Lighting Co
Epic Production Technologies
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
Show Producer: Raj Kapoor Productions
Lighting Designer/Director: Drew Gnagey
Lighting Crew Chief: Tom Bider
Lighting Crew: Joe Bradley
Video Content: Raj Kapoor, Mark Allen
Video Director: Jason Varner
Video Engineer: Roy Fountain
LED Techs: Thomas Braislin, Christian Lind
Riggers: Bobby Carrell, Suzanne Cordes
Production Manager: Graham Holmes
Tour Manager: Neil Rinden
Stage Manager: Stephen Nimmer
Staging Company: All Access Staging & Productions
Video Company: PRG Nocturne Productions
Gear
2 grandMA2 full-size consoles
2 grandMA NPUs
24 Vari*Lite VL3500 FX Washes
24 Vari*Lite VL3000 Profiles
24 Clay Paky Sharpys
8 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes
10 ETC Source Four Lekos (26°)
6 8-Lite Molefays
5 Color Kinetics Color Blaze 72s
1 Mirror Ball (4’ diameter)
4 Reel EFX DF50 Diffusion hazers
More photos at www.plsn.me/IdolsLiveExtras
Designer Insights
Lighting designer Drew Gnagey is back for this years American Idols Live 2012 tour. PLSN spoke with Drew about the current tour’s design and new features.
Drew Gnagey (Lighting Designer/Director):
“I definitely wanted to step it up from last year, but the format remains the same. There are still 10 Idols vying for their moment, just as they have in tours’ past. So including new elements like different fixture types and adding a four-foot mirror ball came into play as well and really helped to make this year’s tour stand out.
I worked with Raj Kapoor Productions who developed the video concept for each song, and his team creates the visuals for the song. I am kept in the loop during the entire process so I can see the colors and design of the video content. I am able to view the entire collection of content for the show during the process, so I can then download or stream the clips and play them as I’m programming. It really makes the whole process seamless.
From the very beginning of the process, in production rehearsals, Rita May Bland, Raj’s assistant, is documenting everything from wardrobe to choreography. Just like with the video content, they upload videos of the choreography to a site where I can download or stream videos of the choreography rehearsals. It makes it very easy to figure out who is going to be where and at what time.
Designing a show for 10 artists covering a range of genres from R&B to Country to Rock to Pop can be difficult at times, but the collaboration between Raj as the show producer, his team creating the video clips and myself implementing the lighting design definitely helps the efficiency of the project as a whole. We all want to create a visually stunning and engaging show for our audience, and I think we accomplish that year after year.
This was my first show to be in the driver’s seat with a rig full of Clay Paky Sharpys. I have to say I was a little bit skeptical about using them for this show. Not for any other reason except the fact that they are being used so much this year on so many tours. I told myself when I added them into the plot that I needed to utilize every feature and function of the light to keep it fresh through the duration of our 2 hour and 10 minute show. After the first day of programming with them, I was sold. I knew I could utilize the combination of the color wheel, gobo wheel and the prism to create the distinct visual differences that I needed from song-to-song within the show. They also can stand side-by-side with the Vari*Lite VL3500FX fixtures and not have any visual difference in light output between the two fixtures. What I didn’t know in rehearsals was that it is a rugged, tour-ready fixture. Needless to say, I am very excited about the long-term potential for these fixtures and I can’t wait to use them on my next tour.
During production rehearsals, I utilized ESP Vision software to pre-visualize the show. AJ Jesse at ESP is a good friend of mine and provided a system that was more than robust to visualize and program this show. The system worked perfectly to allow me to get some programming completed before start of full-production rehearsals and allow Raj (Kapoor) and the creative team to see the progress that I was making in regards to the lighting design.
More than 50 percent of the crew are the same from last year (and years before). This is a very talented and dedicated group of people involved in this show. It’s always nice to see faces you know, but great to meet new people as well. I’m working with production manager Graham Holmes and some great vendors. This is, however, my first time working with Kevin Forrester at Epic Productions, the lighting vendor, and I couldn’t be happier. From tour prep to the completion of the tour, they were very attentive to our needs. They made it very easy for the lighting department to do our jobs.
During the design phase of this show, it was determined that the Sharpys would be placed on the video wall. Robert Achlimbari at All Access Staging & Production, Todd LePere at PRG Nocturne and Graham, our production manager, worked closely to come up with an efficient solution to mount the fixtures day-to-day within the panels of the video wall. Robert and the guys at All Access developed a steel plate that could be mounted within the frame of the PRG Nocturne V18 video wall. The Epic guys provided the Sharpy clamps and, in rehearsals, all the pieces came together to create an efficient solution to mount the Sharpys.
I like to think we have the best crew on the road! Our crew just gets better and better as this show continues to tour. It starts at the top with 19 Entertainment. They facilitate putting the right people in the right positions. Graham is a consummate production manager who is intimately involved with every aspect of the show, but doesn’t micro-manage.
Our departmental crew is unique in the fact that everybody helps everybody. It’s not unique to see the lighting crew helping the video crew, and vice versa. Every department has the same goal: Load it in, do a great show, Load it out and get back on the bus. When that is the common goal, it becomes very easy for everyone to get along and get to the next city!”
