FEATURE | L IGHT CONTROL C inematographer Johann Perry came to the BBC drama Mother’s Day looking for the right style for the 90s aesthetic that couched the drama. He found his colours, but also a way to control his lighting that he’s never going to change. “Director Fergus O’Brien contacted me last summer about his next film Mother’s Day , a 90-minute drama following the aftermath of the Warrington bombing in 1993. The feature tells the story of two women living either side of the Irish sea, who are brought together following the tragedy. Vicky McClure plays Susan McHugh, the real-life Dubliner who organised one of the largest peace rallies in Irish history in the wake of the bombing, while Anna Maxwell Martin and Daniel Mays star as Wendy and Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim lost his life in the attack. “The key creative challenge for me in this film was visualising a period film set in 1993. As its very recent history, but not necessarily a clearly defined decade visually, I needed to find a style that would suit the period and the story. When you say 50s, 60s, 70s and so on, you kind of get a picture straight away of what that looks and feels like in your mind’s eye – but 1993? In Warrington and Dublin? What does that look like when you close your eyes and imagine it? DEFINING THE LOOK WITH COLOUR What indeed? “I wasn’t really sure myself at all – most of my memories from that period were from my student days in Newcastle upon Tyne, which, as I recall, was full people wearing lime green and purple shell suits – that didn’t quite seem to fit the bill. “I trolled through archive footage, photography and interiors from the time and picked out 20 colours that I thought would work as a palette for the period – colour was going to be how I defined the look: recent, yet clearly period.
ARRI LAUNCH STELLAR NEW APP FOR ARRI’S LIGHT RANGE
ABOVE Screenshots from Stellar, ARRI’s newly launched lighting control app.
implementations for a wide range of control options. Combined with SkyLink, a large rig of SkyPanels can be controlled wirelessly pretty easily. Stellar brings all these pieces together with intuitive controls that work seamlessly with the SkyLink, SkyPanel, and L-Series hardware. Creating a complex lighting network has never been more simple or easier to manage. There are seven ways to select colour and lighting effects with the SkyPanel. With Stellar, it is possible to instantly switch between control modes so that a colour can be chosen with an interface best suited for that mode. There is no need to worry about DMX footprints or addresses as Stellar’s back end takes care of this. You pick the colour mode desired and adjust the output accordingly. Stellar is available for iOS and Android and costs £91.99 a year or £8.99 monthly, and it is available now from either online store.
ARRI launched their Stellar app at the recent IBC. The app is for ARRI lights only, but they are not ruling out the possibility of looking at control for other lights in the future. Stellar reimagines light control by automatically managing complex DMX settings and by featuring control interfaces with great graphic design. It’s relatively easy to navigate if you’ve been using other apps, and a simple conversion will work for a large film with many scenes and setups or a small project with just a few fixtures – Stellar is built to work in all scenarios. Coded intelligence and advanced communication make connecting ARRI SkyPanel straightforward. After using Stellar, it might be difficult to go back to controlling lights in any other way. Stellar can be seen as the final link in a complete ecosystem of advanced lighting control products from ARRI. The SkyPanel features Art-Net, sACN, DMX, and RDM and L-Series fixtures to the app simple and
BELOW BBC’s Mother’s Day was the first drama on which Johann was able to use wireless lighting control.
58 DEF I N I T ION | OCTOBER 20 1 8
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