Life’s a Beach – T4 rocks Western Super Mare

Now in its sixth year, T4 On The Beach has well and truly established itself as part of the summer festival scene.

The one-day beach party event attracted over 40 thousand to the shores of Western Super Mare this July. Thirty acts entertained revellers including The Ting Tings, Feeder, Guillemots, Duffy, The Pigeon Detectives, Sam Sparro, McFly, The Hoosiers, Scouting For Girls and The Feeling

The show was produced for Channel 4 by production company Done and Dusted who generated over 30 hours of TV programming across C4 and E4.

Two main music stages battled for audience attention while event sponsors Toyota hosted a third ‘disco’ stage with DJs, band interviews and TV celebs making guest appearances.

ELP supplied lighting for all the T4 stages and for the TV interview suites across the site but as Project Manager Tony Slee explains, “With two separate LDs looking after the two main performance stages the lighting approaches were quite different.”

Mike ‘sooty’ Sutcliffe was at the helm of the T4 stage, (and his sixth annual trip to the seaside) and Gurdip Mahal was responsible for the 4Music stage (4Music being a new music TV channel launching later this summer).

T4 Stage

“This year I steered clear of the LED look” explains Mike Sutcliffe. “Partly to mix things up and partly because Bill Lazlett’s set design this year featured such a huge video screen. About 70% of the stage was taken up by screens and so I wanted to incorporate some intense light beams to punch through, frame, and generally complement the video walls”

Mike continues “ELPs new VL3500 were ideal for this task and I used 21 of them in all. Some at ground level and the rest rigged above the screens. They provide an amazingly strong beam and even at 30m with Kelly Rowland on the very front of the thrust and in bright daylight, the colours were reading.”

The whole show took place in daylight and so there was only so much the lighting could actually achieve. Therefore Mike and his board operator Svend Pederson viewed their lighting role as more about creating rhythms and pulses to match the beat of the music. And about capturing the fun and energy of the performances for the crowd and for TV viewers.

Mike also singled out ELPs Mac 600s, “we sprayed them into the audience to give a bigger look to the stage, twinkle into the various camera angles and provide greater three dimensional form to the acts as they performed in front of the giant video wall. Also they are quite cost effective to hire!”

Mike was quick to thank Tony Slee and the ELP crew headed up by Greg Fitzgerald. “Greg’s done a great job taking over from Dave Smith who's worked with me for many years, but who's company Specialz is realy taking off."

Tony Slee added "On a personal note I would like to thank The Colonel for all his input and hard work over the years on T4. Dave Smith and myself go back longer than I care to remember, I would have thought most of the crew doing T4 were dashing round in short trousers when Dave an I sat under his infamous Cocktail Flag backstage sipping something 'special' he'd rustled up. From myself and all at ELP we wish him great success with his company Specialz.....Keep The Flag Flying!"

T4 LD Mike Sutcliffe was also full of praise for Digital Insanity who supplied the T4 video content and control system elements of the show. “They are such easy people to work alongside. With only one day of rehearsals we were able to create 57 looks. Each band did between 2 and 4 numbers and there were 19 acts just on our stage.”

Kate Perring, creative director with Digital Insanity explains

“We used Hippotizer media servers to drive the content and the edirol v440 hd for the final screens mix. It was possible to push high definition content and with high bandwidth switching we were able to maintain high quality video output at all times. Although the screen array seemed simpler than previous T4 On The Beach events what it did enable us to do was play around with the shape and movement within the set.”

Kate continues “We were given full creative control when designing a look for each track, rather than working to a specific brief. We took each track individually as the inspiration for the creative, and tried to keep a constant textural contrast going throughout the show. Looks needed to be simple and not over fussy, providing a punchy background in the bright daylight conditions.

The addition of the director supplying us four switching panels and full use of any of his camera shots for some tracks along with crowd shots, live satellite links to the big brother house and backstage areas added to the diversity of the show”

4Music stage

In contrast to the multicoloured and video rich T4 stage, the 4Music stage took on a retro and highly stylized design.

The stage was decorated with 350 Source Four Par Cans and square mirrors. Nothing else.

LD Gurdip Mahal is a big fan of tungsten. He trained as a professional photographer and this background gave him in depth understanding of colour temperature and how tungsten lighting behaves both on and off camera.

“I like to experiment” says Gurdip. “Many shows tend to look the same these days and sometimes I feel the audience can get LED overload”

“I’ve created this look deliberately with Source Four Pars which have a wide viewing angle so that wherever your audience position you get hit by the beam. It’s a daytime show so I wanted to make the most of the light source”

Gurdip specified ELP’s Source Fours with narrow lenses because the lens is much closer to the front of the lamp and provides a reflective surface.
He also used square mirrors within the set to complement the mirror like effect of the Source Fours. This simple but visually effective idea reflected the shapes, colours and movement from the bands and the audience. “Sometimes a low tech design can be just as effective” remarks Gurdip.

By focussing on creating alternative chases and sequences Gurip and his board operator Ross Williams were able to impressively create twenty alternative looks from this minimalist Source Four configuration. The show was programmed on Ross’s own Hog 3 desk.

To help Gurdip achieve the look he was after, ELP’s crew headed up by Greg Fitzgerald rigged the majority of the Source Four pars on vertical free standing trusses alongside the square mirrors.

“It’s the first time I’ve worked with ELP and I’ve been very pleased. The crew have been brilliant” concludes Gurdip.

ELP Crew Credits as follows:

• Crew Chief - Greg Fitzgerald
• Rigger – Ian Day
• Technicians - Craig Broughton, Mathew Mountier, Simon Deary, Glyn Owen, Natasha Vinogradova