London based design house Renegade produced and supplied all the technical design and equipment - lighting, video and visuals, set and scenic elements plus sound - for the SHINE 2010 Benefit Dinner, staged at The Boiler House, a new temporary structure located inside the shell of London's iconic Battersea Power Station building.
The event featured a rocking 'greatest hits' performance by superstar Bryan Ferry, and raised large sums of money for the charity, which supports additional educational initiatives encouraging children and young people to raise their achievement levels.
Renegade has worked closely with SHINE for the last 7 years, producing all their live events. The high profile 2010 Benefit Dinner was project managed for Renegade by Mike Fidler working closely with Nick Gray as Lighting Designer. Andy Cobb filled in with conceptual designs along with technical production manager, Chad Higgins, who completed the team.
Renegade's visual design included stunning large format video projections onto the visible end of the Power Station building, producing a lively and interesting visual montage that entertained guests during dinner, for which they commissioned Nathan Prince of Silent Studio to produce bespoke content.
Renegade and SHINE wanted a very specific look and feel to the event, and the venue allowed Renegade to bring in some of their own suppliers. Says Nick Gray, "Our key creative and production people have now all worked on several projects together, so there is a fluid ongoing exchange of imagination and communications which really makes the workflow on a complex, multi-layered show like this efficient".
Exterior & Entrance Lighting
The exterior chimneys of the Power Station were lit using 8 x Philips ColorReach TR Powercore LED wash fixtures, with the brick facade illuminated by Vari*Lite 3500 washes, complete with 2 Martin Professional MAC 3K profiles used for corporate branding.
The initial entrance fibreglass tunnel into the venue was lit using special wireless (and weather proofed) uplighters from SHOK London, and Minuette fresnels. A second wooden tunnel into the actual Boiler House was lined with 2 x 50 metre runs of electroluminescent Light Tape, with ETC Source Four profiles shooting beams up the walls for additional drama.
The entrance lobby featured a unique installation of 24 giant vintage light bulbs, each with oversized filaments and a sultry glow, created by Nick Gray above the cloakroom counter, which was finished in a mirrored surface to enhance the effect.
Complimentary to the 6 x 18K Christie projectors covering the back wall, Renegade's external lighting design matched the colours and textures of the video content by enhancing the structure and its majestic chimneys with 4 x MAC 3Ks, 8 x V*L 3500 FXs and 6 Atomic strobes.
The main projection canvas was the Power Station's rear wall which was facing the dinner guests. Due to the amount of metalwork obscuring a direct head on beam path, the projectors had to be crossed over, which made the line up trickier and the perspective correction extreme. This was all adjusted within the Pandora's Box media server, programmed and operated by Jack Banks, who also masked all the images to fit the exact contours of the architecture.
The projector towers were concealed to the side of the marquee so guests had a clear view of all the projections and lighting.
The animations were all based on concepts of light, power and electricity. The idea was to maintain an abstract, almost geometric theme, that evolved slowly throughout the night touching on the form and flow of movement conjured up by electricity. From the pulsing of a tiny proton particle to the swirling nuclear mass of a sun, the designs played on the Power Station, bringing enhanced depth to the facade and evoking a real sense of a powerful, unreleased energy emanating from within.
The footage started in a very sedate, subtle manner with minimal movement to allow the audience to grasp the sheer scale of the surface. This changed as dinner progressed, and by the time the speeches started, the kinetic movement of the images increased, reaching a frenetic zenith during the band and DJ performances that rounded off the evening.
Inside
The main space was carefully lit to avoid reflections bouncing off the clear PVC roof of The Boiler House - which would have obscured a clear view of the projections. This utilised 26 i-Pix BB7 LED washes, 14 x V*L 2500 spots and a selection of pin spots & PAR cans. These were rigged off 5 overhead flown trusses.
At the back of the stage were 3 upright trussing towers attached to the tent legs which proved ideal rigging points for 12 x i-Pix BB4s, 12 x MAC 301 moving LED units, 12 x Mac 250 Entours , 8 x Atomic strobes, 8 x 2-lites, plus MAC 2K washes and 2 hazers.
Lighting inside and out was programmed and controlled by Trent O'Connor using a Hog 3 console.
A d&b audio system was supplied by one of Renegade's regular technical partners, Dobson Sound.
Two Q7 speakers were rigged from truss leg at the presentation stage position with 4 x d&b T10s utilised as front fills; another 4 T10s were used for delays, flown from the installed truss. Eight Q7s on stands were also delayed down the room from the presentation stage position and reverse delayed for the main stage position.
A d&b Q Series line array was used for the main stage comprising 3 x d&b Q1s ground stacked on a Q-SUB and a B2 per side, complete with 2 d&b Q7s for front fills.
A DiGiCo D1 console was used for the FOH mix and a Yamaha PM5D for monitors, which were a combination of d&b M2 and M4 wedges and IEMs.
Tru Staging and Sculptivate were brought in to install the stage and provide all the scenic elements and room dressing.
With a limited amount of time on site, the Renegade team visualised and pre programmed as much of the visuals and lighting as possible in their WYSIWYG suite. This was then moved to Silent Studio's east London HQ for a day for fine tuning and to ensure that everything was harmonious both inside and out.
The weather was a major technical challenge whilst working on site, with heavy rain and gale force winds hampering the rigging and upping the pressure on the already short get in and technical set up times. Renegade were pleased to report that despite this, the entire installation withstood the wind intact and there were no interruptions to power.
Comments Nick Gray, "We factored in as much pre-planning and preparation as possible. Having our visualisation facilities on hand really made a difference to the time we could devote to developing the show and results we achieved for the client".
For more press information on Renegade, please call Louise Stickland on +44 7831 329888 or +44 1865 202679 or EMail : [email protected]. To contact Renegade direct, please call Nick on +44 7795 095427 or check www.renegadedesign.co.uk.