Lighting Co
Upstaging Inc.
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
Lighting Designer/Director: Michelle Sarrat
Lighting Crew Chief: Ben Bain
Production Manager: Chris “Reno” McLendon
Tour Manager: Andy Hayward
Soft Goods: Rent What?
Gear
1 Road Hog Full Boar w/ 2 wings
8 Martin MAC III Profiles
8 Martin MAC 2000 Wash fixtures
6 Martin MAC 700 Wash fixtures
14 Elation Impressions (14ch)
10 Source Four 26° fixtures
2 Reel EFX DF-50 Diffusion hazers
For more photos by Steve Jennings of the tour (which also featured Magik*Magik Orchestra), go to www.plsn.me/deathcabextras
Designer’s Insights, by Steve Jennings:
Michelle Sarrat (Lighting Designer & Director)
“The design concept for this tour was simple, classy and theatrical. We wanted to leave behind much of the rock show feel and make something more elegant and appropriate for having an orchestra onstage, while still retaining moodiness.
We started by picking out the backdrop, choosing swagged red drapes to frame the stage and three sheer silvery panels to provide the background for each of the upstage risers.
For the lighting design I began by reaching back to my college theater design days. I wanted to create a unique and vivid scene to set the mood for each song without a lot of physical beam movement to distract from what the band and orchestra were doing.
I was thinking about how I would light dance or a musical number in a play, so, I decided to use booms for side lighting to model the people onstage.
Instead of big pan and tilt movements, I used a lot of color shifts and manual intensity adjustments to accentuate different parts of each song. I used lighting on the drapes to gently shift focus from the center to the orchestra side and to make the stage look larger or more intimate.
We had decided early on that we didn’t want to use obvious LEDs on this tour, as the “pixel-y” look didn’t fit with the classy feeling we wanted to convey. However, we were dealing with limited truck space, and using lots of conventionals or other moving lights was unfeasible.
I began doing research to find an LED fixture that didn’t look like an LED and found the [Martin] MAC Aura which had just come out. This light is gorgeous- it has a nice beam shape, the extreme depth of color doesn’t disappoint in any hue, and the wide zoom range is great. I used them on the side booms and on the ground upstage to light the drapes, backlight the band and the orchestra riser and create aerial looks.
It was an interesting process, finding a balance between keeping the show classy and not letting it get boring. The band chose a lot of slower songs for the set, which lent themselves well to orchestral additions. I was making a lot of small movements all the time to keep the scenes looking fresh to the eye. There were also a lot of precisely timed stacked cues in many of the songs.
Working with basically the same set every night allowed me to really fine-tune those little nuances which make the show seem smooth and sleek. There were a few places that I had big lighting hits and audience flyouts when the song called for it, but hopefully, their rarity gave them more impact. It was a great experience and I think we’re all going to be a little sad to go back to the rock show.”
