GoslingProductions

Straight out of Clipsal, and after a quick stop at Immanuel College for their year 11 production “Twisted”, it was up to Darwin for the Darwin leg of the RockWiz National Tour 2010.

GoslingProductions was engaged by Andy J Sound to travel to meet the show to provide MA Tech & Network Support. The shows touring LD, Toby Harding, met myself and Adam Walters - AJS’s touring Audio Tech & Production Manager - as we arrived at the Darwin Entertainment Centre for the 3 day stint.

Rigging off house bars, the lighting rig was a substantial one consisting of:

8 x Mac 700 Profiles
8 x Mac 700 Wash
8 x MAc 250 Entour
20 x LED Honeycomb
12 x 3W LED Honeycomb
14 x Par 56
4 x Parnell
6 x 1K Fresnel
1 x grandMA Fullsize
1 x MA Remote
Plus DEC Lighting Rig

The show received full houses every night we were in Darwin, and we were treated to guest performances by Angry Anguson, Melinda Washington & Adalita. GoslingProductions has also been contacted to join the national tour again for their Tasmania and Adelaide legs of the trip in June, and we are looking forward to that!

Below are some images from the show and from sound check. Toby Harding’s smooth crisp and bold looks are stunning, and I can’t get enough of them!

It was that time of year again when the V8 engines started roaring and slowly but surely, driving through the eastern park lands you could see the formation of something massive growing out of the victoria park race course. The Clipsal 500 After Track Concerts were bigger than ever this year with a massive line up. GoslingProductions was contacted by production provider Osmond Electronics to come on board as MA Systems Engineer, LX Systems Tech & MA Programmer.

This years line up included names such as Eskimo Joe, Status Quo, John Stevens & Noise Works, The Hilltop Hoods, Jessica Malboy, Tom Williams, The Funkoars to name a few. GoslingProductions was privileged enough to provide one on one MA programming support for operators of The Hilltop Hoods, John Stevens & Noise Works, The Funkoars and Tom Williams.

As is to be expected throughout any show, there are to be some hiccups. This year, the grandMA fullsize we had running at FOH had a couple of bugs in the effects engine, but thankfully, GoslingProductions was to the rescue and was able to sort out some substantial work arounds through the use of macros and reassigning sequences within the console so that all operators could get their desired looks right when they needed them.

At front of house Clipsal’s Lighting Designer Justin Accatino opted to run a grandMA Series 1 Fullsize, with MA onPC as a full tracking back up and an MA NSP to provide signal. We also threw in MA 3D into the mix to allow easier visualisation during day time programming hours. The rig was a big one, with 3 main trusses and one huge curved rear truss. The rig consisted of:

24 x Mac 700 Profiles
12 x Mac 700 Wash
8 x Mac 2000 Profile
8 x Mac 250 Beam
8 x Mac 600 Wash
10 x Atomic Strobes
5 x 8-way Molefay Blinders
6 x 4-way Molefay Blinders
14 x 2-way Molefay Blinders
12 x Bars ACL’s
4 x Bars P64 MFL
12 x ETC Source 4 Profiles
4 x 2.5KW Studio Due City Colours
24 x LED Honeycombs
1 x grandMA Fullsize Console
1 x MA NSP
1 x MA onPC
1 x MA 3D
2 x 48Way Dimmers

Attached below are some images of the lighting rig. Sound at this years Clipsal 500 was designed by FOH Engineer Travis Anderson. A huge array of 20 XB cabinets per side, plus side, side FOH, centre fill and subs provided a huge bang. FOH was running a Midas Heritage 3000 and the Digidesign console with a Yamaha PM5D and a Midas Heritage for monitors.

Overall Clipsal 500 was a huge success, and GoslingProductions was thrilled and privilaged to be such a big part of this years events.

Special thanks to Justin Accatino, Travis Anderson & Andrew Gough for their ongoing support.

After The Jungle Book and then Christmas, It was straight back into the busy festival season in Adelaide. This year saw GoslingProductions participating in Soundwave, Adelaide Fringe Parade, Adelaide Fringe 2010, Clipsal 500, Country Arts SA Shows On The Road, Marion Fashion Shows and the Ray White Awards at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

GoslingProductions was engaged by Central Audio Visual to provide lighting programming and operation services for the annual Ray White awards held at the new Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre. The set up was an interesting one, with a stage at either end of the venue. The main stage was for the award night itself and featured key note speakers from Ray White and visiting dignitaries and a separate stage at the back of the room where the band FizzyPop played 2 amazing sets at the end of the night.

The main stage was fed vision by 2 x 6500 lumen projectors, as well as vision and graphic content being fed to 4 x HD LED Video Walls for some added eye candy. This content was switched through a 408. There was also a rear screen over the rear stage of what was being fed to the two main projector displays.

Lighting on both the main stage, the rear stage and over the audience was:

4 x Mac 250 Profiles
4 x Mac 2000 Profiles
3 x Mac 2000 Wash XB
4 x Mac 700 Profiles
4 x Mac 600 Wash
6 x ETC Source Four Profiles
8 x 2K Fresnels
1 x LED Star Curtain
2 x City Colours
1 x Hog 1K

The new AEC Theatre also boasts fully controllable LED House Lighting from 30 permanently installed units controlled over a ethernet matrix and fully RF remote controlled trusses. These trusses are both box truss for lighting gear, cable picks, PA points and drape/traveller lines. Fully customisable layouts available.

I have added a few pictures of the gala dinner, the awards ceremony and ops.

GoslingProductions has moved into the Jungle! In November 2009, GoslingProductions was approached by Immanuel College Adelaide to provide full technical design and production management for their school production of The Jungle Book. With a cast of 25, the brief was an interesting one.

“We want to do the Jungle Book in a totally new way”, said Trudi Ritter, Drama Coordinator and Director of The Jungle Book. “I want to do a version of childrens theatre, giving our audience a timeless message, but I want to do it in a totally stylistic way. I want to have the Jungle, under a bigtop”. And so it began. The Jungle Book portrayed in a contemporary way under the bigtop.

Popular characters were given a slight twist - the wolves became the riggers of the circus, living and breathing the life of the touring performer. Baloo the bear became the Strong Man. Shere Khan the Tiger , a vicious fighter. Bagheera the magician, Tabaqui the Jackal became the ring leader and so forth.

Set, Sound, Lighting & Publicity design were all then passed to GoslingProductions. As you will see in the images below, the set was designed to both reflect on the jungle but also the modern-ness of the circus. Using 3 distinct areas of scaffolding, I was able to frame the stage whilst allowing ample room for both entrances and exits and for different levels within the set - with performers climbing in and amongst the vines at certain points through the show.

The sound scape for this show, was a modern one. Using upbeat and contemporary hits, the show was divided up with musical numbers sung by members of the cast, or dance numbers carried out by the monkeys. In addition to this, I designed a deep underlying sound scape of jungle and storm ambience which helped to set the mood of the production.

Lighting was an integral part of the design focus, melding set and lighting into one. Using an array of conventional, intelligent and LED fixtures, I was able to create a dense atmosphere and focus throughout different moments of the show. Lighting consisted of:

8 x 1K Fresnel
8 x Selecon Pacifics
12 x Par 64’s underhung below the ‘big top’
4 x Mac 250 Entours
7 x LED Honeycombs
1 x DF50 Hazer
1 x Hog 1K

The show was a resounding success, with every show packing the house to capacity and on all occasions to a standing ovation.  I have added some images of the set and cast for your perusal!

After returning from the Country Arts SA Tours, GoslingProductions was approached by lighting designer Peter Riley to be a grandMA operator for his annual dance show with Desteno Dance. Held in Her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide city, control was of the house rig of conventional fixtures as well as 6xMac 700 Profiles for effects. Control, as mentioned before, was off the grandMA Fullsize, running grandMA 3D as a realtime visualizer. 2 x DF50 hazers provided ample atmospherics for the performance.

Both Peter and Desteno Dance were thrilled with the results achieved, and have already begun talks with GoslingProductions about adding more ‘eye candy’ to next years show.

Desteno Dance 2010

Shortly after returning from Bali, GoslingProductions was engaged by Country Arts SA to provide Production Management for two of their “Shows On The Road” programs. The first was for a tour called “Guitar Heaven” which featured 4 guitar players of all different styles. Milica Ilic performed her beautiful classical guitar, while Simon Fox performed his mellow moving celtic style. Broom duo Desert Child performed their upbeat groovy riffs and then all 4 performers finished with a sizzling finale. GoslingProductions provided lighting & sound for this tour and production managed the trip.

After that was the second show on the road - part of the 2010 Adelaide Fringe, Fiona Scott Normans ‘Needle And The Damage Done’ hit the road, leaving a huge trail of laughter behind it. A one woman show, GoslingProductions provided lighting, audio and vision aspects to the show as well as production management. The show featured Fiona Scott-Norman and her record collection of the worst records ever made in the history of the world. Everyone who attended fell of their chair at least once during the production!

Both tours performed in Ceduna, Port Augusta, Kadina, Lameroo, Bordertown, Balaklava & Naracoorte.

It has been a very long time since I have had the opportunity to sit down and write down the experiences GoslingProductions has been having over the past month, but alas, the time has come! There has been so much going on, that I have broken the last several months up into parts (as you will see by the headings of these posts) and so I look forward to hearing your comments!

It started last July when GoslingProductions was contacted by Vision 1 Productions in Bali and asked to head up the lighting design and operations of their biggest show of the year - the KuDeTa High Season parties. KuDeTa, one of the most pretegious and classy restaurants on the island of Bali, for one month of the year is renowed for their dance parties. Vision 1, who has been supplying lighting, sound, staging and vision for this production over the years, brought GoslingProductions on board as they were no long able to cope with the enormity of the project on their own. Over the 4 week high season, KDT was to hold four massive dance parties. The first being their annual charity event “I’m An Angel” showcased Australian artist Delta Goodrem before clearing the dinner plates to make room for the dance floor. The week later, a new theme and a new lighting design was needed for KDT’s 9th Birthday Party. Every week the lighting, sound and staging got bigger and bigger all heading up to the final party.

The third instalment was the annual “Day Party” - a party starting early afternoon and progressing well into the night. All the hype and excitement of the three preceding weeks was finally released when the fourth instalment, the “White Party” was unleashed. Dressed in Togas, over 4000 party goers danced and grooved the night away to the beats of local and international DJ’s.

Lighting a show of this scale was no mean feat, as it was not only the dance floor that had to be considered. There was also the dining area, a special VIP day bed area, the beach front itself (which the restaurant sits on), the decor of the restaurant interior and the transformation of the restaurants entrance way. Local company Heliconia provided a different array of decor each week, from umbrellas and reeds, to a giant venus statue and an even bigger horse reared up on its hind legs.

Lighting equipment consisted of Futurelight 860 Profiles, Movitech Washes and Movitech Profiles. For the White Party Varilight 3500’s were added to the equation. This was accompanied by a plethora of par64’s and LED units used on the dance floor and for all the decor lighting. Control was off Hog2 PC with a 4-DMX widget. We were maxed out on universes for most of the latter dance parties as as each week got bigger, so did the amount of gear we crammed into the venue.

Along with a plethora of audio, staging, trussing and vision supplied by a 3rd party company, GoslingProductions was thrilled with the results. And I’ve included a few photos so you can have a look at the show. GoslingProductions has been engaged again for the 2010 high season, and are very excited about the next challenge and the next set of themed dance parties.

A huge thank you must also go to Sue & Helen from Vision 1 Productions, as well as their unbelievably hard working crew who literally had a sleepless month ensuring everything was up and functioning, ready to go.