High End SHAPESHIFTERs Illuminate US Naval Academy's All Saints Day, Halloween Concert

	US Naval Academy's All Saints Day with High End systems SHAPESHIFTER luminaires

The annual United States Naval Academy's All Saints Day/Halloween concert began 18 years ago as an idea between the newly appointed chapel organist, Monte Maxwell, and a midshipman named Nathan Gammache. During a brain storming meeting Maxwell mentioned to Gammache that he'd like to "do more" with the annual All Saints Day Concert. Maxwell's idea to turn it into a full-blown concert with midshipmen accompanying the organist as well as adding theatrical elements was the genesis for an incredible journey that started with eight small mirror fixtures and other "DJ-style" lighting effects.

Onboard since the very beginning, Arrow Entertainment has continued to illuminate the annual concerts, with the lighting consistently delivering an augmented sensory experience. For this year's show, Arrow Entertainment's Wayne Linderman and Wayne Sweet used 16 High End Systems SHAPESHIFTER luminaires, along with a smorgasbord of other HES gear to illuminate the performance. Sweet explains, "This show was our longest and just under two hours with the most equipment the chapel can reasonably hold. We used 16 SHAPESHIFTERs, 23 Intellaspots, eight Technospots, six Technoarcs, five DL3s, three SHOWGUNs along with about 80 other fixtures, all controlled by a Hog 4 desk."

Linderman states, "In addition to Wayne Sweet and myself, there are a litany of people who work together to make this happen every year." Sweet explains: "Preliminary meetings start in May each year between the designers, Monte Maxwell, the midshipmen, this year's producer and director Hayes Friddle and director James Hunter respectively, as well as the Navy's intermediary for all entertainment on the yard, Jason Williams with Three-Thirteen. As the meetings progress we discuss what worked and didn't work in the previous concert and go over new pieces for the upcoming concert. All in all there are four to five conference calls with tons of emails of ideas and logistics leading up to the week prior to the show. Wayne and I arrive early Sunday morning with an army of technicians lead by Justin Sorrentino of American AV. Installation of the lighting gear took over 12 hours as there are some very unique hurdles that have to be overcome when loading into the chapel, such as protecting a 110-year-old structure as well as everything it represents. The gear for this year's concert as well as the past few was provided by Rick McKinny and Robert Cox of MainLight Industries. Of course, we couldn't do this show without the support of the community and the dozens of midshipmen who volunteer their time between classes and late into the night, helping us make each and every show a stand-alone brilliant work of art."

The team placed the SHAPESHIFTERs along the balcony rails in the front and the back; they were used for wash and effect lighting. Sweet comments, "The SHAPESHIFTER is a very flexible fixture and super bright; in fact, with the exception of two songs, I had to keep their intensity dialed back to about 50 percent or less during the entire show. I got a good color mix out of it and with the moving pods I was able to wash a large area with the added benefit of still having control over the shape of that area. The pods were fast when I wanted them to be and smooth when I was trying for something more subtle. The concept of having movable pods to control the size and shape of the beam was brilliant, I had so much more control over it than with a traditional LED zoom system."

"I used the SHAPESHIFTERs in enhanced mode, which gave me a tremendous amount of control. I was able to come up was some pretty crazy effects; I feel like I was just starting to scratch the surface of what they are capable of doing. The macro functions came in very handy, being able to modify them even more so. They definitely sped up some of my programming, even if I had not been under a time crunch I still would have used the macros. I will absolutely use the SHAPESHIFTERs again and there will be more of them next time!"

The company says the indigo backlighter was another favorite feature for the lighting designers. Sweet adds, "I love the indigo backlighter! I got a lot of use out of that feature on this show, it was almost bright enough to use exclusively on the parts of the show that require a blacklight effect. It also helped to create beautiful contrasts in my washes. You can see how well it worked in the pictures of the Chinese dragon; that piece was lit almost entirely with the backlighter."

Sweet says High End's Intellaspot was his main workhorse in this show. "I was able to use the Intellaspot as both spot and a wash. The stock gobo selection is varied enough that I was able to use a different gobo (that I liked) for every song in the show, although there were a couple I used more than once. It was the first show where I didn't feel the need to have custom gobos, granted there will always be situations where custom is required, but the Intellaspot had everything I needed for this year's show already. I have been having issues with spot fixtures being able to provide a nice flexible focus range, they were either giving me a good focus on a surface 200' away or just good aerials, nothing in-between. For reference sake the chapel interior is 300' from the front door to the stage, 150' at its widest point and it is 120' from the floor to the top of the dome; at several points in the show the entire space is used by the actors, so you can see why that flexibility on the focus is so important. I have to say that I was thrilled when found I was able to get nice sharp aerial effects as well as a crisp focus no matter where I pointed it in the chapel."

"I have wanted to use the Technoarc's since I first saw them in Austin. The indigo highlighters were great, I was able to give the organ pipes a wonderful glow using only them in several pieces. I use them to uplight the main pipes in the organ's system and it is kind of a tight fit, so being able to switch between a tight beam and a broad wash was huge for me. The pipes are also not exactly short either, so in the past I have had to choose between being able to light the full length of the pipes or getting a decent fill on most or half the pipes. With the Technoarcs I was able to get the entire length of the pipes lit evenly from top to bottom. The tight beam made for a nice special I could swing out of the pipes and have the beam reach all the way to the ceiling of the dome."

"The punch out from the Technospots was fantastic, even the indigo highlighters threw well from up there; it may have been a subtle thing but you could still see the wash from just the highlighters while sitting in the pews -- it made for a great ethereal glow when I pointed them up into the dome itself. The gobo selection was once again just what I needed and this is the position where I have always had to use custom gobs for the effects we need from there."

According to the company, High End Systems control was another big part of the equation for the designers. Sweet says, "I have been using a Hog to run this show since I first started working for Arrow, on the fourth year of the show. The first year I used a Hog2 PC setup and we only used a single universe, then we moved to a Hog 2 the next year, a Hog 3 Full Boar a few years later (by then we were up to nine universes) and stuck with that until last year when the Hog 4 came out. It was decidedly the easiest time I have ever had programming -- the show had also grown to 13 universes by then. Between the speed of the console and the way it's laid out, it is just so much faster than in years past. Backing up the console is ridiculously fast now, the customization on the Hog 4 is great, between the user kinds and the jog wheel on the center screen I can fly through things now. The larger screens have almost made it so I don't need external monitors anymore!"

In closing, Sweet says the synergy of an almost all-HES rig was a beautiful thing. "Having an almost exclusively High End rig was fantastic because I have always loved the color mix I get out of the fixtures, and of course having so many matching features across different fixtures made the rig that much more flexible. There was also the added bonus of having indigo highlighters on everything except the DL3's, the SHOWGUNs, and the Cyberlight 2. This year was also the smoothest I have had for a long time when it comes to issues with fixtures; I had minimal problems. Out of the 80 movers in the rig, I had a problem with only three -- that is a record for this show. It also speaks highly to how well MainLight maintains their gear."

See High End Systems at PLASA Focus: Orlando, February 17 - 18, 2015.