Fred Bock Finds "Perfect Fit" for Nexus on The Tonight Show

	5 Seconds of Summer, appearing on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, with Chauvet Professional Nexus 4x4 panels.

Emmy-nominated television lighting designer Fred Bock is always filing away information about possible "future uses" when he encounters a new fixture. So when Bock of Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA) in New York saw the Nexus 4x4 LED panel from Chauvet Professional at LDI, he made a mental note. "I thought they did a nice job and could be a good replacement for halogen matrix panels," he said. "They seemed like a nice solution looking for a challenge."

Recently, Bock found a challenge that was tailor-made for the Nexus. The red-hot Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer, whose debut album charted at number one in 11 countries, was appearing on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, where Bock is the lighting designer. The band presented him with a concept sketch that called for a wall of quartz tungsten halogen panels, but Bock says he had a better idea.

"I felt that the Nexus panels would be much more versatile, easier to set up, and much less power hungry," he said. "I was trying to achieve the look presented in the rendering, which was a checker board arrangement of light panels. My feeling was that the Nexus panels would provide a more versatile look at a fraction of the power; plus they would be fairly easy to set up in our very tight performance area -- it was a perfect fit."

Having been nominated for four primetime Emmy Awards and possessing a portfolio that includes credits for everything from NBC Nightly News to Saturday Night Live, Bock knows whereof he speaks. So not surprisingly, the band's team readily took his advice. The Nexus panels would illuminate their appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.

Bock placed 43 Nexus panels vertically in alternating columns of two and three units on 17 sticks of 12" box truss. The columns were positioned stage left, upstage, and stage right, forming an intense light box type of structure on three sides of the band. A dedicated grandMA2 console with a dedicated programmer was used to control the panels, which were run mostly at 5-10 percent brightness, although sometimes they were bumped up to 20 percent to match some of the more intense moments in the band's performance.

"The Nexus panels provided a dynamic background for 5 Seconds of Summer that set them apart from most music performances on The Tonight Show," said Bock. "They created a very good image on camera with very vivid colors. We were originally going to go with a very warm tungsten feel per the band's request, but they changed their mind upon arriving in the studio, and we went with a cooler color palette."

Featuring aluminum alloy and steel housing with interlocking hardware, Nexus panels have been designed for easy set up and tear down, an attribute that was not lost on Bock. "I was impressed at how quickly the crew was able to get a new piece of gear integrated into our studio," he said. "All 43 fixtures were up and running in four hours with no problems, or technical hurdles." Based on this experience, Bock would now no doubt agree that his first impression of the Nexus as a "lighting solution" was indeed well founded.

For more information on Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA) visit www.flda.com.

See Chauvet Professional at PLASA Focus: Orlando, February 17 - 18, 2015.