The State Memorial for Michael Gudinski AM was held last week at Rod Laver Arena to celebrate his life with music, as is befitting. The show was produced within the Mushroom Group of companies.
Performances were by Ed Sheeran MBE, Jimmy Barnes AO, Kylie Minogue AO OBE, Mark Seymour with Vika & Linda, Mia Wray and Paul Kelly AO. Mahalia Barnes sang the Australian National Anthem.
Speakers included Lee Simon (MC), Matt Gudinski, Kate Gudinski, Carrie Bickmore OAM and Rabbi Menachem Wolf.
Travis Hogan and Simon Johnson designed the lighting, video and stage, with the lighting intended to provide the maximum versatility and flexibility, both practically and creatively. The design was required to be visually impactful when needed, but also modest, to properly convey the mood of the occasion.
First and foremost, this was a State Memorial Service for a father, husband, mentor and industry leader. As solemn as the occasion was inevitably going to be, it also needed to be a celebration of Michael’s life, legacy and contribution to our industry.
“We knew that there were going to be performances from fairly early on,” remarked Matt Jones, lighting director and operator. “But we didn’t know the exact who, what or how. They all became apparent during the rehearsal. Thankfully the design allowed for a rock performance, a pop performance, acoustic performance and alternative performance. This is exactly what we needed.”
The obvious limitation for the design team and crew was time as the event was pulled together rather quickly from all aspects – design, implementation and programming. The time frame of putting this show together was seven days from conception to load in.
“We had two days to program 11 songs for six artists, as well as ensuring the result we achieved matched the mood of the occasion,” said Matt. “Not knowing how some of the artists would play, left a little uncertainty on how best to program some songs. In the end, I opted to err on the side of caution, and not overdo the looks. I think I managed to reach a happy medium. Each moment was its own entity but wasn’t a distraction. The night just flowed nicely.”
The stage itself was designed in such a way that it was essentially a set-piece. It was a shallow diamond shape, with two feature curved ends on stage left and right. The stage floor was covered in a classy high gloss Marley.
The video screens, supplied by Mediatec, were the main set pieces of the design. They provided a large canvas to display image content during speeches and video content during the music performances. The video elements consisted of five video columns at the back of the stage with a video header screen spanning the width of the stage, that was hung just above the lighting trusses. There were two IMAG screens on either side of the stage.
Video content was controlled from a disguise server, which was triggered both remotely by the MA system for the musical performances, as well as locally for the speech and video package sections.
The video content for Jimmy Barns, Mia Wray, Paul Kelly and Kylie Minogue were all produced by Dave Hase of Hase Creative. The content for Ed Sheeran was produced by Mark Cunniffe in the UK, and the content for the speeches and video packages was produced by Mushroom Creative.
Lighting was provided by PRG and onstage were 18 x VL3500 Washes, eight Claypaky Scenius Unico, four Nitro Strobes, eight Linear Four Lights and one PRG BadBoy Ground Control Spot on the rear upstage truss. Overhead there were 24 x Martin MAC AirFX units on six fingers that tapered in length from the centre out. On the downstage truss, there were 14 x VL 3500 Washes, seven Claypaky Scenius Unico, four Nitro Strobes and seven Linear Four Lights.
Out above the audience, there was the front truss that consisted of 12 x VL3500 Washes, another 8 x Clay Paky Scenius Unicos, 8 x Linear Four Lights and 3 x PRG BadBoy Ground Control Spots.
Upstage with the video screens, six vertical trusses held 6 x Claypaky Sharpy’s each and six Mole Fay Duets each.
On the floor, there were six Claypaky Unico Spots and four VL3500 Wash FX.
The VL3500 wash units were used predominantly for washing the stage with light. The upstage fixtures provided the colour for the camera, while the downstage washes provided some tinting of colour. The front washes were used to provide ample stage front light for the band members in the musical performances. The VL3500 Wash FX on the floor were used to provide colour on stage, while not affecting the white balance on the artists for the camera. They were able to nicely light the band members and instruments, which gave a nice visual appeal on stage.
“The Scenius Unico Spots were great for providing big gobo break up looks over the stage and out into the audience,” added Matt. “They created some nice lens flare effects for the camera also. Over stage, the AirFX’s provided the ability to throw a bit of texture onto the stage floor. They were also great at offering some nice gobo and beam effects out into the audience.”
The upstage vertical trusses were the visual piece for most of the show. The Mole Fay Duets usually had a slight glow in them for the camera, and the Sharpy’s were great for bigger statement pieces. They were used for musical performances only, and they provided great beam looks and flyout effects on big moments in songs. They were also great at creating the illusion of added height – particularly during Castle on the Hill.
Programming time was limited, in that Matt got the rig on Monday evening and that night he was able to program what he could without having heard any of the acts.
“We did have some reference audio to work with, however, this was only able to guide us so much,” he said. “The first opportunity we had to see how artists would likely perform on the night was on the Tuesday rehearsal. This allowed us to get a gauge on the pace and tempo each artist would likely play at. This was where we could build on the work that we had done in the lead-up and also allowed us to see how lighting and video elements would work together.”
On Wednesday morning they got their only chance to see how the Ed Sheeran and Kylie duet would work. This gave Matt just enough time to finesse the finer details and polish what he could before doors!
Matt utilised two MA Lighting grandMA2 full size with two NPUs. The show was run live and there was no track or timecode.
“We had to communicate constantly between operators and spots and show caller to neatly pull off the event, he added. “Throughout the show, I kept an eye on cameras on my preview monitor to ensure that artists and speakers were neatly and evenly light for cameras so that what went out to any broadcast or streaming, was adequate.”
Nothing, in particular, was requested from any artist although Ed Sheeran had custom content that was sent over, but this was easily taken care of. At the end of the day, the event was not about any one artist. It was a celebration of Michael Gudinski’s career and life.
The room lighting, supplied by Phaseshift and operated by Alex Saad on a Hog4 Full Boar with two DP8000, was complimentary to the stage lighting. The MAC Auras and Claypaky Sharpy’s on the trusses in the upper section of the Bowl provided great audience backlight and audience beam effects.
The trusses in the room were loaded up with Martin MAC Quantum washes and MAC Viper Profiles, which provided a good amount of lighting in the lower bowl section as well as some nice gobo texturing on the audience.
“Alex did a great job of making sure the look onstage tied in nicely with what was in the room,” commented Matt.
Throughout the show, I kept an eye on cameras on my preview monitor to ensure that artists and speakers were neatly and evenly light for cameras so that what went out to any broadcast or streaming, was adequate.
“When all was said and done, I was very happy with the outcome, and with what we all had achieved,” said Matt. “A memorial event is never an easy event to pull off, least of all one for a man who has had an impact on so many in their personal and professional lives within our industry.
“The feedback I have received from people within the industry, here and from abroad, on the night and after the event, was nothing but positive. I think everyone did a fantastic job and pulled off an event that Michael himself would have been proud of.”
AUDIO
JPJ Audio supplied the audio setup and crew with James “Oysters’ Kilpatrick as FOH audio operator for the service and house engineer for the acts that didn’t bring an engineer. At FOH were two Avid S6L with Waves Extreme Servers.
A d&b KSL PA system was chosen for its small form factor, power and rear rejection capabilities. Most details were worked out with Mark Crawley, Boden Birket and Josh ‘Colonel Mustard’ De Jong at JPJ Melbourne, as the PA had to fit in with the set, a trim height of around 12 metres and some quiet speeches anticipated.
The main LR consisted of 28 x d&b KSL8, 12 x d&b KSL 12, 10 x d&b SL G Sub, four d&b SL sub and eight d&b Y12 Front Fill. Sides were 16 x d&b KSL8 and eight d&b KSL 12.
Control was left to Josh ‘Colonel Mustard’ De Jong and Boden Birket with the standard d&b processing and computers with a JPJ Lake controller as an add on and Colonel Mustards personal monitoring and Smaart set up.
“A job this large is best left to the people running it on the day,” commented Oysters. “I try hard to keep out of their way as I have enough to contend with at the console. But both are professionals I trust and that makes the day a bit easier with people who have your back.”
Rod Matheson and Kez Kesby looked after monitors with Ryan Fallis tech at monitor world, Rod was JPJ’s operator and Kez was Jimmy Barnes’ guy. Monitor consoles were a DiGiCo SD5 and a DiGiCo SD10 and there was a d&b M2 monitor rig with loads of radio.
Ben ‘Millhouse’ Milne and Francis ‘Franger’ Fogalini were the JPJ patch crew. Essentially, it was the Jimmy Barnes touring package with a JPJ system running beside it.
The microphones were Jimmy Barnes’ touring package from JPJ with DPA heads on Shure receivers for Ed Sheeran and Kylie. All non-Barnes microphone were RF as it was a clean downstage. For the speeches, there were Clock audio lectern mics and DPA d:fine headsets.
“The amount of fan noise from the LED panels and moving lights during quiet speeches is becoming a bigger and bigger problem for orchestral or speech,” noted Oysters. “It doesn’t matter obviously for rock or pop acts, manufacturers need to get quiet fan modes installed in their gear. At 40 metres there is roughly 58 to 65 db of noise in a quiet room, it becomes less apparent with an audience but low input speech is close to the fan level and amplifies it. Large sets need big trim heights if you don’t want too wide (I’m a stage hugger with PA) we are up around 12 meters high when normally it would be around 8-9. Rod Laver is a great sounding room but a memorial is always the unknown as family and stripped back music acts do things they normally don’t.”
According to Oysters, the show went well although it was a lot of work over three days with eight guys on the audio crew and another five on the broadcast audio side.
“I have worked for Frontier or Mushroom on and off most of my working life and got my first start from Dundas Lane,” concluded Oysters. “So for me, it was a sad, moving experience even though I was of course occupied by work. It was hard not to shed a tear for the great man in the process though.”
MG State Memorial Credits
Mushroom Group
Saul Shtein
Travis Hogan
Michael Oberg
Simon Johnson
Jade Harbord
Ann Gibson
Sarah Donelly
Tom Macdonald
Anna Toman
Vanessa Langley
Maddy Lynch
Mary Bainbridge
Aisling Charlesworth
Dion Brant
Denise D’Sylva
Daina Coxall
Brian Purnell
Liam Pethick
Will Devereux
Mark D’Angelo
Lee Simons
Samantha Clode
Brett Millican
George Hanna
Audio
James Kilpatrick
Rod Matheson
Ben Milne
Boden Birkett
Francis Fogliani
Joshua De Jong
Ryan Fallis
Ernie Rose
Kelvin Mustica
Nic Broomhead
Brian McMahon
Doug Brady
Lighting
Matt Jones
Alex Saad
Fergal O’Sullivan
Alister Blaney
Lee Webb
Marcus Holmes
Andrew Vaughan
Graeme McHugh
Lawrie Videky
Thomas Herterich
Ben Kocsis
Johnny Bamford
Video & Broadcast
Dave Hendy
Dan Aulich
Rob Nelson
Matthew Cattolico
Herman Putter
David Goldsztein
Dean Pentz
Sam Stephens
Aaron Donnelly
Matthew Fields
Taylor Davison
Sean Cooper
Sean Killa
Leigh Ferguson
Cameron Pigou
Robert Naylor
James Jacks
Grenville Drinkwater
James Puli
Steve Welch
Peter McIntosh
Staging
Chris Lorenz
Darryl Thomas
Claudia Jones
Runners
Charlie Kopa
Andrew Rourke
Cam Gillies
Loaders
Sion Barnes
Anissa Brown
Anthony Buhagiar
Merryn Butterfield
Emil Camilleri
Diego Carvajal Moreno
Lachlan Casey
Shay Cloudwright
Charles Cook
Aaron Cornall
Lourde Cosgrave
Richard Cosgriff
Jonty Czuchwicki
Zulal Dalbas
Adrian David
Judy Doomernik
Michael Ebdon
Geoffrey Eden
Rebecca Edgecumbe
Joe Fogarty
Dallas Freedman
Kaleb Gibbins
Shane Goff
Buddy Gottaas
Richard Haley
Matthew Harris
Ryan Hoare
Matthew Iliff
Alexander Jackson
David Johnson
Liam Kenny
Joseph Kerekere
David Kocankoska
Travis Koerntjes
Blaze Lenkic
Tamika Liddle
Tyson Lindley
Christian Marsden
Riley McCloskey
Conan McGrath
Paul McMahon
Tereapii Meads
Daniel Obrien
Zarish Opyrchal
Cameron Orlov
Mark Pelletier
Wayne Pettman
Jim Prousalis
Joel Prouse
Gloria Roberts
Cristian Rubiano
Robert Schubert
Daniel Segrave
Deepak Sheth
Anthony Skinner
Angela Stacey
Skye Stevens
Jason Xanthoulakis
Rod Laver Arena
Meg Walker
Glen King
Mark Obrien
