40-45 Spektakel

Painting with Light based in Genk, Belgium are harnessing the power of 10 disguise gx 1 media servers for the large-scale ‘40-45 Spektakel,’ a musical production staged at the Pop-Up Theatre in Puurs, Belgium by Studio 100 and directed by Frank Van Laecke.

The team from Painting with Light (PWL), led by Creative Director Luc Peumans, crafted the lighting design and performs the lighting programming and operation for the show. They also produced the custom scenic video content and designed the video control system complete with programming and operation.

‘40-45 Spektakel’ is set in Antwerp, Belgium during the years of the Nazi occupation. It tells the story of brothers who are torn apart by World War II finding themselves on opposite sides of the occupation and resistance. The production was preceded several years ago by ‘14-18 Spektakel’ about friends fighting in the trenches in World War I.

Luc’s brief was to create a dark and intense ambience for the show, a totally different look from ‘14-18 Spektakel on which PWL also worked. Multiple scenic locations – a cinema, homes, city streets with traffic – were created across the vast 75-meter ’field of play’ in the theatre, utilising moving LED video screens plus automated LED prop wagons. The audience is dynamic too - attendees sit in eight stands that move around ‘the stage’ enabling them to watch the show from every angle in the theatre.

PWL was tasked with flawlessly integrating the show’s lighting and video design while ensuring a robust, easy to use solution that would run for the duration of the production, which has already been extended into 2020. disguise gx 1 media servers rose to the occasion proving the platform’s capability to handle large-scale theatrical productions.

“As a disguise studio partner, we also have had a great experience working with disguise in the past and can always count on their support,” explains Luc. 

Eight gx 1 servers are located on the eight LED video screen wagons; the ninth is used as the master for general programming and show control, and the tenth unit is on hand for backup.

“The real-time rendering power of Notch enabled the various 3D digital scenery models – of building exteriors and interiors on the moving LED screens – to be lit using virtual lighting fixtures controlled by the lighting console,” Luc explains. “This data could be introduced into the disguise server immediately making the process much quicker and more flexible.”

With the mobile audience getting a unique view of the action on stage Luc and his team had to take a truly 360º approach to lighting.

“A grandMA2 light console controls the gx 1 media servers through a wireless Artnet network while wireless LTC timecode is distributed to all the LED wagons by a Sennheiser transmitter/receiver network,” Luc reports.

“The Visual Act motion control systems send positional data to the media servers in order to automatically visualise the positions of the LED wagons for each scene in the server’s programming environment.”

“This data is also sent to a WYSIWYG computer system that is used to visualize the lighting in a 3D model. This is a helpful tool for the lighting operator sitting backstage in the control booth without a direct view of the rig,” Luc says.