The opportunity for lighting designer Peter Rubie to join this tour came off the back of a special project last year where he worked with Tina and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. That project was filmed with a nine camera setup (with no audience) back when Melbourne was first coming out of lockdown and the brief from Tina for that production was that she wanted to create something beautiful, exquisite and theatrical that would enhance and help convey the emotion in the music and production as a whole.
“This tour brief was the same, but the challenge was to still deliver those moments of beauty on much bigger stages and for a much larger audience,” said Peter. “Tina was very involved in the creative process, and we had many early meetings with the creative team, at which Tina generously gave her time. It was quite special to have an artist so involved and interested in all elements of the production design. Tina had some strong ideas at the start and myself and Matthew Sharp, who worked on the staging and projection content, took away and developed these ideas into a format that would work for the touring stage. Tina wanted the ability to deliver strong and powerful moments as well as soft and beautiful ones, as her song choices were of such a diverse range. We also worked with Tina’s Manager Courtney Day who provided a lot of valuable input throughout the early process.”
Staging
One of the elements Tina was keen to incorporate as they moved out of a world where it has been difficult to showcase artists talents to audiences in the flesh, was to showcase actual art in the format of paintings alongside the music. Tina wanted a gallery of artwork to be displayed in moments above the stage including that from Australian artist Jai Vasicek. The gallery concept went through several versions, starting with a basic white cyc and ending up in what they’ve called the sails, which are long, white panels of fabric onto which content was front projected.
“It was important to Tina that we went down the path of ‘soft’ projection as she did not want the harshness or HD clarity that LED screens bring,” explained Peter. “I was heavily involved in the design and drawing of the projection sails alongside Matt. This was important as it helped us craft something that worked alongside the lighting as opposed to fighting it. It was important to me that we maintained a lot of dynamic and contrast in the lighting so that we could hold on to those theatrical moments, something we would have found harder to achieve with a full white cyc / large screen. I had the desire to have something organic and fragmented that might be able to shift and change during the show providing moments where the video could take impact and other moments where the lighting could still shine and be dynamic. It also wanted to be able to fit lighting in between the screens so that their textures and beams of light weren’t upstaged by a bright video source.”
Peter came up with the idea of putting the sails on motors so that they could turn them and change their angle as well as have them built with a black side so they could fully turn them around and make them disappear in the songs without content, where the lighting does the work.
“For this, we used some Robe StageBanner spinners, an old product I’d never had the opportunity to use before, but came to mind for this project and enabled me to fully index the exact position of the panels and accurately recall them to different positions during the show,” Peter said. “There is even one moment in Sorrento Moon where I apply a gentle pan effect to them to give the illusion of them swaying in the breeze.”
The sails were built by Reveal productions who did a great job at very short notice. BAAC Light supplied all the video equipment for the tour which was programmed by Andrei Chlebnikowski and Matt Silk, with Matt looking after it on the road.
Matthew Sharp and Tina were keen to bring an element of elegance and retro feel to the staging whilst still carrying elements of a modern-day tour. They originally spoke of Tina being on an elevated platform surrounded by strips of mirror with some tungsten theatrical lamps around her and the staging. They ended up designing a custom stage piece built by Stagekings (also in record time) with custom cut Silver Mirror Composite Panel from Laser Cut Plastics. The mirror product is a thin, aluminium composite sheets bonded to a polyethylene core which makes it a great shatterproof and realistic mirror that’s perfect for the touring road. The 300mm wide panels of mirror are fitted to a custom stage front insert that sits in front of some standard megadeck and gives Tina a 1.5m high rear platform to perform from and walk across at moments in the show. The custom front gives the entire set piece a curved appearance including the stairs which also have mirrors attached to them. The effect of Tina performing from a low height 3m circular stage in front of all the curved mirrors Pives a spectacular effect as her figure is duplicated across each mirror picking up the stunning costumes.
Lighting Design
The addition of the retro vibe is echoed across the lighting droppers which Peter designed to follow the curve of the platform and filled with Patt 2013s and Pickle Patts to bringing the element of elegance and warmth and Robe Spikies to bring low angle textures and soft beams.
Taking the lead on integrating the projection panel design into the lighting design was a worthwhile process, but quite challenging. The ‘sails’ were the result of many weeks of playing with different shapes and sizes in the 3D CAD world to find something that looked interesting without being perfectly symmetrical.
“It was important at each revision of the sails position and size adjuments that I kept checking for audience sightlines and the potential risk of shadows from lighting fixtures and lighting positions that hug tightly around the screens above and between,” remarked Peter.
Peter says that he wanted to continue that theme of elegance and beauty that was created last year with the MSO shoot and that Tina loved so much, whilst taking it to the next level with a design that would look big when it needed to in arena-sized venues.
“I’m a big believer in filling out the vertical negative space between the floor and area with lighting that can grow from the artists performing below it and both complement and carry the expression in their music and movements projecting it up and out to the audience who can, in these sort of shows, be some distance away,” he explained. “Having the dropper pipes coming down from the trusses is something I’ve used plenty of times before, but increasing the number of them to eight with the most outside one coming off the side trusses, enabled me to achieve this and sculpt a lot whilst following the curves of the stage design. The overhead trusses were fairly light on in fixtures for a show of this size as I relied on big bright sources of Robe BMFL fixtures dotted along it to carry their own and shoot through and between the projection sails. Rather than runs of fixtures in the usual spot, wash, spot, wash configuration I opted more for pairs and clusters of lights to get that strong and powerful light curtain effect. The most effective are the two clusters of four BMFL Washbeam, which may be my new favourite light, that punched through the dynamic and expressive white sails during This Woman’s Work.”
Lighting Rig
Creative Productions supplied the rig with Dave Jackson ensuring the rig and logistics were locked in and on the road. Scott Black, Daniel Callaghan and Jeremy Dehn are on the road as systems technicians who Peter says have all been brilliant and very reliable at getting everything up and running quickly at each of the gigs. Colin Skals, production manager, has also been an integral part in all things logistics and helping to get the production design realised in time for our rehearsals.
The overhead rig comprised of 16 x Nitec Duet Blinders, 21 x Robe Spiider, seven Martin MAC 101 CT, 20 x Robe BMFL Blade and 14 x Robe BMFL Washbeam.
“The Spiider is still my favourite washlight and for this show, I’m not utilising the flower effect, but they are a solid backlight and front light for our band,” added Peter. “Two units also deliver a nice soft backlight for Tina for most of the show. The MAC 101 CT are for band special top lighting. This is my first time using the BMFLs in larger quantities like this. I picked the blades so that we could shutter around the projection sails – there are only eight overhead Blades, the rest are on sidelight ladders hung of our side trusses that create moments of theatrical colour washes and textures through the show. Five of the Washbeams are mostly doing followspot duties and specials, and the remainder are working hard in big powerful backlight moments.”
The droppers hold a total of 32 x Robe Spikie that Peter describes as the little workhorse of the show.
“I love these little guys for their size and ability to easily outrig on a pipe and it’s the first time I’ve been able to use them in such a large configuration. They hold their own in moments of texture, soft washes and beam moments as well as creating additional warm glowing moments over the audience.”
There are also six Robe Patt 2013 and 12 x Creative Goldie Pickle Patt that have been customised with hundreds of little gold mirrors which helps with that warm glow/classic look.
On the floor are 14 x Robe Megapointe which Peter describes as a great versatile hybrid that he found works perfectly as a floor light when you need to get a huge variety of looks out of them.
“I do a fair bit of gobo layering/animations with these to create interesting moving textures behind the band. Six of them are behind the rear platform and it’s nice to just see the strong shafts of light coming up, without necessarily seeing the source.”
Nine GLP Impression X4S are in a curve around the 3m diameter circle platform which Tina stands on in front of the mirror panels. They have some nice moments pointing up into the centre, but equally effective washed out so you can see Tina’s reflections and dresses vividly in the mirrors. Six GLP Impression X4L work as low angle sidelights for the band and are crucial for some of the more intimate moments.
“The X4L’s are so punchy that they rarely get above 30%, but having the larger face and big zoom range was very useful for that particular job,” added Peter. “I also wanted something to glow from the floor behind each band member and Dave provided six GLP Impression X4 Bar 10 as an option over a LED flood. They turned out great. They only really have two or three static positions during the show but being able to control the zoom size was very desirable.”
Also on the floor are eight ChromaQ Color Force II 48 as footlights and a couple of MDG ATMe Hazers. One Mole Richardson 5K fresnel sits on a floor stand upstage centre of the rear platform as a glorious hero reveal moment for Tina’s first appearance at the top of the show.
“The quality, colour and intensity was just something I wasn’t going to find in a modern-day fixture. It’s only a shame that it’s hidden behind the riser as the unit itself is gorgeous.”
For control, Peter ran a Vista V3 with EX + S1 control surfaces and also deployed a Follow-me AFS followspot tracking system. Video used an Arkaos Media Master Pro and two Panasonic 20k Laser Projectors.
Programming and Execution.
Peter fully prevized the show on his own Vista console and Capture visualiser. They also had three days at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne to build the show for the first time and spend time rehearsing.
“It was so very worthwhile – even though the proscenium obstructed some of the rig – to be able to build it and get to that first and second round of revisions before our first paying audience,” he commented. “We opened the final rehearsal up to family and friends which was also invaluable to get a feel for the show and gauge reactions. The band all have click track in their ears as there are several instruments in the songs that can’t fit on stage and had to be done with stems so I was able to be given SMPTE timecode for every song which I recorded over the rehearsal week. This meant that I had a perfectly in sync timecoded show on the first stop of the tour and could focus during the show on catching any issues and tweaking levels rather than worrying about getting all the cues perfect.”
Peter chose to use his own Vista console on this show although he jumps between a mix of ETC and MA consoles on other shows.
“The Vista is a great designer/programmer console which still is as capable as the others, but works better for my brain when I’m designing as I’m not constantly having to convert my intentions for the looks back into numbers,” he said. “It’s changed a lot over the years and now has found a good hybrid of GUI + syntax operation that makes it cleverly quick to program a show on and keep my eyes more on the stage and less on the screens. For this show, I’m driving 14 universes of sACN from the console setup which is made up of a laptop, two USB wings and an external touchscreen. Having such a small modular console setup is perfect for touring and means I can keep working on the showfile from my hotel room or the plane. The whole interface is designed to be able to be programmed on one display with the second only really needed for quick access to Presets and to display the cuelist when playing back the show. I also send Artnet out for control of the Arkaos Media Master where I can trigger playback of the content and select which mapping group we’re outputting to for the different sail positions.
Lastly, we are using a Follow-me followspot tracking system on this tour with a single operator backstage and no FOH venue spots. “It varies from song to song, but we have ten fixtures in the rig that can target Tina from different directions. Follow me has access to the beam size and position and I retain control of the other attributes from the console. At any moment I can take back full control of the fixture by means of a crossfadable control channel. As well as a few BMFL Washbeams from the front at pleasant 45-degree angles, I have two dedicated front/high side BMFL’s that sit as a lower 6m trim and help fill out the face to give Tina a soft-sculpted light. Rear backlights following here are often either two Spiiders or two more BMFL blades depending on the song. Lastly, we have an additional BMFL Washbeam far upstage that gives her a powerful backlight when she is traversing the platform.”
According to Peter, the tour is going well and everyone feels very fortunate to be out on one of the first full Australian tours back after what has been a challenging time for all. The feedback has been very positive so far. He says that he feels incredibly lucky to have this opportunity and everyone involved, including Tina herself, is lovely to work with and talented at what they do.
