Text from the subsequent TPiMEA Article.
Durham Marenghi describes his role as Lighting Designer on the project. “We were tasked with lighting the 107-piece orchestra and choir on a pontoon floating in a tidal bay adjacent to the future site of the new Disney Abu Dhabi theme park, as well as creating some dramatic aerial light and laser effects,” he began.
Previsualisation was an important aspect of the project. “The client, our creative partners from Disney and our own creative team required extensive, accurate and constantly updated visualisations of the lighting, laser and drone effects in time with an also daily changing soundtrack,” Marenghi recalled. “This involved bringing all the different elements together in one master film. Given the rendering times involved to get meaningful resolution, it was an amazing achievement by Rupert Morse, Todd Graft, our Lighting Programmer, Paulinho Lebrao, Kvant, and the creative team at HQWS.”
For the barge lighting, Marenghi utilised a run of 59 Robe iTetra2 battens along the downstage edge at floor level to create a light curtain to disguise the orchestra before the show started. “We also had 50 Krypton Good Boys along the upstage edge to create another curtain effect as a backdrop before we revealed further depth of the design out towards the mangroves,” he described.
The heptagonal geometry of the event was matched with seven floating laser barges, each containing seven Good Boy fixtures, with pontoon-bound truss towers containing Ayrton Rivale Wash and Spot, Argo 6 FX and Kylami fixtures – which Marenghi described as “exceptionally bright for their size” – as well as two RoboSpot follow spots. FOH towers supported more Rivale Spots and Washes, a brace of RoboSpot follow spots, 24 Proteus Excalibur for more aerial effects, and SGM P-10s for controllable site lighting, with Xylobands incorporated to bring the audience into the lighting design.
The location, on the main flight path into Abu Dhabi International Airport, combined with the short timeframe and top-secret nature of the project, brought some unique challenges, however, thanks to what Marenghi described as “an incredible feat by HQWS and a technical tour de force by Kris Collier and his team”, the result proved to be well worth the hours of programming, rendering and hard work onsite.
Photos: Sean McEwan courtesy of HQWS, Flash Art
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