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Photos © Manfred H. Vogel | Lighting Design © Patrick Woodroffe and Roland Greil

Throughout its history, Genesis has built a reputation for pushing boundaries with its show designs. The visual impact is a crucial, signature part of the band’s shows and a feature that Greil and Woodroffe were keen to maintain. Their show and lighting design incorporated homages to the band’s history, reflecting looks from past tours, whilst simultaneously bringing the visuals into the 21st century to create an unforgettable experience for the audiences.

“It’s very important to have even haze for a show because we rely on it so much to show the beams and the lighting,” says Greil. “theONE has been one of my favourite haze/fog products for years. We’ve used it for Adele, Phil Collins, Rammstein, etc. It is especially good for its haze. There is not really a comparable product out there at all that can create an even haze - or even a real haze - that’s not just a version of smoke or fog.

“theONE™ is also good from a touring perspective because the combination of having both a fog machine and a haze machine in one means you can basically leave one product at home as you can get two effects from one unit.”

Photos © Manfred H. Vogel | Lighting Design © Patrick Woodroffe and Roland Greil

Another very interesting fact post-COVID: “The treatment of atmospherics is especially interesting in our day and age since the arrival of COVID-19 because arenas worldwide have changed their protocols in relation to air extraction and circulation in the buildings, which brings with it its own extra challenges,” explains Greil.

“For example, with Phil Collins, we toured 3 MDG theONE™s for our haze set up. We went to all the normal arenas and with those three machines running at a low level, we were able to create a good and even haze in every arena worldwide.

“Now on the Genesis tour, we have 5 theONE™s - 2 upstage, 2 downstage each side and 1 front-of-house - to create an even haze around the venue, and we have to drive them hard, running five machines nearly at full for the whole show just to maintain that even haze. This is because venues now switch the air extraction to double the normal rate to get rid of the potential virus and germs. It’s healthier of course, but it also sucks out everything you pump into those arenas. With any smaller, lesser machines it would be hard to maintain a decent level of haze.”

Genesis The Last Domino? tour resumed in September 2021 in the UK before travelling to the US mid-West and East Coast. The four-times rescheduled London dates finally took place on 24-26 March at The O2.
   

Photos © Manfred H. Vogel | Lighting Design © Patrick Woodroffe and Roland Greil

Credits:
Show Director and Creative Director: Patrick Woodroffe / Woodroffe Bassett Design
Co Lighting Designer: Roland Greil & Patrick Woodroffe for Woodroffe Bassett Design
Lighting Director & Co Designer: Roland Greil
Lighting Programmer: Marc Brunkhardt
Technical Integration and Design: Jeremy Lloyd/Wonderworks
Supplier: Neg Earth

After an 18-month enforced break, the tour resumed last summer with the band visiting many of North America's largest outdoor amphitheatres playing to 15,000 – 30,000 capacity crowds.

Rehearsals for the 8-week tour, which was in support of the band’s seventh studio album, Jordi, started in late July with the first show slated for 10th August 2021 at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn Washington. The final date took place in October at the Concord Pavilion, Concord California.

Maroon 5 performance. Photo: © Steve Jennings

Jenkins chose theONE™ for both its versatility and powerful output capabilities: “We specifically needed a hefty, high-output unit for the outdoor amphitheatre shows. And theONE’s ability to produce both haze and fog is a great feature for touring. We kept the haze mode constantly running and used the fog mode frequently throughout the shows.”

Producing both fog and haze from a single generator, theONE™ is capable of generating 308 hours of haze or 20 hours of fog. It is specifically designed to give maximum, non-stop hours of haze/fog, and automatically refills its internal fluid reservoir from an external 20L (5.3 US gallons) container of MDG neutral fluid as required, so is perfect for filling those big venues.

The controllable output provided ideal coverage to accentuate the multitude of beam looks, strobes, lasers and heavy colour saturation that were a signature of Jenkins’ design during Maroon 5's high energy songs, and equally perfect for the gentler colours used on the slower tempos, all in all, brilliantly visualizing the post-apocalyptic theme of the revamped show.

Maroon 5 performance. Photo: © Steve Jennings

theONE™ generators travelled in their specifically designed touring cradles which made deployment and transportation a breeze: “We used them upstage left and right and with those touring cradles they simply rolled-in and rolled-out! Easy!”

Exceeding PLASA rigging standards, theONE’s touring cradle is designed for rigging, rolling and stacking and sized to fit standard trucks and containers. They are built to withstand the rigours of touring and contain everything that's needed in a single, transportable unit: theONE, its fan, a convenient tool drawer, MDG’s own 20L (5.3 US gallon) fluid container and, uniquely, all known sizes of 9kg (20lb) CO2 or N2 gas bottles.

Jenkins added, “the MDG units are really tour friendly – we carried a spare unit just in case, but normally used this when visiting larger venues or when the wind was crazy! Because the units create such a fine haze and atmosphere, I try to spec them for most of the shows that I do – it's honestly a fantastic product.”

theONE™ generators were supplied for the tour by Upstaging with support from account rep, John Huddleston. The tour’s production manager was Alan Hornall and its crew chief was Michael Green.

Carols at the Royal Albert Hall - LD Richard Rhys Thomas © Dan Street

The truly iconic venue, which hosts over 390 shows a year including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, awards ceremonies, charity performances and banquets, many of which are televised, is now fully equipped with 4 MDG ATMe haze generators, supplied by TSL.

The RAH lighting team initially invested in two of the industry-leading ATMe generators in July 2019 before adding another two in November of the same year. The ATMe haze generators are in almost constant and exclusive use with two freestanding machines located on stage and two permanently installed in custom flight cases on the stage edges at circle level.

“Good haze is particularly important at the Royal Albert Hall,” explains RAH lighting designer, Richard Rhys Thomas. “When lighting a concert there is no scenery, and often little or no video, so the lighting becomes the scenery. It forms an important part of the overall look, so you need good haze to show the beams from the roof to ground level.”

The procurement of MDG generators had been on the RAH’s agenda for some years following consultation with Matt Wiseman at MDG UK. “As we built up our lighting service with new fixtures, we realised the thing we were lacking was good quality haze,” he explains. “We had an amazing rig, but if you can’t see the beams, it doesn’t matter how good the lights are!”

Mount Batten Festival of Music © Courtesy of Crown Copyright

The team was also getting comments from incoming lighting designers about how the haze distribution was affected by the auditorium’s antiquated air cooling system which pumped in fresh air from beneath the arena and stalls. “This meant the haze on stage got pushed upwards, so we would get a nice haze in the roof but not on stage where you need it!” says Thomas. “We had to do something!”

Like most public buildings worldwide, the Royal Albert Hall did not escape closure during lockdown but this dark time was turned to advantage, enabling the acceleration of a programme to install additional airflow units. “With the new system, cool air now also gets pumped in from above, so this helps us achieve a nice smooth, even coverage of haze, but it is largely due to the MDG machines and their particle size and type of fluid which has made it all come together in such a nice way,” states Thomas. “MDG haze is so fine that you really don’t see it until you put strong beams through it, which is how it should be.”

With the RAH’s previous haze machines, complaints about the ‘clouds of smoke’ and the smell were all too common: “If the source of the haze is very visible, the perception of it is raised which tends to generate a psychosomatic response that can affect the comfort of the audience and the artists,” explains Thomas. “Since we’ve had the ATMe generators, we have no ‘clouds of smoke’ and no negative comments!”

The new ATMe generators are operated from the lighting console and have proved very efficient in terms of fluid use. “We found we don’t need to run them very high at all to get a nice even coverage. And if we need a bit more, we can simply push them up a bit and they fill the (very large!) space very quickly. We run a careful management programme to keep their fluid supply topped up and they are all sited in positions where the bottles can be easily changed during a show without interruption.”

Thomas is also impressed with the quietness and reliability of the MDG generators: “They run very quietly which is very important for a lot of our shows, both in the auditorium where they are quite close to audience, and also on stage where they are close to orchestras, microphones, television cameras, etc.

“We are very happy to have finally got our MDG haze machines. I’ve lit many shows here now and can remember when you just didn’t know if you were going to have good haze or not. It could be cloudy or up in the air – there was no certainty to it and no guarantee. It was very disappointing to put so much work into a design for it not to be realised to its full effect. Now we can guarantee good results and it is very satisfying to know we have that level of quality there at all times.”

© Joan Marcus - Opening Night: October 3, 2021 at Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre (256 West 47th St).

The British musical, with book, music and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, is a vibrant, modern retelling of the story of Henry VIII’s six wives, presented as a pop contest.

The show’s signature style is very much that of a rock concert, utilising an abundance of beam effects to take the place of set changes, which simultaneously give a different look and identity to each of the queens.

To achieve this, Deiling needed a good, clean haze as a canvas on which to highlight this motif. The fine white particles of MDG ATMOSPHERE haze proved exactly what was needed, delivering a beautiful base layer of haze that defined the beams clearly without any adverse effects on the dynamic performances of the singers.

MDG ATMOSPHERE haze generators have been the industry standard for many years and are a stalwart of Broadway theatre where they have long been approved for use by Equity.

© Joan Marcus - Opening Night: October 3, 2021 at Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre (256 West 47th St).

“We began by using generic water based hazers to save money (all our original, humble, “fringe” budget could supply),” says Deiling, “but as the show developed it became clear that the haze in many ways was the scenic design. For the lighting to provide lots of different ‘architecture’ throughout the night, the haze had to be perfect, fine, and constant. MDG was the only way to go.”

The ATMOSPHERE haze generators are Broadway favourites not only for their performance, but for their ease of use and reliability as well, as associate lighting designer, Tim Reed, can testify: “The show runs for 90 minutes, and while we sometimes run generators on a cycle according to the quantity of haze required, for this show we simply turned the ATMOSPHEREs on at the start and off at the end, leaving them to produce a fine haze throughout. They really are the most reliable of machines, requiring little maintenance and with an economical use of fluid. The resident technicians are very happy with them.”

SIX transferred from its inaugural run in London’s West End (delayed initially by COVID-19) to open on Broadway on 3 October, where its run is open-ended. It is also due to tour the US in 2022, when, as Deiling states, “we will definitely be using MDG!”

The MDG ATMOSPHERE generators were supplied for the Broadway run by PRG USA.

In this, the first in the series, MDG talks to award-winning French lighting designer, Pierre Claude, whose many credits include world tours with Gesaffelstein, The Strokes and Phoenix, and the ARTE Concert Festival 2020. Here he talks to MDG about his career and inspirations.

Pierre Claude © Matt West / ARTE Concert Festival, Paris © Pierre Lapin

MDG: The term lighting designer covers many aspects, what does your job entail?

Claude: I mainly work with indie bands so am very involved in their scenography. As a lighting director and designer, I’m involved in all the processes of a tour from design to programming - including timecode, art direction, visuals, and technical management - and of course I am on the road!

MDG: What route have you taken to get here?

Claude: I’ve wanted to be a lighting designer since I was young. At 14 years old, I went to a PA store with a friend to get his gear fixed. While I was there, I visited the showroom which was equipped with master / slave scanners playing a show – and it was love at first sight!

I studied industrial automation at high school and, at weekends, did various event jobs in my town. My first job as a lighting designer was at the age of 18, in a holiday club for two years. I then went to work in Paris’s legendary Le Queen nightclub on the Champs Elysees where I stayed for five years. The club was incredibly well-equipped with the latest technologies for the time: nine hours a day behind the lighting desk hosting the best DJs in the world during the early 2000s was a great education! However, continually working nights is destructive in the long-term, so I turned to events for five years, and finally reached my goal of working in live music in 2013 after meeting a duo of very talented designers, Franz & Fritz.

Gesaffelstein at Intersect, Las Vegas © Michael Drummond

MDG: This association led to your lighting Gesaffelstein's Requiem Tour which earned you the LDI 2020 Design Achievement Award for Club Lighting. Congratulations on this great achievement! Tell us more about your design process for the tour?

Claude: Gesaffelstein is very important to me and our careers have followed similar paths since we started together in European clubs and festivals. His Aleph Tour in 2015 was my first ‘big' tour working with Franz and Fritz which reached a climax at a packed Coachella Festival that year.

Gesaffelstein’s second tour, Requiem, in 2019 was eagerly awaited, his brutal and dark style and hyper-minimalist, violent aestheticism generating much talk.

Three of us worked on the Requiem show design: Mike Lévy (Gesaffelstein), Matthias Leullier, the show producer and very talented set designer, and I. We had a big budget for this new show, which began on Coachella's outdoor stage, the same place we had left off in 2015.
Inspired by Anish Kapoor, and designed to complement the dark atmosphere of Gesaffelstein’s music, the set was coated in Vantablack, a blacker-than-black paint that absorbs almost all the light. The set had no hard edges to reflect light and gave the illusion of a black hole. We then found ourselves working back-to-front, lighting a set so that it appeared not to exist, instead of highlighting it – that’s really unusual!

The design also included the latest video and automation system, but I kept their use as simple as possible, using only solid colours or gradients on the LED screens and almost entirely white light in the show lighting.
The effect was to make the technology and the set ‘disappear’, drawing the audience’s attention away from the distracting technology that surround festival stages and into the music. It was an expensive set up and something that we would usually want to show off, but instead, we wanted the audience to lose their minds… which was a certain bet!

I want to thank LDI, the judging team, the voters and the industry for recognising the challenge. I am extremely honoured!

MDG: What are the signatures of your lighting style?

Claude: Less is more! Minimalism is important to me, but also the music synchronization. I'm not here to prove something and show off trending technologies. I'm here to highlight a band that presents their music – that’s the most important!

Basically, and my crew will attest to this, I'm adamant about precision during the load in: we constantly tweak and adapt each lantern to ensure we rig the design as perfectly as possible, in a clean and simple way with perfect symmetry. I create basic rigs, which I program without unnecessary movements, without gobos, and using monochromatic colour schemes, so all the energy is focused on the music, and only triggered by complex intensities which have been carefully considered in the programming.

By contrast, there will always be a song mid-set that’s the complete opposite to the rest of the show, with exaggerated movements or colour, yet which makes sense within this chosen song. The contrast serves to give the audience more awareness of the minimalism chosen for the rest of the show.

It makes me happy that young people who have had a blast all day at an EDM festival, full of light and special effects, will be able to appreciate a different style of show and maybe focus more on the music.

MDG: You use a lot of haze in your designs, both on stage and in the audience - what differences are there in designing for different artist genres, and types of venue/festivals?

Claude: I mainly work with two kinds of artist who are total opposites of one another.
With indie rock bands, I know the audiences want to see them play, so my approach is going to be more for background, atmospheric lighting which doesn’t take the lead.
In this environment, the stage is very busy with musicians, equipment and energy, so the fog and haze needs to be homogeneous and present on stage in just enough quantity to give depth.

For the electronic music artists, I work in a more volumetric way where the artist is the centerpiece, surrounded by a much more elaborate universe. Fog is the essential element in creating this universe - thick or fine, on stage, but also front-of-house to prolong the volumetric aspect of the beams out into the audience.

For indoor venues I can use some of the fog from front-of-house to achieve perfect homogeneity. But in festival environments it is more of a fight against the elements, both on stage and front-of-house, where we have to do the best we can depending on the wind. It’s a constant battle, but that's the game!

MDG: How does MDG fit into this scenario, and why do you like to work with MDG fog and haze generators?

Claude: I like to compare lighting to painting, white canvas to smoke. The blank canvas will eventually be filled with paint, but if the canvas is of poor quality or has holes in it, the result will be bad. In the art of lighting, a beautiful fog is our blank canvas; if it is of such good quality that we forget about it, then it's perfect. Fog is there to sublimate the light, not to take the lead. MDG gives us this perfect quality – a homogeneous haze, that is fine and controllable and not too heavy, which allows us to express ourselves - our perfect blank canvas!

The Strokes © Jessica Saval

MDG: What tours and shows have you designed using MDG products?

Claude: Before the pandemic I was on tour with Gesaffelstein and The Strokes, and I had just finished touring with Phoenix a few months before the pandemic hit. Gesaffelstein’s show at Ultra Miami was cancelled, as was the summer tour in the US and a date at the Paris Arena in September.

I should have started the Boys Noize and SebastiAn tours in 2020 - SebastiAn’ tour was already programmed - but COVID closures led me, like many of us, to work on livestreams instead. I found I really liked this new aspect! I’ve worked remotely on Future Islands’ livestream, designed the ARTE festival in Paris with headliners, Sébastien Tellier, Yelle et Lous and The Yakuza, and I am currently working on a special livestream for Brodinski.

MDG accompanied me on all of these projects. While I am very flexible about the lighting fixtures offered by vendors - I understand the difficulty of constantly investing in high-end products under pressure from designers – I still ask for MDG as much as possible for the fog! It is the best haze on the market and easy for our techs to use and maintain on tour.

MDG: Which were your favourite shows and why?

Claude: My top moment was when I got the chance to work on the Phoenix World Tour from 2017 to 2019. This was an incredible technical challenge, involving a mirror that weighed several tons suspended above the band’s heads, tilted at 45 degrees. It was an amazing visual experience, as well as posing huge logistical constraints to replicate this all over the world, from small American clubs to the biggest global festivals. It was also a favourite because, for me, Phoenix are the best band ever, incredibly kind and passionate, just like their crew.

Other recent shows which have amazed me were The 1975 by Tobias Rylander, The XX by Michael Straun, Tame Impala by Rob Sinclair and Marilyn Manson by Nico Riot. All are perfect, from the music and lighting, right through to the set design. In all these shows the fog is extremely important and well managed. Agreed, all these tours have big budgets, but that doesn't take away the talent!

Phoenix at Shaky Knees, Atlanta © Alive coverage / Phoenix © Fujifilmgirl

MDG: What does the future hold for you?

Claude: It depends on the what happens with Covid of course, but I'm quite optimistic, and we all want concerts back! I may work on more livestreams because I really liked the new challenge, and the working conditions are better than a festival! But there is nothing better than the energy of the crowd during a live show. It has never occurred to me to change jobs. Lighting is my passion and I hope bands will always be there to give me the opportunity to continue expressing myself. There is still so much to do!

“Our clients trust us to specify the right products and we know that MDG produces the best haze for the television market,” says Nick Edwards, managing director of Version 2.

Edwards has 25 years of dedicated television lighting experience, having held technical, commercial and management positions at PRG, Panalux and Aurora, after his training at the flagship training facility in BBC Wood Norton, prior to founding Version 2 in 2016. This experience puts him in a strong position when it comes to choosing the best products for his clients, many of whom have worked with him for years and trust his technical know-how.

MDG ATMe's beautiful televisual haze on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing © Strictly Come Dancing, BBC Studios. Lighting director, David Bishop

“All our equipment investments have been rigorously researched and tested, plus we have had years of experience with many manufacturers’ products, so we have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t,” he says. “This allows us to make better decisions on our capital expenditure and only invest in the best products for our market. In effect we are testing and processing on behalf of the client so they can be confident in our recommendations.”

Good haze is one of the most critical ingredients to a show, particularly for television. “Primetime television programmes are broadcast to millions of viewers and demand a highly polished result. A fine balance is needed between deploying enough haze to achieve the desired beam read on camera, yet not so much as to cause ‘noise’ or graininess in the image. To get this wrong can really spoil a good show and ultimately lead to complaints from the broadcaster!

“This can be difficult to achieve in live broadcast, and you cannot rely on guesswork. But MDG ATMe hazers give an extremely high level of control over the haze output allowing levels to be adjusted easily and accurately from the lighting desk. This amount of control gives lighting directors a lot of confidence in MDG and we find they are the only manufacturer whose hazers are specified by name!”

Precise control is not the only quality for which MDG was selected however: “There are many features which make the ATMe ideal for film and television studios,” continues Edwards. “They are whisper-quiet so we can leave them on during filming and broadcast and no-one – least of all the sound guys - will know. The haze has a decent hang time but a quick dissipation too. They are renowned for their lack of residue which keeps the venues, the rental companies, and the lighting directors happy. We are happy because it means less maintenance for the inside of the moving lights and other technology, and the lighting directors are happy because there is no residue on the lens to affect the output of the lighting rig, which is an especially important consideration on long-running shows.”

Strictly Lighting Team - Tom Young, Darren Lovell, David Bishop (LD), Matt Lee © John O'Brien

Studio technicians also like the new ATMe as they are easy to use and, like all MDG machines, reliable. “The last thing a technician wants is the stress of a haze machine breaking down just before or during a show! We’ve also found the use of CO2 can cause a little mystique and anxiety for some, but not now. The ATMe dispels any perceived complexity by handling all the CO2 processing inside the machine in a failsafe process. Any technician just has to connect power and DMX for a dependable, plug-and-play system, made even more convenient by the bespoke rolling flight case which is ideal in the fast turnaround studios for productions like The Jonathan Ross Show.”

Version 2 has also employed its ATMe generators on shows across the BBC, Sky and ITV networks, including blockbusters like Family Fortunes, Sky Arts Late Show, Don’t Hate the Playaz and BBC’s top-rating show, Strictly Come Dancing, (lighting director David Bishop), where ATMe generators are sited in a permanent ‘set standing’ install on the George Lucas Stage at Elstree Studios.

“MDG has always produced the leading machines and sets a really high benchmark,” concludes Edwards. “The ATMe is right at the high end of performance and undoubtedly provides the finest haze on the market, with all the added advantages of control and reliability. This is why we have invested in it and why technicians and designers love them.”

More information on Version 2 can be found at www.v2lights.co.uk/

Tellier created a new show especially for the online Festival, performing live from the Great Hall, while Prüdence, Ichon and P.R2B broadcast from La Gaîté Lyrique’s Historic Foyer.

The artists performed without an audience due to COVID-19 restrictions, but production values remained high, with lighting designer, Pierre Claude, highlighting his beautiful designs with haze and fog from MDG generators.

One MDG ATMe haze generator, supplied by MPM, was used in the Great Hall and one MAX 3000 fog generator, owned by La Gaîté Lyrique, provided the atmosphere in the Historic Foyer. “MDG is the only authorised brand in this listed venue,” states Claude who is the recipient of the LDI 2020 Design Achievement Award for his work with Gesaffelstein's Requiem Tour. “The MDG machines are fabulous appliances!”

Creative Team for the ARTE festival:
Production and recording: La Blogothèque
Director: David Ctiborsky
Technical Direction: R-Cube / Jean-Lo Latour
Technical service provider: MPM Audiolight / Marius Defaux-Vittone
Lighting operator: Jean-Maxence Chagnon
Lighting design: Pierre Claude

Photo credits: La Blogothèque

MDG Atmosphere haze machines - still reliable workhorses for Limelite Lighting after 13 years – prepped and ready for their next TV appearance.

Ideally placed in Goudhurst, Kent, within easy reach of television studios in London and Maidstone, Limelite has been an advocate of MDG haze generators since it was founded in 2007. Directors Ed Railton and Matthew Mountier, both with longstanding freelance careers in theatre touring and television lighting respectively, purchased 10 MDG ATMOSPHERE haze generators at the outset and are still using the same machines 13 years later.

“We both had extensive experience of MDG through our freelance careers and knew them to be the best,” says Railton. “We liked the level of control, the fineness of the haze and the smooth, even dispersion the ATMOSPHERE gives – it’s so fine you can’t see the haze until light is passed through it.”

Limelite Lighting’s initial engagements were with theatres and small television studios, but the bulk of its work today is in television, with the majority in outside broadcast, and many subhires to larger TV and film rental companies.

“Over the years we have seen a change from DOPs’ traditional requests for cracked oil hazers to the cleaner option of MDG ATMOSPHERE haze generators which have become the lighting directors’ hazer of choice,” says Railton. “The ATMOSPHEREs leave very little residue on lenses, gobos and accessories.” This has proved an important factor for cameramen, and for maintenance technicians who spend less time cleaning moving lights and cameras post-show.

“MDG has all the flexibility, control and reliability we need as a rental house,” continues Railton. “Every job is different: studios work within limits and are 100% controllable, but outside broadcast is more complex, wholly reliant on the weather, and changes by the minute. A DOP can call on you at any point with just a ten-minute window in the weather. But we can take advantage of the ATMOSPHERE’s 100% duty cycle and use the DMX controller to respond instantly to whatever is needed.”

All Limelite’s ATMOSPHERE generators are housed in bespoke flight cases with spare gas and fluid bottles as complete, transportable units for quick deployment wherever required. The company offers a choice of DMX and manual control generators to suit client needs. Recent productions employing MDG ATMOSPHERE include MTV’s Just Tattoo of Us and Simon Amstell’s latest DVD Benjamin.

“From a hire company’s perspective, our MDG ATMOSPHEREs have proved a good long-term investment,” concludes Railton. “The generators are never out of action so we need something reliable and strong, and easy and quick to maintain. Ours have been solid as a rock, the parts are readily available and they are very economical on fluid. Clients know what they are getting and like what they get.”

Limelite Lighting continued to film during lockdown No 1 with The Ranganation and Mo Gillingan’s All Star Happy Hour, while lockdown No 2 saw them busy with a new series of SAS Who Dares Wins, The Great British Sewing Bee and preparations for some of the pantomimes that are still lined up over Christmas.

More information on Limelite Lighting can be found at www.limelitelighting.co.uk

The new film, Lei Mi Parla Ancora (She Still Speaks To Me), is directed by Italy’s prolific, award-winning director, producer and screenwriter, Pupi Avati, who is especially renowned for his work in the horror genre, and is working with his long-time director of photography, Cesare Bastelli.

One scene called for a naturalistic covering of fog on a long stretch of road beside the River Po for a number of cars to pass through. Luckily, one of the cameramen, Carlo Molinari was familiar with MDG products, being the son of Giorgio Molinari, CEO of Molpass, and recommended an Me4 fog generator because of its huge output capacity and ability to cover the outdoor distance required.

To ensure a perfect, substantial supply of realistic fog along the full length of the road, the team at Molpass used an ingenious solution, suggested by MDG, of a 150m long inflatable plastic sleeve (what MDG calls a ‘bottine’) for outdoor fogging, and a single MDG Me4 fog generator.

“When we arrived on site at 7am there was the most perfect covering of natural fog from the river,” says Giorgio Molinari. “Unfortunately, this evaporated completely by 8.30am when the temperature reached 25°C! Our job was to recreate this beautiful atmospheric environment in the best way possible for the cameras.”

To achieve this, the Molpass team attached a fan to one end of the custom-made plastic tube which, being sealed at the opposite end, inflated in just 15-20 seconds and was then filled with fine white fog from the Me4 in only 20 seconds. The tube was then positioned on the embankment below the road level to conceal its eye-catching appearance from view of the cameras. Before filming commenced, a series of holes was punched at intervals along the length of the tube, allowing the fog to escape and drift across the road, successfully recreating that perfect fog of early morning. Molinari noted: “It confirms the MDG saying: ‘we produce the closest thing to the real thing.’”

The whole assembly of Me4 generator, fan and plastic tube was rolled into place on a trolley and powered from the film company’s power generator. It took less than 30 minutes to install and was easily lifted and moved to the opposite side of the road to optimise the effect of drifting fog according to the wind direction. The Me4 was used for two sessions of 1.5 hours each and the filming completed successfully in a 4-hour shoot, using two bottles of gas and less than 3 litres of MDG Neutral fog fluid.

“We are extremely happy with the whole system and result,” says Molinari who is very excited by this new development and its additional potential for live performance installations. “This is just one possible set up for a film shoot, but the potential for live performance is very exciting. It is an efficient, economical, and clean method of distributing fog to targeted points along the tube’s length or delivering fog to an output a long distance from an MDG fog generator.

“Under other circumstances, a distribution of this size would require 6-8 machines from other manufacturers, which would generate a lot of residue and dirt. However, the Me4 is powerful enough to handle this alone, eliminating the need for multiple, less efficient machines and the associated costs and cleanliness problems they would cause.

“By substituting a clear tube with a black one, this system presents a great solution for backstage, on stage and front of house, delivering output exactly where you want it in a very short time. It is very compact for storage or transportation, so good for touring. It is truly a simple solution that works well, and we are very happy with it.”

More information on Molpass srl can be found at www.molpass.it

This new partnership succeeds our collaboration with Spai. We would like to thank Carlos Drabben, its Managing Director, for his dedication throughout the years.

E.E.S. Entertainment Equipment Supplies
Donostia 118, 20115 Astigarraga (Guipúzcoa)


Phone: +34 943 33 71 50
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The collections of 16 established designers, including Andrés Sardá, Devota&Lomba, Hannibal Laguna and Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, and 9 young talents made up a 72^nd edition that alternated runway shows, performances and fashion films, all of which were available through the official MBFWM website.

Francesc Ten y Gaspar Ruiz Lindberg (Estudio de fotografía Estrop Barcelona)

This first hybrid format once again counted on designer Juanjo Saunier as master of ceremonies – MC for approximately 10 years now - to program, light and bring a spectacular appearance to the live shows and digital experiences of this innovative edition.

To meet Saunier's challenge of "bringing a valid lighting design for each of the shows and making each one of them look different," fresh requirements were added to suit this new era. To this end, Saunier called on 38 MegaPointe, 3 RoboSpot and 3 BMFL systems, 20 LEDWash 800, 17 Spiider and 4 PATT 2013 from Robe, 3 Merlin followspots from Robert Juliat, 2 ATMOSPHERE haze generators from MDG, a Road Hog 4 and 16 Jarag 25 from Ereimul, with all equipment supplied by Fluge.

As Saunier explained, "The choice of these lighting fixtures was determined by their versatility." The MegaPoints enabled him to combine a super-bright beam for some shows with a very precise spot for others. The LEDWash 800 made it possible to create washes of extremely varied colours, and to light a 'still life' or the stage with an excellent quality of light and colour temperature.

The Spiiders, of which Saunier emphasizes the powerful light output, provided the "wow effect in the stage area", both for colour effects and as a masterful look using only white light. The BMFLs, used as backlight followspots for the models’ exits, followed them along the entire runway, and were combined with the Base Station and controlled by 3 operators ready to react to any unforeseen event. The PATT2013 provided the "hot point of contrast" and counterpoint to the cold tones of the followspots. 

As far as Robert Juliat's Merlin 2500W HMI followspot is concerned, Saunier points out that it is his reference followspot for this type of event since "its zoom range and the fact that it is 'flicker-free' offers me much more versatility".

Finally, with his long experience at the controls of Hog 4, Saunier declares himself faithful to this lighting console because he feels very comfortable programming with its controls. That is why, after many years, it is still his favourite lighting desk.

The iconic pieces from the national designers, together with the new hybrid formula (live and digital) and the talent of Saunier resulted in a successful special edition of this year’s MBFWM .

Setup and development: Bochi, José Espín, JoseMi (team leader) and Fluge crew.

Francesc Ten y Gaspar Ruiz Lindberg (Estudio de fotografía Estrop Barcelona)

The final date took place in January 2020, narrowly avoiding the lockdown measures introduced by the onset of the Covid-19 crisis.

Victorien Cayzeele, a gifted young lighting designer, was determined to obtain the best possible interpretation for his artist, so he specified - without hesitation - an MDG ATMOSPHERE haze generator to materialise the light within his design.

"I had mostly washes and very few spot sources in my kit, so I needed a density of haze that was strong enough to materialise the colour that bathed the set. And, on this tour, we wanted to maintain a uniform and stable level throughout the show.”

Etienne Daho - Eden tour ©Victorien Cayzeele

Etienne Daho's music, with its electro-pop tendency, required a great deal of work to match the light to the rhythm. Victorien confides that Etienne works a lot on creating an amazing audience experience and, to realise this, Etienne doesn't hesitate in allowing the visual impact to take centre stage and be the star. "There are some saturated colour effects and particular angles that don't put the artist in the limelight, but instead suggest a creative proposal linked to the album or the set.”

This beautiful collaboration between Étienne Daho and Victorien Cayzeele began during the Blitz tour in 2018. Victorien describes it this way: "We established a real relationship of trust. Étienne is someone with vision and taste. He's able to make requests, and at the same time let me express my own interpretations. There is a real exchange between us.”

Victorien, conscious of the vocal effort that a tour can represent for a singer, was also mindful of the quality of haze produced by the ATMOSPHERE. Deprived of glycol, MDG haze does not dry out the vocal cords, which is a major factor when artists play a succession of dates over a short period of time. Victorien explains: "MDG haze does not cause irritation, and that is very important for some artists. We have played dates using other machines - when abroad for example - but Etienne became aware of this very quickly and objected to it!”

Most of the Eden tour took place on stages 14m by 10m deep, but with a stage volume generally measuring 25m x 20m and a ceiling height of 18m to 25m. "The difficulty with haze is anticipating what will be enough to fill the space,” explains Victorien, “but with a single ATMOSPHERE we were able to obtain a good quality coverage in less than an hour and a half.”

This was a saving not only of time but also of weight because, for this tour, a 15kg CO₂ bottle was enough to supply 5 or 6 concerts. This low consumption resulted in reduced logistics for transportation, which in turn had a lower impact on the over-all show budget.

Etienne Daho - Eden tour ©Victorien Cayzeele

MDG haze is renowned for leaving practically no residue on lighting fixtures, which is particularly important on tour when compared to other machines: "The particles from MDG products are dry compared to those of other machines on the market," says Victorien. "Consequently, the MDG unit doesn't dirty the ground like other machines that leave an oil stain by the end of the concert which can be carnage! In addition, the haze leaves very little residue on the lighting equipment, which is very important as this reduces the frequency of which the lighting fixtures need to be cleaned. In fact, this tour was too short to require a thorough cleaning,” confirms Victorien.

The lack of residue becomes even more important when the lighting inventory includes a large number of multi-source LED washes, as it did on the Eden tour: "The problem with this type of wash is that it is made up of multiple small plastic collimators that are almost impossible to dismantle,” explains Victorien. “On tour, we can clean the outside surfaces but, to remove the dust and grease that seeps inside them, the spotlights would have to go back to the depot, which wasn't necessary on this tour.”

The lighting supplier for the Eden tour was French service provider, S-Group which supplied:

• 1 x MDG ATMOSPHERE
• 70 x Multi-source LED wash fixtures
• 1 x Profile fixture
• 12 x LED bars for cyclorama lighting
• 16 x LED motorized bars

Technical Team

• Jean Maxence Chagnon: Lighting console
• Antony Etienne: Chief Electrician
• Paola Picasso: Lighting Technician
• Pascal Meley: Production Manager