Alex Mungal Creates Galactic Looks for Motionless in White with Chauvet Professional

	Show opener "Meltdown," when the band walks on to a dark stage that suddenly erupts with fiery red and orange light and video displays.

Alex Mungal readily admits it: he can get pretty nerdy when it comes to Star Trek. Metal music fans who packed venues in 33-cities for Motionless in White's just-concluded Touring The End Of The World Tour of North America can readily understand why.

Channeling his fascination with all things Galactic, Mungal opened a window to a dazzling array of looks in support of the band's 18-song set by drawing inspiration from Star Trek's iconic Romulan and Klingon warships.

"I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek and Doctor Who, so it's no surprise that I draw on the architecture and set design from those stories," says Mungal, owner of Alien Lites. "For this tour, we based our overhead truss configuration on the wing-shaped warships. This gave us a lot of different angles to direct light from. We had glowing light coming in from the sides of the giant wings. Also, the control center of the 'space craft' in this configuration is top middle, which was ideal for us to use when creating unique looks with our octagon pod."

Although the Star Trek inspired design provided endless opportunities to conjure up out-of-this-world looks, it also made it necessary for Mungal to compensate for the absence of front light positions. Happily, he was able to maximize the advantage of this starship configuration, while at the same time more that making up for the absence of front lighting. by adroitly deploying a rig that featured 56 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Premier Global Production.

Key to making the dominant wing structure come alive were the rig's 16 Maverick MK3 Washes. Mungal hung four of the high output RGBW units on each of the double wings over the stage. Drawing on the fixtures' brightness and color rendering capabilities, he turned the structure into a glowing centerpiece. He also relied on the wide 5.2° to 65.1° zoom range of the wash units to engineer dramatic changes in coverage areas.

"The Mavericks were very important in creating varied looks to reflect different moments," says Mungal. "They were used as bright punchy washes to light the band and dancers. They also gave us everything from wash looks and pixel effects, to great aerial effects that played off beautifully against the haze and fog. We called on atmospherics for some creepy scary songs, in addition to rolling out lots of pyro and flame effects. Given the kind of band this is, we had a lot of variations and scene change ups throughout the show."

Contributing to this diversity of looks in the show, and smoothly playing of its stunning and dynamic video component, while also filling the role of front lights were the rig's 40 Color STRIKE M motorized lights, which were run in 97channel mode.

"We had the STRIKE Ms all over the stage and relied on them for everything imaginable," says Mungal. "Some were in the air and used as effect/strobe lights, as well as audience blinders, since we had no standard FOH Truss. Others were on the upstage riser, where they worked as drum lights as well as audience lights -- we really made good use of the tilt function in those cases.

"On top of that, we had some STRIKE Ms downstage underneath the risers, and in side stage positions, so we could use them as scary uplight for the artist," continues Mungal. "Again, not having a direct front wash pushed us to use the side and uplight fixtures to our advantage."

In addition to its distinctive overhead truss structure, the tour's design had an impressively large riser. This platform accommodated four dancers who did everything from fire acts to ballet sequences.

"Being able to elevate performers on either side of the drummer allowed us to direct focus wherever we needed it, whether downstage or upstage," says Mungal. "The staircases on either side leading to the offstage wings made it possible to have the characters disappear and reappear nicely and cleanly without being distractive."

Inspired color mixing elevated the impact of every look in the tour's expansive panorama. This was evident in one of Mungal's favorites during the song, "Another Life," when the stage is saturated in a blue/lavender shade as cold white spots cut through faux snow.

Another one of the designer's top moments was in the show opener "Meltdown," when the band walks on to a dark stage that suddenly erupts with fiery red and orange light and video displays, as an image on the big center stage wall shows earth receding into the infinite vastness of space. It's a jaw dropping moment for anyone ready to journey into the unknown, whether they're a Star Trek devotee or not.