Live Design's fourth annual 31 Days Of Plots features one production per day during the month of December 2021, highlighting a different lighting design, from across theatre, concert tours, corporate events, live for broadcast, and more, as we wind down 2021 and head toward the new year.
Day 12 goes on tour with American rock band Jimmy Eat World, when they hit the West Coast for a few weeks in October. "Their designer/LD Tess Falcone asked me to fill in while she was out with St. Vincent," explains lighting designer Emily Bornt, who also ran the show on the road. "The band's production approached me a few days before the start of the tour saying that they wanted to bring a floor package, which they had been on the fence about. It had to be high-impact but not take up too much truck space, while being budget-friendly. We weren't bringing a tech, so I also wanted it to be a friendly enough set up so it wouldn't eat up most of my load in."
Bornt adds: "They also mentioned they were carrying a large backdrop that they wanted backlit. I threw together a quick simple floor package that could be flexible to the different sized venues we were going into for the run. With the gear shortage we are all facing, and the short notice, John Wiseman at PRG was able to quickly turn around a list of batten lights available, and I was really impressed by the output of the Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 72 fixtures I ended up choosing. The band's setlist included softer ballads as well as some face-melters. With the various rigs we were rolling into I loved having a small, simple, and effective floor package I could depend on to carry the main looks of the show. My goal was to backlight the band and light an atmosphere on the stage. Programming and operation was on an MA Lighting grandMA2 light."
To see more 31 Days Of Plots, click here