LISMORE, Australia — The Great Moscow Circus has been touring Australia for 50 years, and now offers 50 international performers from Brazil, Mongolia, Australia, Asia, and, of course, Russia. Brian Anslow, a lecturer in technical production at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts, designed and programmed the lighting for this latest show using a Jands Vista I3 for control.
“I recommended that the circus buy a Jands Vista I3 as I think it is fantastic,” said Anslow. “I really think it’s the next step forward in technology. We’ve had one at WAAPA for the past two years and I think the whole control system is very innovative; the whole idea of it, the visual reference … everything.”
Among other features, Anslow likes “the fact that you can put in a track and choreograph it. Rather than having a CD player where you press play, have a listen and then go program a bit, you can marry all that together so you can program whilst you’re listening. That allows you huge amounts of accuracy.”
Brian pre-programmed the opening of the Great Moscow Circus on his laptop with another screen connected to it so he could run both Vista and WYSIWYG with the audio track in Vista.
“It allowed me to pre-program everything,” he said. “I just like that whole technological advancement whereby you can pre-program on your computer, take your USB, stuff it in a desk elsewhere and away you go.”
Containers for the setup of the Circus were flying in to the opening in Queensland from all over the world, but unfortunately the container holding the truss and moving lights was held up by customs. This meant that Brian didn’t receive the truss and moving lights until 2.15 p.m. on the afternoon of the opening night.
Brian had also never seen any of the acts, only a few bits of DVD footage, and, due to the late arrival of the last container, a proper rehearsal was not possible.
By the time everything was set up, plugged in and turned on there was only 10 minutes until doors and although Brian had the show pre-programmed in WYSIWIG he decided to run the Vista on the fly.
“I had to use a different LED par can fixture in WYSIWIG than what we had in the tent so when I cloned in the new fixtures I didn’t really have time to test them so I opted to run the show live,” he explained. “However, it was fantastic and it was easy to busk the whole thing. Afterwards, during the after show party, I ran all of the pre-programmed stuff and it all worked perfectly. I guess I hadn’t quite been confident enough, maybe in myself, to jump in and run it having never seen it run before.”
Anslow had programmed the show on his laptop along with a Jands S1 not receiving his Vista I3 until the day of the show opening.
“Jands actually lent us one as our paper work hadn’t been processed,” he said. “We had 60 LED par cans and eight Martin MAC2000 fixtures — if I‘d been using any other desk I wouldn’t have been able to get it together in time. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to run any other desk live like I did the Vista I3. I reckon that I can program a show four times faster on a Vista I3 than any other desk I’ve ever used.”
Gareth Simmonds is operating the show on tour and by all accounts is delighted and comfortable with the Jands Vista I3. Gareth helped with all of the pre preparation and programming and continues to refine the show as it evolves.
For more information, please visit www.jandsvista.com.
