LD Phil Wiffin Adjusts the Design to the Needs of the Artist’s First Tour
For the debut concert tour for 22-year-old British R&B and pop singer Alexandra Burke, All Night Long, a 32-date outing at 1,500-to-4,000-capacity venues in the U.K. and Ireland, LD Phil Wiffen made good progress toward completing the first draft at the lighting design — before discarded it.
“Because the production manager on the tour was Steve Levitt, I knew what to expect as soon as I got the first phone call three weeks before the tour got underway,” explains Wiffen, who designed the show and then programmed it with operator Dominic Crookes. “I knew there would be a certain amount of scenic elements, so we had a very simple riser across the back with a central staircase coming down, flanked by risers for the band.”
The artist Wiffen was lighting had shot to fame in 2008 after winning series five of the U.K. TV show X Factor (the U.S. version will premiere in September 2011), and had since gone from strength to strength. Alexandra Burke’s debut single, a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s haunting Hallelujah, sold 105,000 copies in a single day, then became the top-selling U.K. single of the year. By the end of the All Night Long tour, more than 4 million records have been sold.
Although Wiffen says his style is to “scribble ideas in his head before putting pen to paper,” then to fill the space with the right fixtures to create the right dynamics, on this project, he realized that the first draft of his design would not be the last.
“The problem was that I had created a fairly static stage, and when I heard the band, they were just so dynamic — much more so than on the record, so I had to have a serious re-think — and quickly,” he says. “Alexandra has an up-tempo set, but also some really nice ballads too, so I guess my theatre background came in to play,” Wiffen adds. “If your work is all rock ‘n’ roll, you can often miss the subtleties required using fader movement,” noting that to properly “feel a fader movement” can take as long as it takes to “program a complex sequence — it’s just as important, if not more.”
A Background in Theatre
Wiffen sat at length with Crookes at the Road Hog console during pre-production in Rhyl Theatre in Wales to make sure the right atmosphere was achieved, discussing where to include spot movement, pans and sweeps and dynamic stabs. Wiffen says he has always favored Hogs due to their similar programming structure to the Strand desks he used while working in the theatre environment years ago.
“I am a very big Hog man — always have been,” he reveals. “As it’s been around for the last 15 years or more, it’s just what I’ve got used to. A desk is a tool, so you just find your way of using that tool, don’t you? But for me, the Hogs have been the easiest to get to grips with on the road.”
The lighting was supplied by U.K. rental company HHB and consisted mainly of Vari*Lite and Robe fixtures. The front truss consisted of eight Robe ColorWash 2500s, a pair of VL3000 spots and four Sunstrips — this was all on universe one and took up 280 channels of DMX. On the mid truss, there were eight GLP impression 120rz, and on the rear truss sat nine VL 3000 spots, 10 GLP impression 120rz, four Robe Robin beams (two on a 3.5m drop bar and two on 2-meter drop bars that were worked in between the video panels) and a further four Sunstrips. These lights were spread over two universes, with universe two taking care of the VLs and the beams, which took up 349 channels of DMX. On universe three were the GLPs and Sunstrips, which took up another 310 DMX channels.
The floor package included four Sunstrips and four BB7s, which were attached to a pair of VL3000 spots positioned L/R at the bottom of the staircase, six Robe Wash 2500s (two upstage L/R and four downstage L/R) and four Robe 300 beams (two downstage and two upstage of the set).
“The Robin 300 beams cut through so nicely in theatres and certainly add another flavor to the rig,” Wiffen notes. “The beam is so intense in a black box environment — they look so powerful. The only danger is that you want to use them in every song, but you can never go anywhere from that. I was also very impressed by the Sunstrips. They are a lovely light source and a much softer audience light than a Molefay unit, more pleasant on the eye.”
The generic lights were limited to three 4-lite moles, which were used as backlight for the entrance on Burke’s opening number. That one number took up a rather busy 438 DMX channels.
Faders vs. Automation
Crookes says his main challenge as an operator was to adapt to “feeling the music rather than chasing it,” but the end results warranted the hard work.
“The way Phil wanted to program meant a lot more faders and a lot less automation, just riding it rather than trying to keep up with the beat of the music,” Crookes explains. “It was a different approach, but it allowed me to get a lot more involved — you could just feel it; and, in the end, I found myself getting quite into it.”
