NEW YORK, NY – Cory FitzGerald rocked NBC’s Studio 8H with a state of the art rig for Uptown Funk featuring Bruno Mars.
More details from Ayrton distributor Morpheus Lights (www.morpheuslights.com):
“Uptown Funk” from Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars, is the infectious up-tempo celebration of good times in the big city that has topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the last 3 months. Ronson and Mars were on top of their game when they performed the hit on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in a dazzling production designed by Cory FitzGerald of Seven Design Works.
FitzGerald has worked with Mars as production designer for tours and special performances over the past few years, including consulting on last year’s Moonshine Jungle Tour. “For Saturday Night Live, Bruno came to me early on – before they released the song – and shared with me what he wanted to do and gave me some visual references. I immediately thought of Ayrton’s IntelliPix™-R LED beam projector panels. They became the basis of the whole concept,” explains FitzGerald.
Once Ronson and Mars gave the go-ahead, FitzGerald got to work. He explains that the final design was focused on achieving a specific mood, “We wanted to stay in a nightclub theme. The genre that we going for was sort of an 80’s rock and roll nightclub kind of feel.” IntelliPix units were used to provide the scenic tableau that FitzGerald wanted to create on the SNL stage. He says, “I like them because they’re a lighting fixture that’s not trying to fake video. We were basically building scenery out of them. They have a nice solid structure and a great look. The output is very much what we were looking for: a circular pin-spot beam – almost like an old ACL type feel – but with a more modern take on it.”
The production designer adds, “The color rendering is great and the intensity is almost overpowering. We had to run them very low for the TV cameras, but they still looked great! Although they are simple fixed panels, you can get a lot of looks out of them because their narrow beams blast on through – they’re very bright and very collimated.”
IntelliPix™-R mounts twenty-five 15-watt RGBW LED emitters coupled with 67mm diameter, 4.5º collimator optics in a 5 x 5 array. The fixture projects sharply defined beams that punch through atmosphere to create volumetric graphic effects.
For the SNL appearance FitzGerald arranged the fixtures to form an architectural space that focused and contained the exuberant performance as the fixtures chased, flashed and dazzled both the live audience and television viewers at home. FitzGerald notes, “It wasn’t bit-mapped. We treated each individual emitter as an individual light fixture.”
FitzGerald programmed the performance himself using a grandMA 2 console. “IntelliPix™-R is a great light because it does what it does so incredibly well. The fixture is just so well thought out and the console profile is so clean that it was very easy for me to program. Once everything was built and I had it grouped in the console, I could mess around as much as I wanted, and everything worked out really well,” he says. The total rig was 55 panels: 12 each on upstage towers to the left and right and 31 positioned on the floor as a knee-wall “bandstand” just behind the dance floor. Morpheus Lights of Las Vegas Nevada, the exclusive US Distributor for Ayrton, imported 60 IntelliPix™-R fixtures from France to support the SNL appearance. Keith Bennett, Morpheus’ National Sales Consultant, coordinated the project in conjunction with Bruno Mars’ tour lighting vendor.
Key to making the whole process work seamlessly, were SNL’s lighting designer/director Geoff Amoral and Melanie Malone who handles talent relations for the show. FitzGerald notes, “Everyone at Broadway Video and Saturday Night Live were very kind and cordial about us coming in with so much equipment – they went out of their way to make it work and really helped us out!”
As the song says, “Don’t believe me, just watch.” Video of the performance can be seen at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbGX1Sx0gvo.
Las Vegas based Morpheus Lights is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton products in the United States. Morpheus also provides Concert Touring systems and personnel, B-to-B Equipment Rental and Lighting Services for the Las Vegas market. Further information and contacts can be found at www.morpheuslights.com.
