Intensity Advisors, the design firm of Concert Master Classes creative consultant Jeff Ravitz, acted as TV lighting consultants for A Decade Of Difference celebrating ten years of the William J. Clinton Foundation on October 15 at the Hollywood Bowl. Patrick Woodroffe designed lighting for the concert, while another CMC faculty member and this year's Redden Award winner for concert lighting design, Butch Allen, designed scenic, and yet another CMC faculty member, Patrick Dierson, acted as lighting director. Steve Lieberman was media server director, and Jason Badger was lighting director for broadcast.
Check out footage of performances by Lady Gaga as well as U2 and Edge from U2 at A Decade Of Difference below.
Live lighting for the show included Philips Vari-Lite VL3000 Spots and VL2500 Wash units, Martin Professional MAC 2000 Profiles and Wash units, Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures, Mole-Richardson 4-Light units, and Philips Color Kinetics Color Blaze72s. Video was run through Catalyst media servers, and control was via three MA Lighting grandMA consoles.
Broadcast lighting made use of Strong Gladiator followspots, Lycian M2 truss spots, High End Systems Showgun 2.5 fixtures, Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 wash and spot units, Coemar ParLite LEDs, an MA Lighting grandMA, and a 40’scissorlift to reach the roof backstage.
"We were brought in to light the audience, the beautiful environment of the Hollywood Bowl (foliage, architecture, etc), and to assure good lighting on the performers and presenters, themselves," says Ravitz. "We also worked with Patrick Woodroffe’s team to assure overall balance of the show lighting."
Ravitz says the VL3500 spots were used for side of stage cross-light that helped sculpt out the performers, "particularly backup band members that were pressed up against the mid-stage Austrian curtain that divided the turntable in half. Backlight on the backup bands was not possible due to angle restrictions caused by the curtain. These lights were carefully refocused band by band, in broad daylight, as the bands rehearsed the day before the show.
"The foliage was handled by the VL3500 washes, which punch out a lot of light. Even so, they were stretched to their limit," continues Ravitz. "The trees and hills behind the stage, mostly visible only from the top, furthest audience seats, were covered by eight Showguns on the rooftop of the stage house--ergo, the scissor lift to get the Showguns up there.
"The VIP audience was lit with VL3500 spots coming from the sides of the stage, at an angle that avoided spilling on the performers and presenters," Ravitz says. "We did not want audience light coming from the central show lighting rig, and so the side angles became the best and only options. The next layer of audience light came from below the far side I-Mag screens for the sections behind the VIPs. After that, we cross-lit each successive level of audience from the existing venue spot towers and from vertical trusses installed along the perimeter of the audience. Finally, we created an exciting reverse camera shot from the stage to the back of the house with two towers of VL3500 washes from the very top of the rear-most audience, to backlight the crowd, to light more trees, and to give some extra sparkle for the cameras."
See Ravitz and his fellow faculty of concert designers at the Concert Master Classes in December in Los Angeles. Full schedule is here.
Watch the entire concert via Yahoo's exclusive coverage.