In July, the renowned textile manufacturing company Isko organized a big event at Villa Cornér, which included a show of next season's collections. Menabò, an all-round Forlì-based marketing and communications group, was asked to organize the event, which in turn called in SG Lighting for the lighting rig and design.
Menabò and SG Lighting have already worked successfully together at previous events, such as the illumination of the Castle of San Salvatore in Susegana, in the province of Treviso, during a similar event. This and other corporate events have attracted the attention of agencies who want to give their clients something more than just "refreshments" in a beautiful setting.
For this reason the Villa Cornér corporate event was transformed into a show, thanks to the skilful lighting design of Giambattista Scarpellini, owner of SG Lighting. "My company has increasingly specialized in sound, video and lighting for corporate events and I am lucky enough to have highly specialized and extremely professional equipment," he said.
Scarpellini was referring to his vast collection of Clay Paky lights, and the GlowUps in particular, which are portable battery-operated IP65-rated 'uplights'. "Since I have been using these small colour-changers, I have drastically changed the way I work: battery operation means I can install them without laying cables all over historic houses or, worse still, all over gardens. I can therefore install them extremely quickly, and they really save me precious time I can then devote to dealing better with other aspects. The clients are obviously very pleased, because they get a 'clean' job with minimal environmental intrusiveness in half the time."
The GlowUp is an intelligent dynamic light projector. It performs the colour and shade change sequences chosen by the user from among the many stored inside fully automatically. Each unit is independently controlled and multiple lights are synchronized through Wi-Fi devices built into each unit.
The fact GlowUps are easy to use does not mean that the inspiration and creativity of the lighting designer is superfluous! To light the sets at Villa Cornér, Scarpellini went for an unconventional choice. "Instead of evenly illuminating the walls, I opted for accent lighting, working on the contours and outlines."
"This gave the set depth, and was an excellent backdrop for the fashion show. I projected unobtrusive visual effects on top of these light beams, such as stars or floral patterns, using two 7000 ANSI lumen full HD projectors. The idea was to incorporate all the lighting elements in a scenographic context that enhanced the show and - at the same time - highlighted the setting."
However there was another thorny problem to solve: how to create a disco environment inside the villa in a long narrow room where the power was barely adequate for the sound and it was not possible to hang structures. The problem was solved with 36 GlowUps placed around the walls. "An extraordinarily successful result!" according to Giambattista Scarpellini and his team.
(Jim Evans)
