Mark Hammer has lit quite a few fashion shows during his illustrious career and he is always looking for new and exciting lighting effects. This year at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival held at Sydney Town Hall he particularly wanted a fresh idea for a backdrop to the stage area and the idea to use Clay Paky B-Eye K20’s was born.
The high performance wash light not only has a great beam but it also creates a completely new visual effect. The front lens can be rotated to create lots of small bright compositions, which might be opened and closed like petals.
The fixtures zoom ranges from 4° to 60° and it is therefore suitable both for environments with low ceilings such as small theatres and TV studios, where large angles are extremely useful, and for shows in arenas or large environments, where a tight zoom is perfect.
“Initially we were thinking of some sort of video component for a backdrop but the Clay Paky B-Eyes sounded like a great idea,” remarked Mark. “I like the fact we have a lighting fixture doing effects rather than video.”
The flexibility of the B-Eyes meant that Mark could meet the brief of each individual show producer whether they delivered a static, soft background look with a bit of colour or something with sparkle, brightness and movement.
“I liked it when we had a bit of haze in the room so that, depending on where you were sitting, you get totally different looks out of them,” added Mark. “Even when they were just glowing and you could make out the pixels, the fixtures themselves were a look on their own.”
Mark was impressed by the range of colours offered by the RGBW and also how silent the fixture ran.
“But the best feature is their flexibility of going from spots to floods, plus you have to like the rotating functions and all the eye candy!”
According to Mark, the producers were stunned by the brightness of the B-Eyes and occasionally he had to pull the intensity back!
“I’d like the chance to use the B-Eyes more as a luminaire rather than an effect,” said Mark. “There’s plenty of intensity to use them as a wash light. I’m really looking forward to using them again.”
