New York's Edition of Live Earth Was Filled with New Technology
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CONCERTS Copyright Lighting&Sound America August 2007 www.lightingandsoundamerica.com New York’s edition of Live Earth was filled with new technology, logistical challenges, and lessons about conservation By: David Barbour he most important issue of our time got its due on you could have enjoyed a country fest at the National T July 7, when the world rocked to the global series of Museum of the American Indian with Garth Brooks and concerts known as Live Earth. The brainchild of Al Gore, Trisha Yearwood. and conceived in the tradition of Live Aid and Live 8, the There are many ironies associated with Live Earth. concerts, held in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Traveling out to Giants Stadium to check out the load-in, it Kyoto, Shanghai, Hamburg, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, was impossible not to notice that this ecological event was and Washington, D.C., were designed to raise world staged in the Meadowlands, that stretch of industrial consciousness on the issue of climate change. (Counting wasteland and urban development that is a testament to an appearance by Nunatak, a pickup band of scientists in much that’s wrong with our modern consumer culture; from Antarctica, the event took place on all seven continents.) the stadium’s parking lot, one could see the hulking, half- Depending on what city you were in, you could hear finished structure of Xanadu, a giant new shopping mall. The Police, plus John Mayer and Kanye West, singing Furthermore, all concerts were overseen by the same “Message in a Bottle,” and Melissa Etheridge performing “I design team: Ray Winkler, of Stufish, in charge of the set, Need to Wake Up,” the Oscar-winning theme song from and Patrick Woodroffe, the head lighting designer. In the the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Or you could see past, they’ve been responsible for some of the biggest The Beastie Boys, dressed in green suits, followed by spectacles in concert-touring history, the kind of energy- Madonna performing a new song, “Hey You,” urging guzzling events that critics of Live Earth love to cite when political action. You could have seen the sun set on accusing Gore and his entertainment-world friends of Copacabana Beach with Lenny Kravitz and Macy Gray. Or hypocrisy. Yet, at the event, the message of energy- Photo: Todd Kaplan Photo: Todd 64 • August 2007 • Lighting&Sound America www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • August 2007 • 65 CONCERTS efficiency was heard loud and clear— for the NFL Kickoff, held in Florida, he most reminiscent of the LSD Icon and, in many cases, the design says, “All the plywood built for the set fixture, which is something a lot of us pointed the way to a new green was donated to Habitat for Humanity have been looking for.” Bravely, the approach to concert touring. to build houses in the Miami area, and designer took the first 18 units off the The set was a three-sided array of all unserved, prepared food was assembly line—and, he reports, “We tires in scarlet and gray, with a long, donated to soup kitchens. We also buy had exactly one color issue the entire narrow horizontal band of video wall carbon offsets for most of the flights week, which was resolved by cutting across the center. “Due to the we take, and for our daily operations.” resetting the unit from the console. multitude of venues, locations, and Dierson says the event’s lighting These units were deluged with rain for stages, we had to come up with a design had two major green aspects. three straight days during setup. One unifying look that tied the show “Patrick Woodroffe focused on morning, the guys fired up the rig together as a global TV experience,” making a lighting rig that used much and, literally, a gallon of water came says Winkler. “The tires were a higher-wattage fixtures—but far fewer out of each of the downstage units— symbolic gesture towards our carbon- of them,” says Dierson. “We had and the units came on. We were dependent culture. Their size and about 70 moving lights onstage in a blown away.” form allowed us to replicate the world show where we might normally have Filling out the moving light rig was map logo used for the event in a way 200—that way, we had much less a set of Coemar Infinity Wash XLs, that would read well on and off energy consumption. Of course, there chosen because they were the cameras. The long, narrow band of was a big push to use LEDs.” brightest units available and thus video on the wall allowed the Live Earth in New York marked the could hold their own with the organizers to use it as a giant ticker, debut of the SHOWGUN, the new Showguns. Artfag’s Spike Brant, the to scroll statistics and images in a moving light from High End Systems. broadcast LD for the event, also news-flash style.” It’s a large-scale unit that can project specified a package of Martin In London, the wall was made of images, mix dichroic colors, and Professional MAC 2000 wash units oil drums. “As a mass-produced, switch from hard to soft-edge mode. and Vari*Lite VL2416s and VL5As, industrialized object, it shared the It uses a 2,000W short-arc metal- most of which were placed in same symbolic and practical halide lamp, designed with Philips strategic positions around the characteristics of the tires,” says Lighting. Also, the unit contains an stadium to light the audience. Winkler. The South Africa and Rio LED tracking system, which forms a Then there were the LEDs. shows, because of budget issues, circle around the lens. “Woodroffe came up with the concept instead used a printed vinyl backdrop The Showgun “puts out a of the EcoPod,” says Dierson. of the world map logo. ridiculous amount of light,” says “Basically, it was to be a lighting/set Woodroffe specified a basic Dierson. “The LEDs on it alone are element—a chandelier style thing. He lighting rig, although the gear in each almost 5,000 lumens. At first you wanted it to be somewhat organic city was different, depending on think, [the LED ring] is just another and also to represent something that availability; also, each city had a gag. But you can change their colors everyday people could use. After lighting designer who worked with the independently, you can pixelmap bouncing ideas back and forth with local acts. As Patrick Dierson, the them into your video system. You can Woodroffe, I came up with a version lighting designer in charge of Giants have a magenta light beam with that was comprised of sticks of mini- Stadium, notes, Woodroffe’s rig yellow LEDs, for example. You can beam truss, wrapped in a Rose Brand incorporated many energy-saving swing the units back and light the set cloth called Brussan Molding Cloth, ideas. All of which was fine with with only the LEDs.” He adds, and based to look like stone. I took Dierson, who recently officially laughing, “We actually used them as compact fluorescent lightbulbs—the became a member of the design firm a work light one night, when the kind you can buy in any hardware Artfag (along with Justin Collie and stage had to be painted and we store—and had them circuited to do Doug “Spike” Brant). “Environmental didn’t want to keep the rig’s chases. Chris Daly at PRG New sustainability is extremely important discharge lamps cooking. Also, the Jersey helped greatly in finding the to Artfag,” says Dierson, adding that LEDs have 16-bit color mixing, which proper bulb that would respond well his colleagues have persuaded some is super-smooth—that’s one of the to [ETC’s] Sensor rack dimming, as high-profile clients—including Bon deadly things on most LEDs; they’re compact fluorescent lamps can be Jovi and the NFL—to switch to usually extremely steppy.” quite sensitive to that. They had the biodiesel-fueled trucks for their Also, Dierson says, the Showgun brightness of a 45W bulb, but with events, among other things. Indeed, “has some really cool effects. They’re only 8W of energy.” After the show, he Photos: Todd Kaplan Photos: Todd 66 • August 2007 • Lighting&Sound America Winkler’s set design wrapped the stage in a wall of tires, lit by LEDs plus a horizontal band of video. adds, the units were given to lighting MR16 striplight. And, with the color worldwide.) Kevin Lawson and companies to use in their offices— mixing, you can flavor your color Michael Appel were the programmers setting an example by recycling. temperature to your taste—you’re not for New York. Dierson notes that the In addition, PixelRange, the LED stuck at 3,200K. We were really grandMA’s ability to be broken up into company recently spun off of James pleased with them. We’re slowly “worlds,” allowing more than one Thomas Engineering, acting as a starting to see the ability of LEDs to person to program at the same time sponsor of Live Earth, donated a replace traditional stage units.” without interfering with the others, number of its products for the Completing the LED complement, the was extremely useful here. concert (in London, as well). Among tires on the set walls glowed “Many acts came in with their these were PixelLine 1044 battens. throughout the evening, because they lighting designers, which was “Again, the emphasis was on being were outlined in Versa Pixels from helpful,” says Dierson. “We were in able to light the stage really well, with Element Labs.