Suggestions
Fixtures from the Vari-Lite range were chosen to help achieve the striking aesthetic concept for the latest concert tour by pop-rock band, OneRepublic.
Lighting designer Mark Butts of Los Angeles-based Preset Productions chose the SL NITRO 510 strobe fixtures and the VL3500 SPOT moving head as part of the band’s high-impact show design for the 16th Annual Honda Civic Tour
Working with creative director and co-production designer Raj Kapoor, associate producer Rita Bland and production manager Zito, Butts was tasked with developing a lighting design which would complement the overall creative concept for the production. This he describes as “a sleek, modern, architectural-looking design that captured the personality of the band.”
To help create this distinctive visual style, which he calls a “OneRepublic look”, Butts wanted a bright and powerful wall of LED strobe lighting fixtures that offered multi-pixel control, and settled on the SL NITRO 510 for the job. “The NITROs provide ‘bang for buck’,” says Butts. “They’re a powerful fixture in an affordable package. They’re compact and low-profile, and I like their color mixing ability and the control over the pixels.”
The super-bright SL NITRO 510s delivered maximum visual impact, as well as a wider variety of looks enabled by the individual control of the six zones of the NITRO’s LED array. In keeping with the modern, architectural design concept, the strobes were rigged on a triangular-shaped wall upstage of the band, providing a powerful backlight effect when needed.
To effectively light the band amid this high-output set, which also incorporated two triangular LED video screens, Butts needed a highly potent keylight fixture. To meet this need, he specified a moving light that he calls “the industry standard for keylighting”, the VL3500 SPOT.
“The light from the VL3500s is very good,” says Butts. “There’s a need to cut through lots of video and bright backlight to highlight the band members, and with the shows often happening at dusk, there is some daylight to contend with too. The VL3500s can do that.”
