the pepsi super bowl xlvii halftime show provided plenty ...he pepsi super bowl xlvii halftime show,...

54 • April 2013 • Lighting&Sound America

SPECTACLE

The Pepsi Super BowlXLVII Halftime Showprovided plenty ofspectacle and special effectsBy: Sharon Stancavage

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Copyright Lighting&Sound America April 2013 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

he Pepsi SuperBowl XLVII Halftime

Show, starring Beyoncéand Destiny’s Child, was the result of acast of many: from the local volunteers(hordes) to the technicians (throngs) tothe designers involved (plentiful) andthe vendors (diverse). The collabo-ration included those at TouchdownEntertainment, Inc. of Los Angeles;Ricky Kirshner, of RK Productions ofNew York; and production designerBruce Rodgers, of Tribe Design,located in Salem, Connecticut.

For the production, Rodgerscreated a stage featuring two silhou-ettes facing each other that includedareas for the audience on the field.The stage, fabricated by All AccessStaging, of Torrance, California, wasdivided into 35 carts and includedbuilt-in lighting and effects.

The stage also featured aWinVision 9mm LED wall. Videocontent was provided by AndyJennison, of Breathe Editing, and wasdelivered using a Green HippoHippotizer HD media server.

Designing the lighting for his fourthSuper Bowl show was Al Gurdon. Thedesigner, who lives in the UK, neededan experienced man on the ground:lighting director Bob Barnhart, of LosAngeles-based Full Flood, Inc.Barnhart has been involved with theSuper Bowl almost continuouslysince 1994, designing the lighting forhalf a dozen of them. Working withhim were Rich Gorrod and David Grill,who handled the logistics of theproject. The event took place at theMercedes-Benz Superdome in NewOrleans, an older facility that, never-theless, offered more than enoughsideline space for lighting. Mostmodern stadiums have between 6'and 8' of sideline space; there wasapproximately 16' in New Orleans.Barnhart explains, “The NFL allowedus to have a permanently floor-supported truss—it was only 3'high—all the way against the backwall, which was fantastic because

those lights could be on andcalibrated before they opened thestadium to the audience.”

The 3'-high truss was filled withClay Paky Sharpys and was pairedwith a Sharpy truss overhead. Bothwere 180' long. “There was anotheroverhead truss that did not move,with about 160 Philips Vari*LiteVL3000 Series fixtures, both spotsand washes,” Barnhart says. “Theywere higher up and did not move;they did the stadium audience andfield washes. There were othertrusses up high at the front of housethat focused on the dancers.” Theouter portion of the stage was alsohome to 52 Robe Robin 600LEDWash units, located in shelvesand used to backlight the stage/bandand provide crosslight for thedancers. The lighting rig also includedChroma-Q Color Block 2s, MartinAtomic Strobes with Atomic Colors,and Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlastRGBs and ColorBlast iWs, Strong III

3K Gladiators, and one 1,500W Flamefrom Brite Box. The latter “is a verybright followspot in a very smallbox—about a third the size of aGladiator but brighter,” he adds. PRGprovided the bulk of the lighting gear.The show was run on SMPTE timecode: “We started using it aboutfour years ago, which has made theprocess much easier.”

Planning for contingencies is alsoimportant. Barnhart says, “We spendour time working out scenarios—things like, if the control cable to themain stage breaks, where is thebackup? Is it protected separatelyfrom the primary? If the stage gets

put off by five yards, do we haveenough power cable to make it to theset? If this gets run over and crushed,do we have a backup?”

During the six minutes of bedlamwhen the show’s gear is set up,Barnhart is on the field, gettingfeedback from the technicians. “It’scontrolled, organized, planned chaos.On average, any one electrician couldmake about 24 connections in aboutthe two minutes they have.” Justbefore the show starts, Barnhart says,“I have to make a decision 1.5minutes out from going live whether ornot I need another 30 seconds fromthe network if I have a problem.” Thisyear, there was an issue with theColorBlast iWs on the far stage-left wings of the stage and a bad datacable on the upstage right wing; histechnicians assured him they wouldbe fixed before they were on camera,and they were.

Programming for the show washandled by Mike “Oz” Owen, who has

performed similar services for the lastthree Super Bowls. His part of theproduction begins in January whenGurdon has completed his plot andthe set list is taking shape. “I’ll putthe patch into the [PRG V676]console software offline on my laptopand start to build my palettes,channel groups, some effects, and abasic cue structure ready to start onWYSIWYG,” he explains. “I’ll also getthe beat and bar timings for eachsong from the tempo and then workout the step and cycle times for anyeffects and how to apply them to thegeometry of the design.”

The cue list is an early priority. “A

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“During the six minutes of bedlam when theshow’s gear is set up, Barnhart is on the field,getting feedback from the technicians. ‘It’s con-trolled, organized, planned chaos. On average,any one electrician could make about 24 con-nections in about the two minutes they have.’”

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main cue list, with others for effectsand accents, often includes follow-ontimes that are rhythmically tricky ordetailed,” he says. “On this show, wewere aware that the artist liked thelighting to reflect the accents andchanges, so it was useful to at leastbuild the structure for all these cuesas early as possible.”

WYSIWYG wasn’t the only programin Owen’s arsenal. “We used AndyVoller’s Moving Light Assistant toimport accurate 3-D positioning ofchannels from the CAD plot,” he says.(Voller is a UK-based lighting designerwho works in England and on thecontinent, where he specializes inmusicals; he has also worked as aprogrammer on such events as theEurovision Song Contest and theLondon Olympics opening and closingceremonies. Moving Light Assistant isthe fruit of his extensive experience.) “Iuse this to draw the 3-D plan view inthe V676 so that I can accurately use

the 3-D graphic in the console. I findthis a very useful offline tool, especiallywhen working out effects.”

Owen’s pre-viz work was criticalto the project. “Given that all our keylights were a minimum of 180' awayfrom their targets, the WYSIWYGsystem was remarkably accurate—especially with the framing andzoom parameters of the VL3500spots for example,” he says. Thetime line for the production alsoentailed some last minute work forhim. He says, “Some sequenceswere worked out very late, and I wasstill programming offline an hourbefore the game started.”

He adds, “On the Super Bowl,there is obviously a large emphasis onthe TV production, but that doesn’tnecessarily preclude the live audiencefrom seeing an appropriately scaledshow, and any bigger picture livelooks are consciously designed towork in close-ups and mid shots.”

In the mix of special effectsOne change in this year’s productionwas the extensive use of effects. Theteam brought in Strictly FX, ofChicago, to bring another dimension tothe performance environment.“Because we’re a special effectscompany, we were allowed to addelements into the show that they mightnot have normally had if they weredealing with just a pyro company,”explains Mark Grega, partner andeffects designer at Strictly FX.

The effects were evident from themoment the face silhouettes ignitedduring “Crazy in Love.” Gregaexplains, “We couldn’t do it withpropane because there would be toomany connections to make.” Thesolution was 50' long-duration flameprojectors for each side of the facebuilt into the stage. “For the openingcue of the show, when the flame chasereveals the face, we had to make sure P

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SPECTACLE

Strictly FX provided the pyrotechnics as well as other effects such as the 50' silhouette known as Pyro Girl, seen in the drawing on theopposite page.

that there was absolutely no one in thepit because there were 100 piecesgoing off in that chase.”

The faces of flames seguedimmediately into massive flames—from four MKII liquid propane Venomcannons upstage behind Beyoncé.Grega explains, “Because of thecamera angle, when you sawBeyoncé, it looked like a 6'-tallflame—but that was only because theflames were 90' away from her. Theflames were actually 30' tall.”

This was followed by one of themost unexpected elements of all—a50'-tall silhouette nicknamed Pyro Girl.“Bruce [Rodgers] drew a conceptualdrawing that looked like flowing lava,which we can’t do,” Grega says with achuckle. The first thought waspropane. However, he adds, “No onewanted to make a propane bar thatwas 180 linear feet, and the idea ofputting so much propane on itpresented a lot of problems.” Moreresearch and development waswarranted. “In the end, we had NextFX [of Columbus, Montana] make us a

custom flame-and-spark device.” PyroGirl, with 178 separate charges, flew inand then almost disappeared back intothe catwalk above.

“Crazy in Love” also featured acustom gag for the guitarist BibiMcGill, which was comprised of ten 5'silver duration gerbs triggered using aFireOne wireless module. At the end of

the number, there were a barrage ofwhite comets with tails; all the pyrowas done with low smoke products tokeep the show clean for the cameras.

The production included mini-Venom propane flame bar cannons,SFX static high-output CO2 jets, a LeMaitre LSG (Low Smoke Generator),and a Le Maitre G150. “This is about a

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The extensive amount of sideline space allowed the lighting team to install a permanent-ly supported floor truss along the back wall and fill it with Clay Paky Sharpys.

football game and, most importantly,the field that it’s played on,” Gregasays. “Consequently, we had to havetrays for the smoke machines so thatno juice would fall. We had to have ourvents wrapped in plastic and anabsorbent material so that if therewere any leaks they would beabsorbed and not go onto the field.”The High End Systems F100 foggersand Reel FX DF-50 Hazers had tofollow the same decrees regardingpotential fluids on the field.

Although Strictly FX can providelasers, they were never really a part ofthe creative meetings until late in theprocess, when the discussions movedto the hair gag for the finale. “For thehair elements, they were talking aboutoutlining it in propane,” Grega says.“Even if we were setting it up from thestart of the show and it was preset,we couldn’t do a 400' flame bar. Thenall of a sudden, they said, ‘What if weproject hair with lasers?’” Grega, a fanof the artistic use of lasers, was

somewhat piqued by the idea: “Ithought, really, that’s what we’re goingto do? Can’t I put them on floor andshoot them at the camera and makethem look awesome?’”

As it turned out, the laser effectworked, thanks to the projectionsurface: a giant piece of white fabricwith fans underneath, which wasdeployed by volunteers. Grega notes,“It was the perfect surface for lasers.If we had had to project onto thefield, the green color of the fieldwould have eaten up a lot of thecolor.” There were four top-projected30W RGB diode lasers. “It allowed usto paint a picture of somethingbeautiful onto a large canvas, and noone knew it was lasers,” he says.

Control for the projectors wasachieved through a combination ofseveral consoles receiving SMPTEsignal. There were two FireOneFireLite controllers used for thepyro and four Pangolin QM2000consoles for the lasers, which inter-

faced with an MA Lighting grandMAultra-light console and an MA onPCcommand wing as backup. “Weinvested in that console specificallyfor Super Bowl. It was on SMPTE,but we also had manual overrideson channels,” Grega says. Thehardware also included DougFleenor DMX relay packs andElation four-way DMX distributors.

Typically, the halftime show hasone or two large effects moments.“Our job is always not to distract butto add to the production and notmake it seem like it’s one bigmoment. When we search for cues inthe music, it has to warrant theeffect, and on this show, we wereable to provide eight or ninemoments within the production,”Grega concludes.

Next year, the Super Bowl will beplayed outdoors at MetLife stadium inEast Rutherford, New Jersey, andthere’s already speculation on howthe halftime will be handled there.


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INSTALLATION

Super BowlCentral

uring the run up to SuperBowl Week, CBS had asizeable presence in NewOrleans. The network had

40 hours of programmingfrom the city, including entertainment,sports, and news; much it of it wasbroadcast from the French Quarter’shistoric park, Jackson Square,renamed CBS Super Bowl Park atJackson Square for the week of thebig game. “It’s the first time CBSworked all of their departments—news, entertainment, and sports—tohave them all in one village sharing astage. It was unprecedented,” explainsGary Solomon Jr., president ofSolomon Group, one of the many firmsworking with CBS on the project.

Solomon Group is based in NewOrleans and thus had an insider’sperspective. The city, Solomon says,“has such a great rising-phoenix kindof story, and it was important to usethat in the design. So we tried to usereclaimed elements where possible. Alot of the material that served as thedecks for the desktops or the fasciaewas reclaimed wood [sourced locallythrough the Green Project, a localrecycler of building materials] weplaned down. It had a really naturalelement to it, but it also had a sports-television edge to it as well.”

A bridge over DecaturOne of the most iconic symbols ofthe CBS compound at JacksonSquare was the decorative, yet utili-tarian, cable bridge crossing DecaturStreet, designed and fabricated bySolomon Group. “It started as apractical need for passing a ton oftransmission cable across the street,and it became this really excitingsignature element,” Solomon says.

The process was far from simple.“We were in a historic neighborhood,and we wanted to be respectful of it.

So we engaged Rick Fifield, a NewOrleans historical perseverationarchitect and historian, as aconsultant,” Solomon says. “Helooked at what we were doing interms of design and made sugges-tions for tweaks to make it morehistorically relevant. It wasn’t acaricature of New Orleans; it wasreally rooted in the architecture andthe real wrought-iron designs thatwould have been present if they hadbeen built originally in the quarter.”The company also found a subtle wayof integrating the network’s brandinginto the design; viewers who lookedclosely could see the familiar CBS eyelogo woven into the ironwork patterns.

The cable bridge, which was 60'wide and 32' tall, included whatappeared to be a good amount ofwrought iron. Jonathan Foucheaux,partner at Solomon Group, says, “Theunderlying structure of the bridgewas an Applied Electronics [ofNewport News, Virginia] truss system.In our shop, we built the steel andaluminum structure that clamped ontothe Applied structure, which created allthe framing the wrought-iron patternswould be mounted to.” Inside theframing, the team used a form of high-density PVC known as Sintra.Foucheaux explains, “We used ourCNC machines to cut 4' x 8' sheets ofit into thousands of pieces of wrought-iron patterns ranging from a fewinches square to over 6' x 3'. Onceinstalled into steel or aluminumframes, the entire assembly wastreated with a special blend of paintand sand and some other componentswe created to make it look like agedwrought iron.” The cable bridge alsocontained 800 linear feet of weather-resistant Titan LED T-8 tubes, whichwere located between the interior grayscrim and faux wrought-iron cutout.That aspect of the project was

handled by lighting designer BillBrennan. “It made it glow and reallycome to life,” Solomon says.

The entertainment setThe network also sent its premier talkshow, The Talk, to New Orleans forthe week. The New York-basedcreative agency 513 designed the setand incorporated Solomon Group’scustom CBS wrought-iron look into it.

The entertainment set, which wasalso used for Craig Ferguson’s post-game show, featured seating for 140.Foucheaux says, “The first row of theaudience was 3' above the grounddue to all the trees and plants andflower beds that we were straddlingwith everything.” Not only were thereplants and trees and flowers that hadto be preserved but also historic urns,permanent benches, and immovabletrash cans. “Unlike a festival in, say,an open field, we had a lot of historyto protect and to work around—thatbecame the challenge of this park,”explains Solomon.

Deke Hazirjian, of New York CityLites, designed the lighting for thesets. The rig included 12 PhilipsVari*Lite VL3500 Spots, 30 MartinProfessional MAC Auras, eight ARRI


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Inside CBS Super Bowl Park at New Orleans’ Jackson SquareBy: Sharon Stancavage

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Wrought-iron work that incorporated theCBS logo.

2K Fresnels, one Lycian HMI 1.2Kfollowspot, 25 ARRISUN PARs, andETC Source Four Lekos and PARs.PRG, 4Wall Entertainment, andCinelease supplied the lights.

The sports setThe sports set, designed and fabri-cated by Solomon Group, integrated avariety of Mardi Gras elements. “Thefront of the desk for [talk show host]Jim Rome was internally lit, with color-changing LED tape inside of thewrought iron,” Solomon says. “Therewas also a shutter element at thecenter of it that glowed beautifully.Beneath the reclaimed wood top wasa bass drum motif inspired by thefamed jazz club Preservation Hall. Ifyou do any research on PreservationHall, even the graphic style of theshow cards that went into the centerof the drum spoke the same language.

“The sports set is a great example


INSTALLATION

One of the most iconic symbols of the CBS compound at Jackson Square was this dec-orative, yet utilitarian, cable bridge crossing Decatur Street, designed and fabricated bySolomon Group, using an underlying structure from Applied Electronics.

of what collaboration was likebetween the different departments ofCBS,” he adds. “It really doubled as alot of things; at one point, RachaelRay was cooking on top of our desk.”

Hazirjian designed lighting insidethe park, employing a package ofPhilips Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots, MartinProfessional Mac Auras, Chroma-QStudio Force V 12s, Chroma-Q ColorForce Compacts, a variety ofARRISUN PARs, and ETC SourceFour Lekos and PARs.

The news stage used the samewrought-iron motifs as well as thereclaimed wood. There was also aseparate stage, built by New York-based Showman Fabricators, whichwas used by CBS Sports and alsoCBS This Morning. “All of the designpartners worked in a collaborativeway,” Solomon says. “The guys fromShowman were great. They collabo-rated with Applied on their structure.They knocked out that set pretty fast,and it looked great,” he says.

The company also had a presenceoutside of CBS Super Bowl Park atJackson Square and handled avariety of other projects, includingone at Radio Row in the ConventionCenter and a game day set outsidethe Superdome. This ambitious

agenda was achieved in relativelyharmonious fashion. “I don’t thinkanyone else has been as respectfulas CBS in regards to the neigh-borhood,” Solomon says.

Much of the material used for the decks of desktops or the fasciae was reclaimed wood sourced locally through the Green Project, alocal recycler of building materials.


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