Tom Willis is a lighting designer for theatre and live performance, based in Melbourne, Australia.
A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, he works across a wide range of mediums including theatre, dance, cabaret and live events.
Over the past few months Tom has purchased a variety of ShowPro lighting including LED RGBW Profiles, Quad-18 LED Pars, Quad-7 LED Pars, and LED Truss Mates.
All of these fixtures were put to use on a recent film premiere at Melbourne Central (pictured) to create a dramatic entrance to the two cinemas.
“I purchased the Quad Pars first because they were a good quality product at a very cost effective price,” commented Tom. “I use them a lot. I’m not a hire company, rather a lighting designer who has found that I can make more money by hiring equipment on my gigs. I provide turn-key solutions to my clients and so I use the Quad Pars, whether the Quad-7 or Quad-18, on every other event that I do. They’re bright, zoom well and are very reliable. You can run them all day and they really form the backbone of my equipment.”
Tom further says that the Quad Pars are extremely versatile, able to be used in a whole bunch of different ways. He says they are particularly good for school productions as they are cost-effective, colourful and safe to use around students as they emit no heat.
“They are still good enough quality to use in a theatre environment as the dimming on them works well and the pastel colours are good,” Tom added.
Tom describes the L
ED Truss Mates as brilliant and purchased them specifically for this gig, saying they were so cheap he didn’t think twice!
“They’re fantastic!” he declared. “They’re really compact and bright. I’ve used them since for weddings, corporate, theatre …. in fact in three months I reckon I’ve probably already paid them off. They’re really handy and you can fit twelve into a suitcase.”
Tom purchased six ShowPro LED Profiles mid last year as an experiment to see if they would also work for the school market.
“Since then they have proven to be very popular with a lot of my clients,” he said. “They like them for all the same reasons I like the Quad Pars: cost-effective, bright, and good build quality. Personally, I use them a lot with gobos to create colourful textures. They fill a really nice niche and work really well in all of my theatre work specifically.”
Tom frequently uses his LED Profiles on corporate gigs too especially wh
en there is not a lot of power but the client still wants the ability to be able to project gobos.
“It’s really useful to be able to take a whole bunch of gear out onto a corporate gig and not need any dimming or three-phase power yet still be able to provide a host of different solutions,” added Tom. “They worked out so well I bought another six with the goal of essentially being able to do a fully LED lighting rig for my clients that don’t have a lot of gear or power in their venue.”
