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Motionless in White on tour with Chauvet fixtures

“I grew up watching a lot of ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Doctor Who’, so it’s no surprise that I draw on the architecture and set design from those stories”, says Alex Mungal, owner of Alien Lites and lighting designer on Motionless in White’s just-concluded “Touring The End Of The World” tour of North America.

“For this tour, we based our overhead truss configuration on the wing-shaped warships”, he continues. “This gave us a lot of different angles to direct light from. We had glowing light coming in from the sides of the giant wings. Also, the control center of the ‘space craft’ in this configuration is top middle, which was ideal for us to use when creating unique looks with our octagon pod.”

Although the “Star Trek”-inspired design provided endless opportunities to conjure up out-of-this-world looks, it also made it necessary for Mungal to compensate for the absence of front light positions. Therefore, he deployed a rig that featured 56 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Premier Global Production.

Key to making the dominant wing structure come alive were the rig’s sixteen Maverick MK3 Washes. Mungal hung four of the RGBW units on each of the double wings over the stage to turn the structure into a glowing centerpiece. He also relied on the 5.2° to 65.1° zoom range of the wash units to engineer dramatic changes in coverage areas.

“The Mavericks were very important in creating varied looks to reflect different moments”, says Mungal. “They were used as bright punchy washes to light the band and dancers. They also gave us everything from wash looks and pixel effects, to aerial effects that played off beautifully against the haze and fog. We called on atmospherics for some creepy scary songs, in addition to rolling out lots of pyro and flame effects. Given the kind of band this is, we had a lot of variations and scene change ups throughout the show.”

Contributing to this diversity of looks in the show, and also filling the role of front lights, were the rig’s forty Color Strike M motorized lights, which were run in 97-channel mode. “We had the Strike Ms all over the stage and relied on them for everything imaginable”, says Mungal. “Some were in the air and used as effect/strobe lights, as well as audience blinders, since we had no standard FOH truss. Others were on the upstage riser, where they worked as drum lights as well as audience lights - we made good use of the tilt function in those cases.”

“On top of that, we had some Strike Ms downstage underneath the risers, and in side stage positions, so we could use them as scary uplight for the artist”, he continues. “Again, not having a direct front wash pushed us to use the side and uplight fixtures to our advantage.” In addition to its distinctive overhead truss structure, the tour’s design had a large riser. This platform accommodated four dancers who did everything from fire acts to ballet sequences.

“Being able to elevate performers on either side of the drummer allowed us to direct focus wherever we needed it, whether downstage or upstage”, says Mungal. “The staircases on either side leading to the offstage wings made it possible to have the characters disappear and reappear nicely and cleanly without being distractive.”

(Photos: Chauvet Professional/Alien Lites)

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