The current Katy Perry tour brought in a top-notch team with the return of longtime lighting designer Baz Halpin, who this time around is also producer for the tour. Halpin worked with the creative/show directors and choreography team of Antony “Ant” Ginandjar and Ashley “Ash” Evans of The Squared Division, with the company offering creative production and concepts for stage and screen. Back on board are associate lighting designer, lighting and video programmer Eric Marchwinski, lighting director, lighting and video programmer Drew Gnagey and production manager Jay Schmit, who’s been with Perry for the past seven and a half years.
Eye to Eye
From a lighting design perspective, the challenge was to complement the enormous “eye” shaped LED screen, says Halpin. “I worked closely with set designer Es Devlin (Es Devlin Design out of London) on developing a rig design that would embrace the statement piece and work with the aesthetic rather than work against it. I needed a truss layout that was uncomplicated and comprised of one single thought, a large “eyebrow” arc, which would look good but also provide the right fixtures in the right places to do the standard work of lighting the people and elements on stage.
“Eric Marchwinski and Drew Gnagey programmed both the lighting and the video, which meant that the show was built simultaneously from that perspective. We worked closely with Gabriel Coutu Dumont and JT Rooney of Silent Partners Studio during the development phase of the screens content. We planned out certain songs where the screen would be dominant with narrative content and ones where the screens would act as more of a lighting source.”
Halpin worked with John Huddleston of Upstaging, the longtime tour lighting vendor for Perry’s treks. They were in need on a large quantity of one particular fixture. Upstaging had just what they needed. Halpin expands on those choices. “Along with Eric (Marchwinski), we settled on the Claypaky Scenius Unico for their strong output and wide range of attributes that made them a great selection and major fixture in the rig. Each of the three 170-foot arc trusses overhead are packed with them. They act as key light, back light, followspots and aerial beam fixtures.”
The Narrative Flow
“A show like this,” Halpin adds, “is heavily scripted and thought out in advance. We knew what we were looking to achieve with each song when we started our previz about six weeks before the first show. Naturally there were a couple of songs that once we sat down with the full stage and rig needed adjustments, but for the most part the show treatment was the Bible for the look of each song.”
Getting the show in motion was The Squared Division. Not long after they moved from Australia to Los Angeles, they choreographed the Britney Spears’ Piece of Me Las Vegas Residency. It was the second time they had worked with Halpin, who directed the show. “Ant” Ginandjar expands on their collaboration.
“Since then, we’ve had a great working relationship, collaborating on different projects,” Ant says. “Then Baz called wanting us to show- direct and choreograph Katy’s Glastonbury Festival show. The next day we met with Katy. It was literally like a job interview; Katy asking us lots of questions. She had done her research, been through our website and knew all our work. We thought the meeting was just about Glastonbury, but we walked out of there not only scoring the Glastonbury gig but also with the position as creative/show directors and choreographers of her Witness world tour. The Katy projects literally started three days after our meeting, and our schedules turned upside down.”
The Squared Division were involved with every creative detail of the tour, which all started with forming a winning set list with Katy, notes Ant’s partner, Ash Evans, with the goal to find “the perfect blend of her old hits and fusing it with the new album tracks. We were brought onto the project quite late, so at that stage Es [Devlin] and Katy had already been discussing the stage design,” Ash adds. “We made some tweaks, like adding some LED lift matrix and some ramps onstage that allowed us to move props around smoothly.
“From there, Ant and I started to write the show, throwing around ideas with Katy and dreaming big,” Ash continues. “Once we were all happy with the show ‘on paper,’ we began to collaborate with Es and her team to design all the large scale props and with Silent Partners for all the screen visuals. We then brought onto the team our costume designer and stylist from Australia, Heather Cairns for Katy and the dancers. We just ‘get’ each other, and so we knew she would translate our vision for the dancers perfectly.”
With Katy’s busy schedule, creative meetings had to be done in all sorts of places — in the back of cars, dance rehearsal studios, hotel rooms and even via WhatsApp, Ginandjar notes.
“Whenever Katy had a spare moment, we showed her sketches and designs for her to give notes and approvals,” he says. “Baz, Jay, Ash and I regularly had Skype meetings with designers and production companies to go through technical drawings and logistics. Es and her team work out of London, one of our inflatable companies works from the Netherlands, and Tait, who built our stage, are in Lititz, PA, so Skype was our best friend.
“We wanted to design larger-than-life props, so we needed to cast performers that could handle such massive props. We have a giant rose that doubles as a pole act [and] a giant set of dice that allows our parkour guy and dancers to use as a jungle gym. We also have an oversized yellow beam which all eight dancers and Katy fly up on, whilst performing choreography. They are just some of our fun props. Collaborating with Katy was wonderfully refreshing, working with an artist that is so into every detail is inspiring.”
Katy envisioned this show through the eyes of a 1980’s space traveler, explains Ash. “Act 1 sets up our journey through space, a declaration of who she is now,” Ash says. “Act 2 is our retrospective section, where we revisit some of her biggest hits in a world inspired by the iconic geometric graphic design of the 80’s, with bright bold color block shapes like cylinders, pyramids and of course grids. Act 3 is our flower world, where we get a bit more sensual and seductive — roses-and-satin style. Then, Act 4, we bring the pace down a little as we float through the stars for our introspective section — it’s just Katy and the band. Act 5 is ‘Emergence’ — a strong, powerful woman is reborn, with visuals that take us back to the pixel-filled video games of the 80’s. Then, finally, our encore, where Katy sings ‘Firework,’ as she emerges from a giant hand. We couldn’t have had a better creative team and production crew working on this project!”
Making it Happen
This tour was a different experience, with some interesting design challenges that made for a great show in the end, says Eric Marchwinski. “Drew [Gnagey] and I worked closely with Ant and Ash, as well as Baz, to craft the show around the creative theme of the journey from world to world throughout the six acts. Our biggest challenge was the scale of the design, coupled with the fact that most the show consists of our two paintbrushes — the Flare LRs, and the Scenius trusses above. Every statement had to be as big as the main statement — the ‘eye’ LED wall. You couldn’t just grab four or six lights to do an effect or hit, it had to be the entire truss of 40 lights to mean something impactful. Baz’s design aesthetic, and design choices within this rig, were the perfect complement to the production design as a whole, yet still gave us the tools to insert musicality around the set.
“From a technological standpoint, Drew and I decided to embrace the grandMA2’s XYZ position preset feature to its full extent,” explains Marchwinski. “In short, we stored every position preset that wasn’t a graphical focus, as an XYZ position,” Marchwinski adds, referring to an absolute position on stage or in space in relation to 0,0, represented as X,Y,Z. “This allowed us to use the fixture calibration tool every day on tour to in turn ‘update’ all of these positions instantaneously.
“The calibration process consists of four points that the riggers mark out on the floor every day, forming a giant rectangle across the entire arena floor,” Marchwinski continues. “We would then focus every single light to be calibrated at each point on the floor, and store these values into the desk. Finally, you’d run the calibration, and the desk would use those pan and tilt values needed for each light to reach the four points, and interpolate the fixtures XYZ position and rotation in 3D space. From here, all of our respective stored XYZ focuses, were perfect! This system has become so accurate, we’re able to key light Katy all the way out to the B stage with just three lights on one of our FOH trusses, using only PSN data to track her on the ‘planet’ platform.
“The entire Silent Partners team did an excellent job embracing the shape of the ‘eye’,” adds Marchwinski. “From a programming perspective, we had some flexibility with our masking and lineup and verifying the relationship between the iris and the outer portions of the eye, with the actual set hanging. Once we locked this in, our parallel maps were spot-on, and all of the delivered content fell right into place, automatically masking as the upstage doors opened and closed. It’s been great worked with Eric Wade of Real Deal Touring, our video vendor. The video eye is the grand statement of the entire show, and the content that was produced for it was wonderfully crafted around this environmental centerpiece.
“Baz and I had discussed fixtures during the design process. I had used the Flare LR’s on a previous show this past summer and was blown away with how bright they were. I had a demo of the Unico on a show earlier and was equally as impressed. The Mythos and X4s were both known workhorses in Baz’s pallet, and we both know and love these fixtures.
“We can’t thank Baz enough for entrusting both myself and Drew to drive the visual ship, and help create the show, along with Ash and Ant and the entire tour crew and creative team. Katy cares about her show and her crew tremendously; and it was a really rewarding process to be involved in from the start of the creative discussion, through rehearsals, into the first show,” Marchwinski adds.
The Details
This show is definitely intense, so keeping everything centrally organized is key to managing everything, says Gnagey. “On this show during the rehearsal process, Eric and myself heavily utilized cloud-based spreadsheets to keep everything straight. We have one central document that allows us to track everything including (but not limited to) patch and NPU Output configuration, IP addresses for the entire system (all departments), video feed maps, automation cues and over 1,000 lines of rehearsal notes. On the day-to-day operation of the tour, we can reference the document at any time to implement new changes to the system configuration.”
They are utilizing the full extent of the 3D space within the grandMA system on this tour, notes Gnagey. “We have previously used the 3D space extensively within MA3D for previz, however with this tour we have utilized the 3D space in conjunction with PSN (PosiStageNet) for tracking automation, as well as stored XYZ-based position presets. There are many moments where Katy, as well as other set pieces are in motion in the air.
“For the Witness Tour, we decided to take it to the next level. With the large amount of “special” position presets for unique dancer positions onstage, we decided to utilize the 3D functionality even more and made the choice to store those unique stage positions as XYZ data instead of Pan/Tilt data,” Gnagey adds. “We went through a long R&D process in implementing this feature on this tour and ACT Lighting, in conjunction with MA Lighting were a huge asset, we have absolutely seen the positive effects of integrating the XYZ data in stored presets. In addition to ensuring that the PSN tracking is spot-on every day, the time saved in focusing a very large lighting rig has been invaluable.”
Gnagey stays in communication with six local spotlight operators, follow-me operator Zach Svoboda and Thomas Walls, the lighting crew chief. “I am also on a separate channel direct to our video director, Omar Montes. This connection is vital so I’m able to relay if there are spot issues or to discuss exposure and color in the middle of the show so we can all stay on the same page. The collaboration between the lighting department and video department needs to be very strong these days and having that immediate line to Omar makes the difference in keeping this show looking outstanding night after night.”
“I seem to say this a lot, but it all starts from the top. Katy is very involved in the entire creative process for the tour,” says PM Jay Schmit.
“That makes it very nice when you speak to your vendors, as there is very little gray area to be concerned with. Baz took a different role in this year’s tour, of producer. With that it also made it very easy to deal with taking the creative element and putting it into motion, so to speak. We took our time and planned our approach to the vendors so we were clear in our expectations and what we ended with as witnessed in the live show.
“We worked with a newer team from The Squared Division,” Schmit continues. “It took a few trials with others to feel out their interpretation of Es (Devlin) and Katy’s ideas, but once Ashley and Antony got to work, I knew we were headed in the right direction. Ashley and Antony came in and went to work with very little time before rehearsals started and just got on with it. I was impressed from the start with their work ethic and straightforward approach. From a production stand point, they were great to work with.”
Once they worked through each segment of the performance, it pretty much stuck, notes Schmit. “We did have a late arriving prop that was in the top of Act 5. I could tell from the start that Katy wasn’t feeling this particular creative. Unfortunately, it was a last-minute addition for the prop, and we really didn’t have the time to work it through and had to just have something in place for the start of the tour… It made it for about eight shows. We still carry the prop, practice it day-to-day, but at the end of the day, if Katy just doesn’t feel it, then it doesn’t happen.”
Katy struck Schmit, from the start, as a very hard-working and determined young artist and woman. “I am always asked “How is Katy to work for?” and I always say, ‘She is face value… exactly what you see is what you get.’ She is very determined and convicted in what she wants and how she wants to go about it. There have been times that I was not 100 percent convinced of something she wanted to do, but I always walk away and say… ‘Yep, she was right,’ that worked and she owned it.”
Katy Perry Witness: The Tour
Crew
- Producer & Lighting Designer: Baz Halpin (Silent House Productions)
- Production Designer: Es Devlin (Es Devlin Design)
- Creative/Show Directors & Choreographers: Ashley “Ash” Evans and Antony “Ant” Ginandjar (The Squared Division)
- Associate Lighting Designer, Lighting & Video Programmer: Eric Marchwinski (Earlybird Visual)
- Lighting Director, Lighting & Video Programmer: Drew Gnagey (Earlybird Visual)
- Video Director & Crew Chief: Omar Montes
- Screens Producer: Gabriel Coutu-Dumont (Silent Partners)
- Screens Director: JT Rooney (Silent Partners)
- Production Manager: Jay Schmit
- Tour Manager: Frankie Enfield
- Assistant Tour Manager: Danielle Doll
- Production Coordinator: Kim Hilton
- Production Assistant: Chelsea Skals
- Stage Manager: Alan Doyle
- Lighting Crew Chief: Thomas Walls
- Lighting Technicians: Wade Cotten, Shawn Whitton, Chris Donati, Ros MacMahon, Josh Harvey, Zachary Svoboda, Calvin Mosier
- Video Engineer: Shane Watson
- Video Technicians: Will Stinson, Erin Lynch, Jason Fisher, Andrew Long, Jimmy Duke, Matthew Thonus, Evan Smith
- Automation Supervisor: Patrick Leonard
- Automation Operator: Shaun Quinn
- Automation Technicians: Dan Hartmann, Geddy Lee Webb
- Electrician: Duncan Kaye
- Laser Operator: Hayden Hale
- Pyro Shooter: Simon Brierley
- SFX Technicians: Renato Sulmona, Antoine “Pepe” Cholette, Hay-den Hale, Simon Brierley
- Riggers: Chuck Melton (Head Rigger), Ricky Biatto (Rigger & KP Wrangler), Johannes Soelter, Aaron Ford, Steve “Elkie” Chambers, Almon Sheffield
Production Companies:
- Lighting: Upstaging (Rep. John Huddleston)
- Video: Real Deal Touring (J. Eric Wade)
- Video Content: Silent Partners Studio
- Stage Set & Automation: Tait Towers (Rep. Todd Vernon)
- SFX / Pyro: Pyrotek Special Effects (Rep. Reid Derne)
- Lasers and SFX: Pyrotek
- Inflatables: Airworks Inflatables BV (Rep. Chantal Durlacher), Landmark Creations (Rep. Tom Meacham)
- Props: D.A.S. Design Works (Rep. Aaron Ford, Ryan Newland), Flix FX (Rep. Paul Porter), ShowFX Inc. (Rep. David Mendoza)
- Trucking: Upstaging
Gear
Lighting:
- 77 Claypaky Scenius Unico
- 50 Claypaky Scenius Profile
- 24 Claypaky Mythos
- 6 Vari-Lite VL3500FX
- 2 Robe BMFL Blade (FollowMe)
- 102 GLP Impression X4
- 78 Solaris Flare LR
- 43 Chroma-Q ColorForce 72
- 13 Chroma-Q ColorForce 48
- 12 Color Kinetics Color Blast 12 TRX
- 325 Miscellaneous Prop LED
- 12 RGB Beam Burst Laser (Pyrotek)
- 6 20-watt Scanning Laser (Pyrotek)
- 2 grandMA 2 Full-Size lighting consoles
- 1 grandMA 2 Lite
- 2 disguise GX2 Media Servers
- 2 MDG The One Hazers
- 2 Reel EFX DF-50 Hazer
- 4 High End Systems FQ-100 Fogger
- 1 Follow-Me auto spotlight system
Video/LED/Projection Gear:- 1 “Eye” (130’ x 40’), made with 782 tiles of ROE Creative Display MC-7H 7mm LED panels
- 2 disguise (formerly d3 Technologies) gx 2 media servers
- 3 Sony HSL 300 cameras (Pit) for I-Mag
- 3 Sony HSL 300 cameras (FOH) for I-Mag
- 3 Robo cams for I-Mag
- 7 Brompton Tessera LED Processors
- 1 Center screen (1600 x 1520 pixels)
- 2 Side screens (1840 x 1440 pixels)
More Witness – The Tour photos by Steve Jennings:
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