using a Panasonic AW-RP50 remote camera
controller stationed at FOH, a compact unit which enables presets, live control
and other functions.
Twenty Robe Pointes were rigged on the fingers and towers and
provided a great diversity of aerial looks, prism effects, beams, frosts,
colour flips and all the other things for which they are great!
The wash fixtures were 30 x Chauvet R2s, 16 rigged in the air
and 14 placed on the floor, and their task was to wash the band and the stage
and help highlight the soloists as well as facilitate and augment the various
camera angles and ensure clarity for the more technical shots mentioned
earlier.
Some ETC Source Fours were added for key lighting, which was
also important for the camera shots and eight Robe LEDWash 600s were available
on the front truss for additional and support washes. A set of tungsten
blinders highlighted the audience, all run from an Avo Quartz main console.
“It was essentially a bit of ‘back-to-basics’ approach to
lighting” explained Francis, “defining areas of the stage, creating an ambience
and mood throughout the set and underscoring some fantastic musicianship”.
He says the biggest challenges were the expectations. “It’s a
different audience to a rock, pop or dance crowd, very demanding, so it had to
be an attractive yet thoughtful show that was totally cutting edge.”
Zak
Nicholson worked alongside Francis as a technician on the tour and they were
joined by a Colour Sound crew of John Lahiffe (Afghan John) and Jasper Johns
who ensured everything went together smoothly and efficiently for the popular
tour which included a highly-charged performance at London’s Brixton Academy.
