SUN CITY, South Africa – Gearhouse South Africa supplied technical production including lighting, video and sound for "It's No Joke," a comedy festival promoted by 46664/Real Concerts at the Sun City Super Bowl. The one-off event raised funds for the Nelson Mandela charities by bringing 10 of South Africa's top-draw comedians to the stage, including Trevor Noah, Marc Lottering, John Vlismas, Tumi Morake, Nik Rabinowitz, Ndumiso Lindi, Chris Forrest, David Kau, Riaad Moosa and Barry Hilton.
Promoter and show producer Roddy Quinn asked Gearhouse's Tim Dunn to create the visual design for the show, seen by 4,500.Dunn produced a sophisticated-yet-simple stage look that allowed the performers to communicate directly with the audience and feel like they were in a more intimate space than the cavernous Super Bowl.
To aid the technical flow of the busy show, Dunn integrated control of the outro audio cues for each artist, applying video effects and running them from his grandMA lighting console.
Each performer, relying heavily upon improv, had to be clearly seen from every seat in the auditorium, as their facial expressions and gesticulations were a key par of their performance. Dunn's open-stage set used a cross-shaped LED screen setup.
"I really wanted something contemporary and alternative to the standard two side screen I-Mag setup," said Dunn, adding, "that would have been too distracting. The whole idea was to keep everyone completely engaged with what was happening onstage."
The screen, supplied by LED Vision, was made up from Lighthouse Technologies R16i/o ll modules. The top was 69 meters high and the sides 14 meters wide. LEDVision operations manager Allen Evans handled the LED aspects and camera direction on site.
Dunn's LED design was tricky, as the center panel was flown and the side screens stacked on Layher before the three separate screens were locked together. Kendall Dixon and his team from Gearhouse Rigging were on hand to advise with this delicate procedure.
Gearhouse AV supplied three I-Mag cameras, positioned at FOH, in the pit and at either side of the stage.
Feeds from each of these, plus additional playback content – ambient clips, logos and 46664 logos – were stored on an MA video server run from Dunn's lighting console. They were sized and output to screen via a Barco Encore system.
In keeping with the simplicity of the design, there were two circular lighting trusses above the stage. They each measured between six and 16 meters in diameter, and used with stretched fabric to complement the shape of the screen, lit with changing colors and gobo effects from the lighting fixtures below.
Each comedian had their own music intros and exits, and for the convenience of control, Dunn and the team from Gearhouse Media (Chris Grandin and Marcel Wijnberger) decided that these audio elements should be run from the grandMA lighting desk via one of the MA VPUs.
It was the first time that they had run sound from the lighting desk, but the concept worked well and also allowed Dunn to choose specific video clips and edit and match them to the audio – all adding to the visual dynamics of the presentation.
"It gave us a really tight and coherent control that allowed us to integrate sound and visuals – and apart from anything else, it was really good fun to be controlling sound from the lighting desk for once," said Dunn.
As with the set design, the lighting design was clean and simple, using a rig of all Robe moving lights – 24 ColorSpot 2500E ATs were positioned on the circular trusses, and 23 REDWash LED wash fixtures were divided between the air trusses and the floor. Another eight Robe ROBIN Spot 300s on the floor were used for gobo texturing and coloring the circular ceiling and for upstage beamwork.
For more information, please visit www.gearhouse.co.za .
