Cliff Richard and the Shadows 2009-2010 tour

Lighting and video designer Derek Jones specified a Jands Vista S3 console to provide lighting, IMAG and video control for the 2009 / 2010 Cliff Richard & The Shadows international tour. The sold-out tour recently completed shows at major UK and European arenas, and re-commences in February for a series of dates in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

When Derek discussed the choice of control console with UK and European tour lighting supplier, Lite Alternative, they suggested the Jands Vista S3. Having jumped between using many other consoles, Derek thought it would be a good opportunity to experience for himself the Vista’s graphical based approach to programming. On the strength of trying the free Vista demo software and then using the S3 for a one-off corporate show, he purchased a console to use for the tour.

Derek commented: “I felt very comfortable using the console, particularly the timeline editing function, which appealed to me having used timeline based editing for video editing. I was a bit nervous about the idea of using an unfamiliar console on such a major tour for the first time, but after trying the desk with success on a corporate show and a few hours of the tour rehearsals, I felt completely at home with the Vista.”

Having worked separately for both Cliff Richard and The Shadows over the past ten years, Derek was keen to design a show which suited both acts’ visual style, so he incorporated a mixture of traditional and high-tech show elements.

Derek wanted a multi-functional scenic / IMAG backdrop to save on truck space and provide a dynamic above-stage show replay system which would give the audience a central view of the IMAG. He specified a 13.5m wide by 4.5m high PixLED screen, supplied by XL Video UK.

For the lighting, he opted for a goalpost truss surrounding the screen featuring MAC700 spots and MAC2000 washes, 19 ETC Source Four fixtures and additional floor-mounted MAC700 units. Video came from a Catalyst media server. The Lighting, video and live camera feeds were all triggered from the S3 console.

Summarising his experience of the Vista, Derek commented: “The Vista has served its purpose very well. I feel very much at home with it. Because Vista is very software based, I can use any of the hardware options that Jands have to offer and still feel that I’ve got a full console in front of me.rdquo;

Vista S3 and WYSIWYG join LD Glen Hunter for The Good
Fight in New York.

The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) is one of the
most prestigious theatre schools in the country, and was recently selected to
tour The Good Fight at the 2007 New York Musical Theatre Festival. Written
by Nick Enright (best known for “The Boy from Oz”), with music composed by
David King, The Good Fight is set in Australia during the first World War. It’s
based on themes such as mateship and centers around the tale of a
legendary boxer, Les Darcy, and his rise from blacksmith to the world’s most
famous boxer. Performed for the first time in the United States, the New
York Musical Theater Festival showcases new musicals from Australia,
Canada, South Korea the United Kingdom and the United States.

Lighting Designer Glen Hunter is a 3rd year lighting design student at WAAPA
and chose the Jands Vista and Cast Software’s WYSIWYG as his weapons of
choice for the tour. Glen commented: “One of the great challenges of the
show was that we opened the day following a 30 hour flight to New York,
which gave us a day to load in the set, lighting, plot, tech run and then open
that evening. I made a decision early on to completely pre-plot the show in
Perth with the Vista and WYSIWYG”.
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Lighting Designer Shailesh Gopalan and Programmer Becket Tundatil carried a Vista S3 system for the Indian star’s tour of North America.

India’s Top Film Composer And One Of The World’s Most Popular Musicians, A R Rahman is the pride of his nation, having sold more than 100 million albums. The 3rd Dimensional Tour kicked off on the 27th of May 2007, taking in 9 cities across North America.

Lighting equipment for the tour included

• 30 x Mac 2000
• 12 x Mac 600
• 8 x Mac 2000 wash
• 20 x Source Fours 750′
• 14 x Par 64
• 2 x DL2 Digital Light
• Led Curtain

Lighting Designer Rob Sinclair has specified Jands Vista T2 and S3 consoles for award-winning UK band Keane’s current world tour.

The 16 month tour to promote latest album Under The Iron Sea began last Apriland has incorporated every size of venue, ranging from intimate club shows to arenas. The shows culminate in August with festival headlining slots.

Keane embarked on the North American leg in May, which includes dates in LA, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, District of Columbia and New York.

LD Rob Sinclair has enjoyed a highly successful working relationship with the band since taking over lighting duties – something which is mirrored by his partnership with the Jands Vista console since its launch back in 2004.

Rob commented: “I absolutely adore the console. It’s made my life so much easier and more productive, and makes me look like a much better LD than I really am!”

For this tour, Rob’s brief from the band was to make the stage look as cluttered as possible and give it a sense of space and depth. Rob worked with video pioneer Kevin Godley, who came up with the concept of a forest of aluminium vertical poles with light shining through it to give the set a very 3D perspective.
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Lighting Designer John Rinaldi of Stage Light Design is one of the first UK customers to take delivery of a Jands Vista S3.

The company specialises in providing a full lighting design and production service for the exhibition and corporate events market, with major clients in the broadcast, telecommunications and electronics sectors.

Intrigued by the Vista’s overall concept and philosophy, John had been following its progress with much interest, but was waiting for the launch of a more compact and affordable version which would be a better fit with his budget and regular pattern of work.
He commented: “The majority of our work is exhibitions, which usually means packing all the lighting control equipment into a tiny little cupboard space on client’s stands. The S3 is ideal for this as I can use it with a laptop to program shows on the stand, and then when I’m happy with the show I can remove it and just play back from the laptop itself – solving any storage problems.”

The S3 control surface becomes a fully operational Vista console when connected to a PC running the Vista software and fitted with a separately purchased software unlock key for DMX output of up to 8,192 channels via Ethernet.

Before ordering his S3, John rented a T2 Vista on a large rig for the Intel stand at this year’s CeBIT exhibition in Germany. The rig consisted of 80 generics, 114 LED battens, 18 Pulsar Chromastrips, various Mac moving heads and well over 1500 channels of DMX.

He commented: “I felt that both the nature of the show and the lighting design leant itself really well to Vista’s way of working. As well as generics and moving heads for lighting the main stand itself, I had 114 LED battens top lighting the enormous ceiling. The brief was to change the ceiling colour, but I went one better and choreographed the colours with the content of the video walls, using SMPTE to lock the Vista onto the Video timecode.”

John split the 114 LED battens into four separate heads per unit to achieve some very bold, dynamic colour sweeps from side to side and front to back of the ceiling. He found controlling the fixtures very easy using the Vista’s layout screen as it created almost a picture of the ceiling from separate icons representing all 456 lights.

The show was programmed by Mark Jones. Stand design and project management was by 2LK Design Ltd.

John used the Vista T2 on several other corporate events before taking delivery in May of an S3 control surface with separately purchased 1024 channel dongle software unlock key.