Chauvet on the red carpet for HBO’s Insecure
- Details
Many of the most memorable scenes in the multiple Primetime Emmy Award winning show, took place against this backdrop. Given the skyline’s association with Insecure, it was only fitting that Los Angeles’ Kenneth Hahn State Park, which affords 360-degree views of the city, was chosen as the site for the red-carpet event celebrating the comedy’s final season premiere.
“This beautiful and expansive park was perfect for our event,” said Barrett Hall of Invoke Entertainment, which oversaw all creative and technical aspects of the premiere screening and after party. “The site is in close proximity to the neighbourhoods where much of the series took place. Also, the final season’s key art with creator and star Issa Rae was actually shot in the same location where we built our theatre.”
The appropriateness of the park notwithstanding, it also represented a considerable logistical challenge for Hall and his team - one that they met very successfully with help from 4Wall Entertainment, which supplied 382ft of box truss and some 300 lighting fixtures, more than half of them from Chauvet Professional.
“We had to build everything from the ground up on levelled decking,” says Hall. “This included a 190ft ‘blue carpet’ step and repeat with a 120ft press wall, a 100 by 100ft pre-reception and after party tent area, as well as a fully tiered seat-theatre with a 40ft wide projection screen to accommodate 400 guests. The project covered 85,000sq.ft.”
The various areas that made up the event space were connected by over 500ft of raised deck pathways. Every audio, projection and lighting position in the space had to be on truss towers or scaffolding with G-block ballasts.
“Given some spatial constraints and heavy equipment logistics, we essentially had to build things a bit backwards starting with the screen at the end of the theatre and working outward to avoid painting ourselves into a corner, all while ensuring that we protected trees and the park itself,” said Hall. “We pretty much lived on-site for about eight solid days to get it done. I can’t emphasize enough how important teamwork was in this effort. Our LD Ben Green deserves a lot of credit as do Drew DeCorleto and J Wiese of 4Wall.”
Lighting played a key role in creating this experience. With hang positions throughout the event space somewhat limited, Hall and the team had to be meticulous about fixture selection. This led them to specify 90 Rogue R2X Wash fixtures to be positioned throughout the space.
“Given that we didn’t have a great many hanging positions considering the size of the event, we needed to rely on a fixture that had a lot of output, great zoom range, and wasn’t too heavy,” he explains. “The R2X also has great, smooth colour mixing and zone control. This allowed us to go from a functional wash light to something more fun when we transitioned into the after party.”
Also included in the lighting rig were 72 WELL Fit uplights, which were relied on to light oversized production stills from each of the five seasons of the series. Arranged in “galleries” that lined each side of the connecting pathways, these images set an immersive tone for guests as they moved from one area of the event to another.
To enhance the immersive mood inside the tent, the team illuminated its clear top with 21 COLORado 1 Solo washes. Relying on the fixture’s colour mixing capabilities, they created a variety of mood setting hues, contributing to an appropriate setting for a landmark programme.
