LOS ANGELES – Just 10 days before the 85th Annual Academy Awards, Visions’ President, Todd Roberts, received a call from the producers of Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar After-Party. Roberts was asked to come up with a stage design that could support a huge orchestra and be worthy of Oscar night.
More details from Visions Lighting (http://www/visionslighting.com):
LOS ANGELES – Ten days prior to the 85th Annual Academy Awards, Visions’ President, Todd Roberts, received a call from the producers of Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar After-Party. This year’s Oscar host threw an extravagant shindig for close friends and family and Hollywood’s elite immediately following the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 24 at The Lot in West Hollywood, CA.
For the event Roberts was asked to come up with a stage design that could support a huge orchestra and be worthy of Oscar night. He quickly sketched up a Hollywood Bowl inspired design consisting of two fabric swagged arches that captured the glamour and grandeur of Hollywood’s past. With no time for proper renderings, the sketch was scanned and emailed and the producers loved it. Full CAD drawings were drafted to detail all the production elements that were to fill the large tent structure where the star-studded event would take place.
“Tents are tricky for spectacular stage lighting,” explained Roberts. “Producers were looking for a really exciting and dramatic light show for the orchestra, and I knew that the double arches were the way to achieve this, which is why I worked them into my design.”
The elaborate and remarkably large stage provided by Visions was built to the orchestra’s specifications using Vision’s Staging Dimension Decks, along with custom built “pie-shaped” plugs. The stage was finished off with black glossy marlite and a backlit Plexiglas fascia. Visions’ custom semi-circular LED stairs were also brought in. The stairs and risers were lit-up by 14 Colorblaze 72 and 12 Colorblast 12 fixtures with color changing capabilities.
The stage was hit with more than 60 moving lights including 30 Elation Platinum Beams, 25 Martin MAC 301 Washes and 8 VL3000 Spot fixtures. An additional 60 Elation Opti-Tri Pars circled the inside of the tent to highlight and illuminate the lush drape and ceiling treatments. Visions also brought in a truckload of conventional fixtures to highlight all props, paintings, chandeliers, buffets, bars and the Grand Entrance.
Roberts’s design called for high resolution Vision TEC 6mm LED Tiles to go center stage in a 30 ft w X 15 ft h configuration. “Producers were thinking about a backdrop, but I suggested the LED screen which would have the ability to change throughout the evening. It gave producers the opportunity to get content up there to support the music numbers,” says Roberts. “It just made for a more exciting show all around. The combination of lights and video on a stage like this is great.”
Roberts headed up the Visions team as lighting designer with support from Vision’s technicians Colin Johnson, Brandon Dunning, Rafa Avila, Canin Campbell and Shannon McGuinley. Programmer Edward Motts and video content programmer Cory Froke were also on the team.
Photo: Gilbert Baghramian
