Michael Smalley and Gabriel Fraboni Update Pitbull’s Show Looks
For Pitbull’s 2016 tour, Michael Smalley and Gabriel Fraboni collaborated on the production design, with Smalley once again serving as lighting designer, programmer and director. Smalley and Fraboni also shared video content duties for the show.
Michael Smalley: “I liked the idea of slightly overlapping video walls and have portrait dimension screens for I-Mag. Our video setup really came out of that. The flown rig was something I played around with for a long time before settling on this. I think everyone was really pleased with the final result, it proved to be really flexible visually as well as technically and framed the stage in a nice way.
“It’s always a tight schedule. We had three days of preproduction. I went through the entirety of the show and reimagined looks and cleaned up timings for songs. Luckily not much of our timecode has changed, so we were able to build upon what we had, instead of ground-up programming. That being said, the show is wildly different from a lighting perspective, with new color palettes and effect ideas for almost all the songs.”
Gabriel Fraboni: “Michael is the driving creative force behind Pitbull, but we constantly bounce ideas off each other to achieve the end product. Once we have a final design, I handle all the technical paperwork and advancing with production manager Max Kernich so Michael can focus on the big picture creative.
Necessity and logistics required Smalley and Fraboni to work pretty independently on video. They will have a couple quick chats about general ideas, then send a lot of screen shots or FaceTime a little to make sure the initial direction is good.
Gabriel Fraboni: “The lighting and video vendor did an unbelievable job on this tour. [Account rep] Matt McCormick is an all-star; he and his team were a huge part of the tours success. We were pleased with VER. Due to our schedules, Michael and I both arrived the second day of rehearsals. The rig was 100 percent operational and beautifully built. That immediately allowed Michael and I to take a deep breath and focus on other creative aspects of the show.”
Michael Smalley: “If Gabe is heading up the video, I’ll often give my general color ideas for lighting. In the best scenarios we are in the same room working, but that’s rare.
“On a tour like this, every department has to integrate seamlessly. How better to achieve that with one great vendor? The lighting techs were such great crew guys. Gallagher Staging came on board to build our Vegas riser setup. Since our tour package uses some similar components from last year’s setup. it was a no-brainer to go with them again. They did a great job and were such a fun group of guys to work with.
“This tour really took a village to bring to life. It was such a joy to see all these amazing folks working so hard every day to create an awesome experience for the fans. Everyone involved had their head in the game and worked till it was perfect. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
Crew
- Production Designers: Michael Smalley, Gabriel Fraboni
- Lighting Designer & Programmer: Michael Smalley
- Video Content: Michael Smalley, Gabriel Fraboni
- Production Manager: Max Kernich
- Tour Manager: Frida Karlsson
- Production Assistant: Jenn Laski
- Road Manager: Imaltzin Olvera
- Lighting/Video Co: VER/Matt McCormick
- Lighting Crew Chief: Joe Gonzales
- Lighting Tech: Mikey Brancato
- Dimmers: Shawn Gallen (FOH), Sam Raphael, Dan Rodriguez
- Video Director/Crew Chief: Joe Priester
- Video Engineer: Brian “Bubba” Reese
- LED Lead Tech: Sixx Williams
- Projectionist: Edwin Lewis
- LED Tech/Camera Ops: Tyler Fields, Taylor Espittee
- Head Rigger: Russell Keith
- Riggers: Chris Regan (Crew Chief), Lance Weaver
- Staging: Gallagher Staging/Joe Gallagher
- Head Carpenter: Rick Ortega
- Carpenters: Ryan Tillman, Evan McCarville, Zephyn Kercher
- Pyro: Pyrotek Special Effects
- Trucking: On Tour Logistics
Gear
- 2 grandMA2 full size consoles
- 2 MA Lighting NPUs
- 46 Robe BMFLs
- 8 Martin MAC Viper Washes
- 28 Martin MAC Quantum Washes
- 66 GLP impression X4S fixtures
- 88 Chauvet Nexus 4×4 panels
- 16 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes
- 10 8-Lite Molefays
- 4 DF50 hazers
- 528 WinVision 9 Air LED tiles
- 3 PRG Mbox Studio Media Servers
- 1 ArKaos Media Master
More tour photos by Steve Jennings:
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