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Pete Watts of Wise Monkey Design Ltd incorporated 10 x Pointes in his lighting design for the recent BBC Radio 6 Music Week shows, broadcast and streamed live from the historic MV3 studio at London’s Maida Vale Studios and produced by Silver Bullet Entertainment.
Pete has been involved with lighting this project for the last six years, and this year’s diverse line-up was Underworld, Johnny Marr, La Roux, James and First Aid Kit. Each live set was broadcast live on Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6 Music radio show, web-streamed and also made available on the Red Button, BBC iPlayer and YouTube.
The visual treatments for each session were created in collaboration by Pete, Director Tom George and DoP Paul Lucas, after which Pete finalised the equipment spec.
This year for the first time he added Pointes to the rig. Having seen them on other shows he was impressed with the quality of the lightsource and its projection capabilities and wanted to use it in a really testing environment, which this certainly was!
In addition to this, the small size of the Pointe and its expedient power requirements were factors in the decision. Replacing the previously used fixtures with Pointes enabled him to double the amount of gobo projectors without compromising on any of the end results.
Throughout the week the Pointes – mounted on overhead trusses, stands and the floor and being moved most days – were used extensively as spots, beams, washes, key and filler lights – truly multifunctional just as they have been designed.
For First Aid Kit, he was able to use them as a wide projector and for ultra sharp gobos cutting across the artists at shallow angles and into the camera lenses, and also as low level side lighting with a heavy frost.
Most states were static with a very subtle rotation on the gobos, and all the movement came from the cameras, so it was “Imperative that I could get an accurate balance and adjust each fixture precisely to maintain the look over multiple camera shots … without the luxury of rehearsals or re-takes!”
The Underworld sessions were a complete contrast with an eclectic mix of rave anthems needing fast moving beams and snappy colour changes, combined with deeper more mindful numbers requiring an instant switch to long subtle moves and fades.
He programmed and ran the shows on a Full Boar 4 console, and the kit was supplied by Essex based rental company, DPL.
Pete has used Robe products for many years and has always “Admired Robe’s willingness to create products when there is a demand” as well as their enthusiasm for communication and canvassing the opinions of both designers and equipment owners.
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