An art deco gem, the 90-year old O2 Kentish Town Forum has been hailed as one of the most beautiful cinematic theatre venues in all the UK, but earlier this winter, fans inside the iconic venue could easily have felt that they were in one of the city’s hottest discos. That was precisely what creative director/lighting designer Elliot Baines had in mind when he designed Beth McCarthy’s current tour.
Baines of Spiralstagelighting drew his inspiration for the design from his client’s latest hit Drama at the Disco. In light of this, he wanted to keep his stage relatively simple with plenty of stage positions for his dynamic, dancing client to move to during her show. And true to his disco-vision, his design features an impressive 2m by 2m mirror ball.
Like any disco mirror ball, Baines’ centrepiece required some intense lighting support to realise its full impact. He provided this in brilliant fashion with help from the CHAUVET Professional Maverick Storm 4 Profile and Color STRIKE M, which, like the rest of his rig, were supplied by Subfrantic.
“We decided to utilise the Chauvet Storm fixtures we had to punch through, and give us a powerful mirror effect,” said Baines. “We also took advantage of using the house rig, so the mirror ball was lit from all angles. Instead of over using it, we wanted to use it as a set piece, instead of always using it as ‘a mirror ball.’
“The STRIKE Ms fixtures in our rig created incredible shadows from the mirror ball itself,” continued Baines. “It was almost like back lighting it. Creative illusions with left to right strobe effects from the STRIKE fixtures made it look like the mirror ball is almost shaking. We also used the Color STRIKE for stage wash colour. On some of the tracks, we didn’t want the stage to feel too bright, especially for the more emotional songs, so the Color STRIKE really helped us create individual back lighting on each member, rather than using the whole house rig at once.”
On the subject of colour, Baines relied on monochromatic palettes, often in the pink family (a signature hue of the client), to engender a hot, clubby mood on stage. “Beth’s favourite colour is hot pink, which we decided to use in different shades, along with purples. To balance out this palette and not overuse it, we introduced a darker tone with cold blues, and colder colours for slower tracks,” explained Baines. “One of my favourite looks with these colours was for the song ‘Rockstar,’ where that section/chapter of the set was bright pastel pinks and rouges, but for that track, we only used the Maverick Storm Profiles in blue, with a snap snake chase, utilising side shadows.”
The Maverick Storm 4 Profiles were also used to enhance the impact of the mirror ball with gobos. “We had them placed strategically and didn’t use them all at once,” Baines said. “Two of the fixtures were kept further back, which helped us create wide silhouette looks coming from the upstage side. This added another dimension, and helped us meet our goal of creating something that was more than just ‘another mirror ball.”
