concerts / television · resume, including woodstock 1994 and 1999, allen branton, the event’s...

44 • January 2010 • Lighting&Sound America

CONCERTS / TELEVISION

By: Catherine McHugh

Copyright Lighting&Sound America January 2010 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • January 2010 • 45

For two nights at the end ofOctober, the Rock and Roll Hallof Fame brought together an

unprecedented a lineup of musicalicons, all coming together tocelebrate the history of rock ‘n’ roll bymaking a joyful noise in New YorkCity’s Madison Square Garden.

Just a few of the highlightsincluded Jerry Lee Lewis kicking offthe proceedings with “Great Balls ofFire;” Stevie Wonder performing withSting, B.B. King, Smokey Robinson,Jeff Beck, and also with JohnLegend, who accompanied him on anemotional rendition of MichaelJackson’s “The Way You Make MeFeel;” Annie Lennox boundingonstage and bowing down to Queenof Soul Aretha Franklin before joiningher on “Chain of Fools;” U2 backingup Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteenon “Because the Night;” and, later,

assisted by will.i.am and Fergie, ofthe Black Eyed Peas, beginning acover of the Rolling Stone’s “GimmeShelter” only to be joined onstage bysurprise guest Mick Jagger.

The talent behind the scenes wasan even match for the superstarheadliners. Beginning in the spring,Joel Gallen, the show’s executiveproducer and director, began enlistingthe designers who have worked onthe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’sinduction ceremonies over the pastfew years, pulling together aHerculean production that was to bestaged as both a live event andtelevision special (for HBO), with aDVD release to follow.

Even with the hundreds oftelevised and live events on hisresume, including Woodstock 1994and 1999, Allen Branton, the event’slighting designer, says, “I can’t recall

a show done before that was soambitious. There was so muchcontent to deal with in such a shortamount of time and a relentlessstream of world-class, A-listheadliners. It was intense.”

In addition, “the Madison SquareGarden phenomenon” compressedthe production setup into whatseemed like a nearly impossible timeframe at the outset. “There is nothingelse quite like it in show business,”says Branton. “That venue is so busywith sports and other events that youreally can’t find a big-enough windowof availability in there to do aproduction this large. And yet,because it’s Madison Square Garden,producers insist, and rightly so, thatthis is where this event has to be. Soyou end up creating design andinstallation models, to compensatefor that lack of time, which are really

Bono, Fergie, and Mick Jagger perform. Note the murals depicting early inductees on the arches behind them.

Leftphoto:AnneBrahic;RightPhoto:Kevin

Mazur/GettyImages



peculiar to that situation.”Upon learning that what would

normally be at least a four-day load-in for a show of this size was beingallotted two days—one of which wasa 24-hour, overnight load-in—AnneBrahic, the production designer,insisted on was bringing in KishRigging. “Kish was really instrumentalin making this happen because, shyof the deck, everything wassupported from the air,” Brahicexplains. “We had to have the bestriggers out there do this, and theyforethink everything to the nthdegree. We knew that they weregoing to say in advance what wouldor would not work. They provided thereality check. And they went wayabove and beyond the call of duty.”

Brahic’s design went through 70renderings before it was all over. “Oh,it was a process!” she says. “A lot ofcriteria had to be met before wecould even begin to wrap our heads

around what it was going to looklike—the first point being that we hadto have a turntable that was split inhalf, so the scenery couldn’t comedownstage of that midline.”

Since the turntable was a given,Brahic insisted on the largestavailable unit from All Access Stagingand Productions, which was 56' indiameter. “That allowed us to havethe bands really concentrated onthere, without them having to pushwedges and everything off of it everytime they needed to move it,” sheexplains. “We also had to incorporatea very large movie screen. And theywanted to be able to seat people in270°, so sightlines were also an issue.Designing this show was definitely asmuch about coordinating reality andlogistics as it was anything else.”

Working from a directive from JannWenner (of Rolling Stone magazineand the Hall of Fame) to make the setlook both traditional and modern,

Brahic was inspired by the texturesand surfaces of an acoustic guitar.“That’s where the wood and silver—like from the strings—and the glossyblack and very light-colored wood inthe set came from,” she says.“Obviously, it was done in a veryabstracted way, but one side of theturntable wall was actually the fret—the fingerboard of a guitar—if youlooked at is closely. The portals wereoriginally going to be high-glossblack—a reflective, smoky Plexiglas—so Allen could blast light from behindthem, or they could just be reflectiveblack surfaces.”

Acadia Scenic, of Jersey City,constructed the arches, verticalscenery, wood, and divider wall for theturntable. Wenner loved the design butfelt it lacked something that identifiedit with the Hall of Fame and made itspecific to this event. He commis-sioned the artist Gary Kelley to createa mural depicting the original class of

The screens at the top of the set were designed to accommodate the audience’s 270° configuration.


Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees:Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, LittleRichard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley,Fats Domino, James Brown, RayCharles, Sam Cooke, and the EverlyBrothers, which was incorporated intothe portals under the set’s arch. Brahicworked with Kelley on the colorpalette, making it light-friendly for TVand theatrical lighting purposes.

“He actually did the drawings on asmall scale and then had high-resolution scans made; we printedeverything on Textiline, which is aplastic mesh material,” Brahicexplains. “Stretching that fabric oversuch large-sized set pieces wasdifficult, because you know you’regoing to end up with puckers andwrinkles, and, of course, we weren’table to spend days stretching thingsout. But with some creative lighting, afew gobos, and by trying not to light ittoo steeply from the side, it worked.”

As soon Brahic had a setrendering, she called Ed Kish, of KishRigging. “It all looked simple andnon-threatening until I learned howmuch time there was to load it in,” hesays. “It was basically a four-dayload-in that happened in one day.Everybody had to do their homework.It was a good team, so, in the end, itall worked. There was a lot of prepro-duction effort on everybody’s part. Itwasn’t your typical TV-only show—there was a big emphasis on the liveevent, which gave it a little bitdifferent spin on how it came about.

“I had a big role in this projectfrom the onset, because I didn’t wantto find myself in a situation where wefailed,” Kish continues.“Consequently, I ended up collabo-rating with Allen and Anne to definewhat it was that we were going to do,perform that analysis, and do someplanning to make it possible toexecute it. Our head rigger, FrankDawson, ended up doing the work onsite, to mold it and shape it.”

Before the actual load-in, Kish’steam did a prerig and a prebuild,utilizing the Garden’s rotunda, anadjacent space underneath the seatsin the arena, to store all the rigging,automation, lighting package, cables,and equipment from other depart-ments. “That allowed us to essentiallyprebuild as much of the show aspossible and put it on wheels, sothat, when they finally gave us thebuilding, we could do as much in asshort of a period as possible,” Kishexplains. “It was our first timeworking with [line producer] FrankGarritano; he provided goodleadership and was willing to supportus—and then load-in was a week’sworth of suffering in a day! The LocalOne crew should get a high-five.They’re extremely professional andskilled. It would not have happenedwithout Dennis White and his crew.”

During this process, says Brahic,Kish recommended installingautomation for the video screens; thiswas done by Las Vegas-based Show

Group. Pete’s Big TVs supplied thevideo screens, which included a 15' x55' rear-projection screen upstage,which also flew in and out for thevarious acts. Six Barco SLMprojectors were stacked to project thestill photos as one seamless image.The design also featured a 15' x 55'(actually 80', if laid flat) curved LEDscreen, which showed short films tointroduce each act, or “pod,” asdubbed by the production. Thescreen flew up to reveal the stage,and provided IMAG support.Manufactured by Glux in China, itwas composed of 18.75mm meshpanels, which allowed for a light-weight, semi-transparent screen thatcould be formed into a curved shape.

Guy Benjamin, of Pete’s, set up ademo for supervising films producerRick Austin, art director Star Kahn,and head rigger Dawson. “They origi-nally wanted a higher-resolutionscreen, but the 18mm offers goodtransparency—the 8mm, not somuch,” Benjamin says. “After weworked with Rick on choosing thescreen, we worked with Kish Riggingon how to build it and how it was tofly, because they engineered that.”

Indeed, Austin feels the videosystem was a success. “We builtwhat we called a 180° ring screenthat matched the dimensions of theturntable stage, which allowed oneact to be set up behind while anotheract was performing,” he explains. “Itwas a set piece that served many

Different lighting treatments helped to change the look of the murals on the set’s arches.

Photos:AnneBrahic



functions: as a scrim to hide whatwas going on during the setups; as avideo screen, so that everyone inMadison Square Garden could see;as a curtain that rose to reveal thenext act; and, while it was in therafters, as an IMAG screen, so theaudience could see close-ups of thebands as they performed.

“The best part was that everysingle artist came just for their love ofrock ‘n’ roll,” Austin continues. “Theyweren’t there to make money or sell anew album; they came to celebraterock ‘n’ roll—they wanted to meetand play with their heroes and be partof this once-in-a-lifetime concert. Itseemed to be a labor of love foreverybody involved, and I don’t thinkit would have gotten done any otherway. That said, the show itself was agigantic undertaking and a realchallenge for Anne, and for Allen andhis crew, to have to create anenvironment that worked for everysingle artist who performed. Theyboth did a great job in designingsomething that was so malleable andthat looked completely different underthe changing lighting.”

Solving the lighting puzzleThe lighting team (Branton and long-time lighting directors Kevin Lawsonand Felix Peralta) employed aninnovative—and somewhat risky—

solution to paint the wooden-edgedetail on Brahic’s set pieces, in orderto make the mural of the original Hallof Fame inductees disappear attimes. “Because we were going to benot only doing this event but also aDVD project and an HBO special, thatart was so distinctive that you had toa.) find various different lighting treat-ments for it so it wouldn’t look thesame the whole time, and b.) selec-tively let it go away to give people arest from it, or the show would startto look too much the same,” Brantonexplains. “I thought that maybe wecould just light the wood, but, witheverything being a curve, thetechniques we’ve used for this sort ofthing in the past wouldn’t work.”

Executing a thorough study usingVectorworks, Lawson came up withthe idea of using custom gobos incertain lighting units. “The archeswere nestled one on top of anotherand from strange angles, so webasically had to create a couple ofcustom templates that would allow usto sheath the arches,” he says.“Using the [Vari*Lite] VL3500 spotsand various sweeping curves, weended up with four different customtemplates that were deployed in fourdifferent places in the rig and allowedus to tightly focus in and isolate thatwood from the arch. There wasn’t anyreal way to test it out before we got

there, so I just figured it out as best Icould on the computer. It was a bit ofa leap of faith. Basically, they wereshort curves, and, between Felix andme, we figured out how to jigsaw-puzzle it all together. When it was alldone, it was a very striking look; itreally gave the scenery someplaceelse to go other than just being thesepanels full of murals.”

“I really think it was successful,”Branton concurs. “It wouldn’t havelooked nearly as good without all ofthat. But it was really a throw of thedice. We hadn’t tried anything quitethat quirky before—especiallyknowing that we’d have no time toreposition any lights or make anymajor adjustments to it if it didn’twork. Kevin tinkered with it on and offthe whole time, and, by the time wegot to that Thursday, it was in prettygood shape—and, on Friday, it wasreally singing. I really have to hand itto the two of them.”

In terms of choosing lighting units,the fact that the set was big andtightly layered on top of itselfpresented an unusual challenge. “In alot of ways, it would have beeneasier to go into a more openenvironment,” Lawson says. “Butthey had this gorgeous, elegant pieceof scenery up there, so it became abigger challenge to produce this rockshow in the midst of this kind ofclassic environment.”

The lighting rig included eightVari*Lite VL2500 Wash units, 27Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots, 56 Vari*LiteVL3500 Spots, 72 Coemar InfinityWash units, 10 Coemar ACLs, 10PRG Bad Boys, nine Syncrolite SXB-7/3s, 28 Martin Atomic Strobes withcolor scrollers, 30 Philips ColorKinetics iW Blasts, nine Philips CKColorBlaze 72s, and eight StrongEntertainment Lighting SuperTrouper II and five Lycian Starklite1271 followspots. Lawson andPeralta ran the show from four MALighting grandMA consoles.

“In general, Felix lights the thingsBecause of the severe time restraints, the lighting package was entirely automated.


and I light the people,” Lawsonexplains. “He lights the scenery anddoes most of the heavy effectlighting; I light the audience and extrakey players, and operate thededicated backlights to performers.”

Atomic Lighting, provided thelighting gear, with Brad Hafer,VP/director of account management’sinvolvement. “When we did the Rockand Roll Hall of Fame induction showin Cleveland this past spring, Atomicbrought us a really good proposal forbringing the lighting equipment downto Cleveland from Lititz, Pennsylvania,[where Atomic is located]; I’ve knownhim a long time and trusted him, sowe went for that,” Branton says.“And, at the end of that gig, the guysreported to me that, with hisequipment package, we had zerofailures. In all the years I’ve beendoing this, I’ve never had that happenbefore. It’s utterly unheard of. Thatone performance in Cleveland movedhim to the top of our list of who wewanted to try to use for this show—as long as he could make the budgetwork, staff it properly, and all that.They did a great job.”

Due to the severe time constraints,the lighting rig was completelyautomated. And although Branton isnot typically a fan of designinglighting via computer software, theteam did use the services of theprevisualization studio Prelite for thisevent. “Prelite was useful informatting the show, because itallowed us to deal with a lot of thehousekeeping—creating the formats,the cue stacks, the preset focuses,and everything you need to build thecues—beforehand,” Branton says.“They made a lot of progress, but itstill varied widely, regarding which ofthose things could be used on sitebecause, when you get it on camera,it might not look quite right forwhatever reason, due to the vagariesof photography. Plus, most of theartists were changing their mindsabout what they were going to play

right up until the end. It was reallytricky. At times, it was borderlineimpossible to get settled andcomfortable with any of it. We werefeeling that everything was about togo off the rails at any minutethroughout the whole thing.”

Like Kish, Branton also credits theLocal One crew for holding everythingtogether. “They did the load-in andthen the show on Thursday and theynever went to sleep,” he says. “Butthat night, it was pretty flawless ontheir part. That was one of the morecourageous bands of guys I’ve everworked with. They had to be fried byFriday night, but they did a fantasticjob. I was pretty impressed; it was areal endurance contest.”

Other personnel included DavidOakes (head gaffer); Ronnie Skopacand John Ellar (best boys); JustinCheatham, Mike Grimes, JasonLivingston, McClain Moss, DavePretz, and Mike Smallman (lightingtechnicians); Casey Diers andCamden Peterson (lighting assis-tants); Liberty Bock (operationsmanager); and Gayle Depoli (techmanager). Lighting was alsosupplied by Syncrolite and TriCityPhoton Research.

From a design point of view, the

range of performers also posed amajor lighting challenge. “Simon &Garfunkel and Metallica—evenSpringsteen and U2—are differentworlds,” Branton says. “The modelfor this was unusual in that theimperatives of television usually endup overwhelming the live events thatwe do. In this case, the live eventhad equal weight to the televisionaspect of it; it was produced by LiveNation, and Dan Parise was theirman. I was really impressed with howwell-balanced he kept the twodomains in good balance all the way.And he was a virtuoso in terms ofworking the physical and politicalaspects of getting something in andout of Madison Square Garden. Ashard as that was, we really didn’thave any hiccups or friction beyondthe clock.

“Honestly, when you first looked atit this thing on paper, it was like youwere being invited to participate in adisaster. But then all of these goodpeople got in there, put their headstogether, and figured out how tomake it work,” Branton concludes.“I’m really proud and grateful for thejob that everybody did. To a man,they were all fabulous.”

Hail, hail rock and roll, indeed.

“It was basically a four-day load-in that happened in one day,” notes Ed Kish.

Photos:AnneBrahic

concerts / television · resume, including woodstock 1994 and 1999, allen branton, the event’s...

Documents