Lighting designer Nicolas Maisonneuve specified eight Robe BMFL Blades for the latest “Très souvent je pense à vous” (Very Often I Think of You) tour by French singer Patrick Bruel – Nicolas also designed the stage set and evolved the show design and direction with the artist himself.
His company, Lampion Mécanique, founded together with the late LD Jean Paul Ross provided the equipment and purchased the eight BMFL blades that featured on the tour, although Nicolas is quick to point out that his designs are created completely independently under another company, Elegance, to keep them separate from the activities of Lampion Mécanique. In this case, they just also happened to be the lighting provider, but as a designer he also works with many other French lighting rental companies.
Nicolas chose BMFL Blades after being recommended to check out Robe’s signature fixture by regular Patrick Bruel lighting operator Tristan Szylobryt and using them on a previous tour for singer / songwriters Alain Souchon and Laurent Voulzy where they were provided by leading French rental company, DuShow.
Six BMFL Blades were rigged on the front truss and used for a series of tasks from key lighting to creating atmosphere and mood by projecting onto the set and artists. “What’s especially cool about the BMFL is that you can add layers of effects without losing power. The fixture allows you to work on deep rich colours like reds and purples and add in filters and gobos and still be intense and bright in output”.
He likes the zoom range and thinks the shutter blade module is very well engineered. Blades were specifically chosen to allow accurate profiling and placement of the effects onstage.
Also on the Patrick Bruel touring rig were Robe StageBanner 50 ATs – hanging five upstage banners that rotated - and a single Robe DigtalSpot 7000 DTs was used for projecting on to one of the banners at two specific points in the show.
Nicolas has only recently started using Robe in his work, and now he is discovering the many advantages of Pointes and BMFLs in particular and intends to continue using “These brilliant fixtures”.