LIGHTING
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Christmas and consists of lighting installations as well as timecoded shows around National Trust properties and forests. His other projects include a musical called Unfortunate , which is set to hit The Lowry for Christmas. “It’s a musical I’ve previously lit, but it’s since been re-written and is returning in a different iteration,” he says. “I’m also currently doing two comedy shows that are going on tour, an improvised show called Murder She Didn’t Write as well as comedian Stewart Lee’s Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf .” Lighting fixtures have come a long way in recent years. “In certain situations now, they can basically act as video screens,” adds King. “Collaborating with your video and scenic designer peers is essential. You all need to be on the same page because, with recent advances in technology, your worlds blend into one more than ever before. For example, playing video content over lighting fixtures can really elevate your show. We’re also building more and more lighting into sets and giving actors more light-up props. It often then falls to us to control these, and ensure that everything works together smoothly.” King timecodes shows wherever he can because it means carrying off a bigger, better lighting show than what he could’ve achieved before. “It allows you to really detail and finesse to exact cue points,” he explains. “Pixel mapping has also become incredibly useful. Where you used to spend lots of time building effects to do what you want, now you can simply play video content over the fixtures and pixel map them to create effects much more efficiently. Then there is more time to spend on other areas of the production, letting you design a more cohesive show.” As we’ve seen a real rise in additive colour mixing fixtures, King describes
system called Cuepoints, which let him do his timecode markers against a rehearsal video,” says Dunn. “He could accurately place his cues against that and feed it straight into the lighting desk. It was helpful because we could easily review what we were punctuating together. Everyone has different ideas about what beats to punctuate!” For Dunn, the fact that the LED screen could fly out and reveal the rig was really useful at times. “We were tracking the screen so that the image would remain unchanged even if the LED wall was flying. This meant that we could lose it as the image faded out in darkness, saving scene change time,” she explains. “During one of the numbers, the performers enter through the LED, so it was really useful to be able to keep the image static.” Adam King is a lighting designer and, at the time of writing, is working on outdoor light trails for Culture Creative, which includes both Halloween and
how lighting designers have had to rethink things slightly. “With the rise of LED wash lights, it’s enabled us to get much punchier colours like deep red and blues that would simply appear dimmer beforehand,” he says. “But now, you have to pay attention to the mixture of subtractive and additive colour mixing fixtures in your rig and how to utilise them. Also, units that before would take a few DMX channels can now take up a whole universe. So where we would run DMX cables to all fixtures before, we’re now running network cables instead. It means the team requires an in-depth understanding of how these networks function.” King argues that the LED route will continue to evolve with more and more advanced fixtures, which will open new collaborative avenues. “I think it’s very important to recognise how much more we’re relying on visualisation,” says King. “As shows become bigger and more complicated, it’s increasingly crucial to spend time in visualisation early on. Then, you can share what you’ve been doing with colleagues for comment
Adam King has worked on Unfortunate, which is set to hit The Lowry this winter
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