Amazingly, the shows used only standard production cars to demonstrate the MINI's impressive handling capabilities via a series of stunts. Martin Locket, the show's Lighting Designer and MD of London based live events specialists Essential Lighting, decided to use the revolutionary new Jands Vista console after seeing a preview of the desk at PLASA 2003. Locket was keen to try the console as an LD and also investigate it as a potential new rental product. Working with Jands exclusive European and North American distributor A.C. Lighting, he chose the MINI show as the ideal event to debut the Vista.
From a technical viewpoint, Locket was keen to use the desk for the show because the lighting design involved a large number of precisely timed cues in a short timescale - 300 cues in eight minutes! Revolving around the eight minute soundtrack, Locket and Programmer Martin Seymour found that they could load the soundtrack into the desk and program the show to the actual soundtrack timings (rather than the traditional hours spent with a notepad and stopwatch getting the cue points right).
Summarising the console's performance, Locket commented: "It required a leap of faith to debut the Vista on such a high profile public event (the show played to over 80,000 people over two weeks). I had to be sure that using Vista in its pre release form would not compromise the event in any way. Essential Lighting was really excited with this desk from the moment we saw the first demo last year. We have had a close working relationship with A.C. for many years and were delighted to become involved with Vista in its final development stages." He continued: "We were not disappointed with the results. Frankly, we ended up with a more impressive show and got far more out of the rig than we would have even attempted with a traditional console. We built some great movement cues within minutes that would have taken hours on a traditional desk. I believe that the timeline concept is very strong but requires a change of mindset, when you first approach the desk, from a traditional control system. The use of tablet and pen takes about half an hour to get used to, before you can start using the desk effectively. Programmer Martin Seymour and I had a couple of "dawning realization" moments when we realized just how easy some programming issues would be. Being able to jog shuttle through a cue to precisely edit any parameter at any point in time was really powerful. We realized at the end of the programming session that we had spent our time looking up at the stage rather than down at the console. We had got 300 cues into an eight minute show and had not typed a single number into a numeric keypad! The ability to copy and paste information both horizontally and vertically within the timeline, saved us loads of time. I would recommend any user of a moving light desk to have a good look at Vista. Essential Lighting and myself are glad to have been involved in Vista's debut and look forward to being the first to offer the desk on the UK rental market."
The Vista is available in August in two chassis sizes and will be demonstrated on the A.C. stand at PLASA 2004.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
