Creating OMG with Lighting and Video
If you meet and talk to Peter Morse for five minutes, you might never know what a rich history he has in the entertainment industry. He’s very modest and down to earth, and he doesn’t often drop names or bring up his many accomplishments.
But once you get to know and find out about him, you’ll be surprised to learn how deep his resume is, having lit Madonna, Streisand, Prince, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Mariah Carey and many more of the most influential artists of modern times. He is carrying on that history by designing Usher’s current OMG 2010-11 tour, along with a talented team whose credits in the industry match up well to his own.
Pushing the Envelope
Morse knows the ways of this client, having designed Usher’s 2004-2005 Confessions tour and his 2002-2003 8701 tour. Usher’s input, Morse says, is generally centered around specific requests for effects or focus positions on the stage.
“Fortunately, he trusts me with the overall design and concept,” Morse adds. “He has an uncanny understanding of what’s going on around him and what might be achievable beyond the initial concepts. He enjoys using lighting effects and set elements to their extreme.”
Show director Barry Lather has worked with Usher many times over the years, including on the 2004-2005 Truth tour, the Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, MTV Awards, BET Awards and the European MTV Awards. As the show director, he covers a lot of details, including the overall production and creative concepts for the tour.
He notes that he oversees “what is happening visually on stage for each song, the overall stage design, lighting design and approach, video screen content, wardrobe, dancers and special effects. Getting the show up and running with all the technical cueing is key – communicating with the lighting designer, stage manager, crew and choreographers so the show runs smoothly and operates effectively.”
There are always changes that happen during the whole process, and he says he has to be “flexible to embrace new ideas” or to go in a new direction if he has to.
“Usher is extremely creative, and he’s a visual person, so a lot of research and photo references works really well with him,” Lather says. “At the end of the day, it is Usher’s show and his vision.”
Direction and Drama
Lather says he communicates with Morse and lighting director/programmer Eric Wade to make sure the lighting design is “heading in the right direction and it has the components and fixtures that can supply the drama.” The video content is planned out and developed a month in advance, which allows Lather to communicate the specific color palette for each song. Then he works with the team to program the lighting for each song once the show goes into tech rehearsals.
“I communicate with them both about the basic overall flavor for each song – the accents, feel, vibe – and they do their brilliant work of bringing that vision to life,” Lather says. “Usher’s movement and choreography speaks for itself and he realizes the importance of theatrical lighting, so he’s very much a part of the process.
“To me, lighting can make or break a show,” Lather adds. “I always pay close attention to keeping a great open line of communication with the LD and designer. I love the creative process and working hard getting a show ready for a live audience. I’ve worked with Peter and Eric several times through the years…. both are great guys and they always deliver.”
Moving Quickly
The tour’s lighting was designed using Vectorworks Spotlight. Morse and Wade had about seven days of full production rehearsals, which took place at the Forum in Los Angeles, “so we only had seven nights of programming,” Morse says. “Normally we would do pre-viz’ programming prior to the actual load-in. But due to scheduling changes and conflicts and ongoing changes in the proposed set and lighting positions, we had to wait for production load-in. Then we basically jumped in feet first and went for it.”
To help overcome the time constraints, Morse and company brought in Benny Kirkham as a second programmer.
“Our programming time was very limited for a tour of this size,” Wade concurs. “We have many flying scenic pieces and lots of show gags that took a lot of time to get together on their end before we were able to light it. That’s when Peter and I decided we should bring in a second guy to push buttons, and of course, my old friend Benny Kirkham was the first choice.
“I started out the first two nights of programming with Joe Cabrera of ACT Lighting,” Wade adds. “It was very nice having Joe there, since he is the tech support guy for ACT. Then Benny came in, and we had about seven days to do the show from that point forward. We weren’t able to finish it until we moved the rig to the first show city in Seattle; but we made it, and, of course, the show went on, like they always do.”
“Between Benny and Eric, we moved fairly quickly,” Morse says. “Once the show moved to Seattle where we had a couple additional nights of prep prior to the opening show, we began the process of adjusting cues as the staging was refined, and tightening existing cues.”
Video
The use of video on the show was, according to Morse, a “foregone conclusion.” He says it’s been a central part of Usher’s last three tours. The content was created and programmed by Olivier Goulet and his team at Geodezik.
“We produced all of the content in Montréal prior to rehearsal and then integrated all of these elements on-site, based on the action on-stage and the technical needs of the show,” says Goulet, who owns Geodezik with Gabriel Contu-Dumont and also counts Justin Timberlake, Tina Turner and Cirque du Soleil as clients.
Along with video creative director Gary Westcott, head of Digitalite, a video design and production company, Goulet worked with Melina Matsoukas from Black Dog Productions, integrating the various video elements and handling most of the post-production work required for the show.
“We use the Adobe Suite software for most of our work,” Goulet notes. “Our 3D elements are done alongside Flame, 3D Studio, as well as with a bunch of other custom-made software. All of our content is original, hand drawn, matte painted and/or custom shot.”
Westcott, in turn, helps facilitate the vision of Goulet and the creative team at Geodezik while out on tour with OMG. “I help with the day-to-day changes and management of media used in the production,” Westcott says. “This is my second time working with Olivier and Geodezik. We met when I came out to help out with content operation on Alicia Keys’ tour, which was designed by Olivia and Baz Halpin.”
CT Touring is supplying two Barco/High End Systems Catalyst media servers and two MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles running version 2 software to trigger the cues.
Lighting
The lighting was supplied by PRG, which includes Vari*Lite VL3000 and VL3000FX Wash fixtures, VL3000 Spots, JB Lighting A7 LED automated fixtures, PixelRange PixelLine 110s, Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s, High End Systems Studio Beam PCs and Syncrolite B53s.
“I think the biggest challenge Peter and I had was space overhead for lighting,” Wade says. “This show has many flying scenic pieces; a KB fly track that starts at FOH and ends over center stage, a center stage video screen that flies in and out, a drawbridge stage piece behind it that flies up and down, and then we have seven pantographs that needed a place to hang as well.
“The first thing was to split the rig in half right down the middle to make space for the KB track,” Wade continues. “Then we spent several days trying to figure out where to hang about 50 JB A7 fixtures. Originally they were to be mounted all around the video screens, but we ended up mounting them to just the bottoms in tight rows and it turned out great!”
“I love the aperture and the powerful output (of the VL3000 Wash fixtures),” Morse says. “Due to the limited counts on the rig, I needed the wide coverage capabilities for covering large areas, along with the tight beamage it makes available when I need it. The VL3000 Spots also have great output and compete well with the VL3K washes. Then there’s the Syncrolite B53.”
At this point, Morse becomes a bit more animated than usual. “It’s Usher! Of course we have Syncrolites!” he says. The Syncrolites are on pantographs, which allow “unlimited options for various heights and focuses. With a 40-foot trim height,” he added, “there needed to be occasional sources between the rig and the floor.”
The JB Lighting A7s were mounted beneath the tracking video walls – “they’re great for numerous options, for different lighting looks and focuses and they added great effects,” Morse says – and the PixelLine 110s were mounted along the top chords of trusses “to accent the linear, raked feel of the hang.” The Alpha Beam 700s are arranged around the floor, and Morse uses them for aerial accents. The Studio Beam PCs are in shin-kick positions.
“One of the coolest features in the set,” Wade enthuses, “was an RGB LED tape that’s under the Plexi. It is a beautiful source that Butch Allen found and incorporated into his set design.”
Wade credits Allen with making his and Morse’s job easier.
“The set was not hard to light at all,” Wade explains. “When you get a scenic designer like Butch Allen who has also been a lighting guy, you never have to worry about not being able to light the set.”
Morse describes the color palette as “a mix between Usher’s request for a ‘Tron-like’ appearance” (hence the angles of trusses and extensive use of PixelLines for linear accents) and his effort to complement the video content. He describes the colors as “electric blues, greens and yellows.”
Wade says he is “very pleased” with the grandMA2 consoles and Version 2 software, saying it has been running “flawlessly. As most people know, I have been a Maxxyz guy for many years and I still love the desk; but I really wanted to start expanding on what I use – the desk has exceeded my expectations.”
Morse adds, “Did I mention we average 40 cues per song? Why, you ask? It’s Usher!”
FOH
The FOH gear was supplied by FOHShow, a company that was started by Wade and Keith Hoagland. They only provide FOH equipment.
“We currently have [Martin] Maxedia Broadcast media servers, Maxxyz Plus consoles, Maxxyz Compact consoles, ShowDesigner Visualizers, WYSIWYG Visualizers, and now we are adding the grandMA2 to our inventory.”
Wade says they wanted to concentrate on one area of lighting, and “this is the area we both work with continually, making an FOH package that works flawlessly for anyone.”
He notes that they are adding Apple iPad remotes to all of their systems, including the visualizers, to give LDs and programmers “all the tools they need. Our next phase is to start adding the extras: nice chairs, work lights, FOH refrigerators and all those creature comforts all of us FOH guys like.”
Soy Chai and Angry Birds
The production manager on this 13-truck tour is Omar Abderrahman, who has worked with, among others, Alicia Keys, Miley Cyrus, Cher and Stevie Nicks. He was also the production manager on Usher’s previous tour, six years ago. He says the typical load-in time is eight hours and load-out takes about three hours.
Wade is proud of the fact that he hand-picked all of the lighting crew, whom he considers among the best in the business. The lighting crew chief for PRG is Rob Simoneux, working with crew members Jason Winfree, Dave Evans, Greg Mich’l and Syncrolite tech Josh Fenn.
“It is great to have a crew of this caliber on any show,” Wade concludes. “It’s turned out to be a great project and excellent show that we can all be proud of. I’ve been working with Peter for many years; besides being a great friend, he’s been a mentor and he’s always there for me. I always look forward to that next tour with him and his five-pump soy chai and some Angry Birds!”
Crew
Lighting Company: PRG
Video: CT Touring
Lighting Designer: Peter Morse
Associate Lighting Designer/Director:
Eric Wade
Lighting Programmer: Benny Kirkham
Show Director: Barry Lather
Video Content Director: Olivier Goulet
(Geodezik)
Video Creative Director: Gary Westcott
Production Manager: Omar Abderrahman
Tour Manager: Jerome Crooks
Stage Manager: Carl Ciasulli
Production Coordinator: Jon Bumgarner
Road Manager: Lauren Abderrahman
Production Assistant: Lauren Temple
Lighting Crew Chief: Rob Simoneux (PRG)
Lighting Crew: Jason Winfree, Dave Evans, Greg Mich’l
Syncrolite Tech: Josh Fenn
Head Rigger: Art McConnell
Head Carpenter: Joe Rigers
Head Props: Chris Malta
Gear
2 MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles
2 Barco/HES Catalyst media servers
1 Martin ShowDesigner Visualizer System
50 Vari*Lite VL3000 Washes
30 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots
22 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s
10 Martin MAC 2000 Wash Fixtures
9 Syncrolite B52s
28 PixelRange PixelLine 110s
6 High End Systems Studio Beam PCs
36 JB A7 Zoom LED Automated Luminaires
120 channels RGB LED Tape
7 Pantographs
3 Lycian M2 Truss Spots
Photo Gallery (All Photos by Steve Jennings)
