Core to the strikingly impressive lighting design by Mark Butts, production and lighting
designer at Los Angeles-based Preset Productions, are 103 Ayrton MagicPane-602
fixtures, supplied by global rental company VER. This helps to realise a unique design
intent by Butts and co-production designer and show director, Raj Kapoor, whose aim
was to start forging a signature “brand image’ for the band.
This is the first time that Butts and Kapoor are touring with OneRepublic. “We have
worked with the band before, but never on a big tour, and we were keen to start
developing a visual style and brand for them which captures their personality and
image,’ explains Butts. “We wanted this tour to be the first step in defining the
OneRepublic style and to make them known for their live shows in a similar way to
iconic bands like Muse, Rammstein, U2 or Nine Inch Nails.’
The Honda Civic Tour is travelling with a big lighting package, but Butts did not want
to conform to a conventional “big’ light show. “We wanted to create something
different for the band, something architectural and modern that would focus down on
them and provide an interesting environment for them to play in,’ he says.
As a starting point, Butts and Kapoor rigged ten lighting trusses in pairs at a 35°
angle to form a series of receding “triangles’ which get progressively smaller upstage.
These were loaded with 103 MagicPanel-602 fixtures to create a type of architectural
ceiling piece with which to frame the band.
Despite the two downstage trusses being on a Kinesys system (to allow them to be
flown out during the sponsor’s promotional videos at the interval), there is very little
movement in either the trusses or the MagicPanel-602 fixtures during the show.
“As part of the architectural effect, we envisioned the show’s dynamics coming almost
exclusively from the selection on the face of each MagicPanel-602,’ explains Butts.
“We deliberately kept our use of colour to a minimum, using only five colours – red,
blue and different shades of white – in the whole show and, barring one number, each
song is entirely monochromatic. This keeps it clean and modern-looking, and we can
make all the statements we want to make with all the other tools we have.
Butts has achieved some truly unique looks by using the face of the MagicPanel-602
to stunning effect with some very individual results. “One of our rules is never to
allow ourselves to let the MagicPanel look like a MagicPanel. It would be too easy to
turn them on and run a dimmer effect through them. Instead, we want something no-
one has ever done before, which leave the audience wondering do it is achieved?
“One of my favourite effects is to select the outer four corner “pixels’ of each panel
and do a little dimmer chase through it. It looks like a shimmering starfield, and if you
do it right with just a small pan and tilt, it looks like the whole thing is breathing and
moving in a very organic kind of way. So it’s a cool way to take a very “techie’ type of
fixture and make it look like something completely different, to the extent you can’t
tell what you are looking at.’
Butts and his team also make a point of never using the same effect twice, so there is
always a different selection on the MagicPanel face. With a 24-song set list over a 90-
minute show, that demands the creation of a lot of different looks: “Brian Jenkins, our
programmer, must get some credit for that as he was a big part, along with A.J. Pen,
OneRepublic’s lighting director of six or seven years, who also worked closely with us
on that. Brian’s speciality is to dig deep into that side of things. It might take twenty
minutes to set up an effect, but it will be something that no-one has ever seen
before.’
MagicPanel-602 was first released by Ayrton in 2013, but Butts is adamant that the
MagicPanel-602 still has a lot to offer. “MagicPanel-602 is so versatile that you can
just keep changing the programming and never repeat yourself. You can make them
look however you want. Even though the MagicPanel-602s are the older models, I feel
there is still so much untapped potential with these fixtures.
The MagicPanel-602 fixtures travel easily in pre-rigged truss and are consequently
valuable space savers in a shed tour that travels with only six or seven trucks. “We
don’t have space for a lot of production, weight or power, so it made sense to use an
LED product like MagicPanel-602 because they don’t use much power, they don’t take
up much space, they are not heavy,’ concludes Butts. “There are so many different
positives as to why we would go to a product like this, and the logistics feature heavily
alongside the aesthetics in trying to produce this huge looking production on a
budget.’
The 16th annual Tour launched in Kansas City on 7 July and finished in The
Woodlands, Texas on 12 September, before crossing the Pacific to Asia for more dates
between 17-25 September.
