Theatre
At Secondary School, I was Chief Lighting Designer for 2 years in a row, overseeing the production from a lighting perspective for their productions of ‘Oliver’ (2022) and ‘Chicago’ (2023). Also, after I’d left, I was invited back to train younger students and to act as a consulting lighting designer for their 2024 production of ‘The Sound of Music’.
Oliver! (2022)
Oliver! was the first show for which I was the lighting designer. I had previously helped out with shows doing various odd jobs backstage including standing in the wings holding a bag of batteries in case one of the mic packs died mid-performance. This was my first opportunity to create a lighting design of my own, with the help of Martin from Wildfire Lighting, I created a design on the Avolites Pearl 2010 using exclusively faders and handles to store scenes because I didn’t know any better…
Chicago (2023)
For Chicago, I acted as Chief Lighting Designer. I created a lighting design from scratch using references from the original musical, the film, as well as the background projections which were provided by Rick Frendt. The show was programmed entirely on an Avolites Pearl 2010 provided by Wildfire Lighting and had over 150 cues in total. For the show I requested and got the budget approved for additional batten lights along the back wall to fit the ‘glitz & glamour’ aesthetic of the show as well as some 1930s-looking LED/RGB footlights along the apron from Ultra Light & Sound (Unfortunately I don’t have any images of these on, however, I’ve included an image from ULS and you can see them switched off in the other images)
The Sound of Music (2024)
I left my secondary school in 2023, however, I was asked back to help train the younger students to do lighting for their 2024 production of The Sound of Music. At my request, this show was entirely programmed on Avolites Titan using a Titan mobile wing and touchscreen laptop provided by Wildfire Lighting. I chose this over the Pearl that I had used the previous year as I thought it would be easier to teach and the school would probably switch over to using this as their preferred lighting desk in the near future anyway. Despite having a more advanced console, the show itself called for a more understated design and primarily because I was busy with college commitments, we did not request any additional fixtures to those that were already installed in the school hall.
Live Music
Solfest Music Festival (2022)
In 2022 I had the pleasure of accompanying Fluid Productions to the Solfest Music Festival. I helped load in, rig, operate, and load out lighting and video kit. We used a variety of lighting fixtures most of which were moving heads, we used an Avolites Tiger Touch II with a mobile wing and touchscreen as house LD console, we also had a GrandMA3 on standby and of course several visiting LDs brought their own consoles.
Film & TV
‘Sweet Dreams’ Music Video
My most recent projects involving Lighting Design have been at college. I study Creative Media Production & Technology at college and one of my briefs was “Visual Experimentation” for that brief I decided to create a music video to a cover of the Eurythmics song ‘Sweet Dreams’. For the music video I used projection mapping through QLab and lighting programmed in Avolites Titan.
I pre-visualised the design using the instance of Capture built-in to Avolites Titan, the design used 26 LED PAR lights 16 of which were in the overhead rig, and 10 which were part of a floor package.
The content that I projection-mapped onto the large stage block was filmed a few days earlier in the studio, before I then edited it into one long video in DaVinci Resolve to be mapped using QLab.
‘A Good Song Never Dies’ Music Video
For my 1st Year FMP (Final Major Project) I decided to create a music video for the song ‘A Good Song Never Dies’ by Saint Motel. The video was originally going to make more use of lighting design but in the end, it was limited to 10 PAR LEDs in the shots in the warehouse. Similarly to the ‘Sweet Dreams’ video, I programmed the lights in Avolites Titan. I programmed the entire video in one night, in my bedroom, my neighbours were probably wondering why a party was going on in my room…
‘Supernatural’ Music Video
For my second-year FMP (Final Major Project), I created a music video for Barns Courtney’s song ‘Supernatural’. The video extensively uses lighting and visual design, featuring 22 fixtures, two projectors, and four projection surfaces. Three types of light fixtures were used: ten Showtec Compact Pars, ten Lumipar 12UQPros, and two iSolution iM-5s. Similar to the ‘Sweet Dreams’ and “A Good Song Never Dies” videos, I programmed the lights in Avolites Titan.
Similarly to “Sweet Dreams”, I pre-visualised the design using the built-in Capture instance in Avolites Titan. However, unlike previous projects, I also pre-visualised the set and stage design in Blender to more easily demonstrate the concept to my collaborators and serve as a proof of concept.
The visual content was created from various stock footage and free assets, edited in DaVinci Resolve. It was then projection-mapped across two projectors and four surfaces using QLab’s projection-mapping features.
Gallery
