Katy Perry’s glittering 12-minute halftime show at Super Bowl XLIX in the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona marked lighting designer Bob Barnhart’s seventeenth big game and his fifth as the primary or sole lighting designer. Barnhart deployed 140 Sharpys, 120 Mythos fixtures and 94 B-EYE K20s, all provided by PRG.
“The Super Bowl is different from anything else I do. The halftime show had an amazing entrance and exit and a lot of different things happening in between – all in 12 minutes stuck in the middle of the world’s largest sporting event,” Barnhart says. “The first two-and-a-half minutes featured 600 glowing orbs, a giant lion and a moving chessboard. That was a lot of eye candy that kept viewers wondering where it all was headed. We went from end zone to end zone twice: Katy started in the north end zone, joined Lenny Kravitz & Missy Elliott in the south end zone then went back to the north end zone for the flying rig. The show was physically very large and very ambitious in all areas!”
Barnhart positioned 140 Sharpys on the upstage side of the 400-level rail and the south end zone rail and deployed several on a cart behind the lion puppet to add some light and texture behind the giant creature as it moved through the dark.
David Grill, one of the show’s lighting directors, notes that one of “coolest things” about the three Clay Paky fixtures is “the amount of light they generate compared to the amount of power they consume. Power has huge implications on a production: paying for it, acquiring/generating it, and the quantity of cables required to connect a cart.”
Barnhart was introduced to Clay Paky’s new Mythos fixture at a demo at A.C.T Lighting. “I saw a great high-powered beam, then they zoomed it out,” he recalls. “I knew right away that this kind of versatility could be very useful to me.”
Grill was impressed by the Mythos as well. “Their brightness, ability to color fade, their gobos and unique beam spread – Mythos had everything we needed,” he says.
Barnhart points out that the halftime stage set posed a unique lighting challenge. “It was a projection surface, but it had a lot of dancers on it. I had to light them but not the surface. And when there were no dancers, I wanted to provide dynamic air graphics. I positioned the Mythos fixtures around the perimeter of the projection surface on giant rolling carts so I could light the dancers and fill the air with beams of light. I had custom gobos to use like shutters and cut off the field.”
The B-EYE K20s made their Super Bowl debut last year when they were new to the market, says Barnhart. This time he upped the quantity significantly, dimmed the fixtures to seven percent and used them in conjunction with the Mythos fixtures on carts. “They provided more eye candy for the background and made the perimeter set glow. Their color and pattern movement added tempo and activity to the camera shot,” he explains.
Jason Rudolph, the lighting director in charge of the video system, used a grandMA2 light console to control the projection and inflatable, illuminated orbs. “The grandMA2 light is my console of choice,” he says. “It always performs well, and the Super Bowl was no exception.”
Crew
Bob Barnhart, Lighting Designer
David Grill, Lighting Director
Pete Radice, Lighting Director
Jason Rudolph, Lighting Director
Tony Ward, Gaffer
David Serralles, Best Boy
Dean Brown, Best Boy
Joe Faretta, Best Boy
Paul Bell, Best Boy
Keith Berkes, Lead Spot op
Tim Altman, Lead Spot op
John Warburton, Lead Spot op
George Sennefelder, Lead Spot op
Robb Minnotte, Project Maneger
Jeff Anderson, Lead Tech
Matt Geneczko, Lead Tech
Chris Conti, Lead Network Tech
Quinn Smith, Arc Light spot Tech
Alex Ward, Fiber Switch Supervisor
Lighting Gear
140 Clay Paky Sharpy
120 Clay Paky Mythos
94 Clay Paky B-Eye
72 PRG Best Boy
72 Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Wash
24 Philips Vari-LiteVL 3500 Spot
16 GLP impression X4 XL
12 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
16 Ayrton NandoBeam-S6
12 Ayrton MagicRing-R1
8 Brite Box Flame LT3000 Long Throw Followspot
7 Brite Box Flame MT3000 Medium Short Throw Followspot
110 Chroma-Q Color Block
62 Solaris LED Flare
PRG V676 console for lighting
MA Lighitng grandMA2 for the projection and orb control