Lighting Companies
Upstaging Inc. & PRG
Venue
Various (Tour)
Production Team
- Lighting & Production Designer: LeRoy Bennett
- Lighting Director & Programmer: Wally Lees
- Production Manager: Mark “Springo” Spring
- Technical Manager: Keith Smith
- Lighting Crew: Yoshi Shinohara (Crew Chief), Matt Tucker, Emil Vuoriarvi, Philip Comer, Andrew Harvey, Jorge Del Angel, Richard Rothermel, Paul Mundrick, Ed Duda, Michelle Radogna, Craig Kreider (PRG GroundControl Remote Spots)
- Video Co: Nighthawk Video
- Video Directors: Paul Becher, Marcia Kapustin
- Video Crew: Michael Sienkiewicz (Crew Chief), Iian Donham (Engineer), Rob Brewer, David Klann, Bryan Keyes, Joe Johnson, Gavin Thomson, Rick Trimmer, Roger Rubey, Scott Delancey
- Special Effects: Image SFX
- Image SFX Crew: Phil Payne (Crew Chief), Afshin Arshia, Paul Cusato, Pedro Sison, Jeffrey “JB” Culp
- Pyro Tech: Mick McGuire
- Set Co: TAIT
- Drape Co: Sew What? Inc.
- Trucking Co: Upstaging, Inc.
Gear
- 3 MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size Console
- 384 Elation DARTZ 360
- 280 Chauvet Color STRIKE M LED Strobe/Wash
- 14 Claypaky Scenius Profile
- 32 Acme Sunrise Beam Wash
- 24 Acme Geist Beam
- 24 Acme Pixel Line IP
- 80 Acme Gemini
- 16 Color Kinetics IW Blast
- 2 Astera Helios Tube
- 1 PRG GroundControl Followspot System w/11 Luminaires
- 6 Reel EFX DF-50 Hazers
- 6 High End Systems F100 Performance Fog Generator
Designer Insights by Steve Jennings:
LeRoy Bennett
Lighting & Set Designer
This design is an upgrade from the previous tour. I had to simplify and reduce but at the same time make the show look bigger and new. I’ve taken the original center ceiling cluster of Elation Dartz and separated out 16 individual trusses—eight across downstage and eight upstage. I’ve also upgraded all the video screens to a higher resolution as a lot of the video content has been upgraded to higher resolution 3D graphics. Filmmaker Peter Jackson approached Paul about doing a video montage for ‘Get Back’ from footage from the series, as well as created a moment in ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ where John Lennon’s voice has been solo’d out along with other things bringing moments where Paul and John (in the video) are on stage singing together again. Paul will always have some specific things he might be looking for, but the majority of the design is dictated by me with his approval.”
Wally Lees
Lighting Director & Programmer
It’s been a pleasure working together with Roy for over 35 years now, 20+ of those with Paul McCartney. Probably the biggest thing but not that surprising really is that we know each other so well that not much has to said anymore. Roy comes up with the production designs and, after a few collaborative conversations, he pretty much leaves me to go into the studio and create the lighting. Once we get to production rehearsals, we will sit down and go though the songs and make tweaks as Roy feels fit. It’s no science, but works for us.
Consoles, software and fixture are changing all the time; there are so many these days to choose from, some better than others; but I think the best approach is to choose the fixture that work best for a particular project.
Historically, timecode is something we have never used; the show is so free flowing, it would never work for us. I’m not a fan of the term ‘Old School,’ but it kinda fits us. Great musicians playing live music, no click tracks, none of that, just getting on with it. Saying that, we have added one timecode cue for a certain video clip that needed to be perfectly lined up with the band on stage. See, we are now high tech—ONE cue! Paul will have a few alternate songs, there are four or five he choses from but once we get flowing the show is pretty locked in.”
More photos by Steve Jennings:
