According to Japhy: "In the beginning of my design process, I needed to make a few positioning adjustments in order to accommodate some changes in scenery height. At first, I was reluctant to move them, not knowing how long it would take. However, the Nexeras were easy to re-position due to their compact and lightweight structure. A lighting designer should think of them simply as conventional lights with wonderful CMY colour mixing capabilities built inside. They truly require less fuss than conventional units with scrollers because it's all in one unit: the way it should be."
The Nexeras were hung to create a diagonal backlight system to achieve clean colour washes across the 'deck', while simultaneously sculpting the actors. Japhy found the units to be well suited for shifting time-of-day atmospheres. "For example, in one sequence the colour is set in a saturated blue-green night at sea that slowly, over the course of a series of cues, shifts into a cool daylight blue, eventually ending in a bastard amber." Especially convincing were the sunrise effects that he achieved by slowly adding no-colour sidelight, while shifting the Nexeras from daylight blue into light bastard amber. "Overall," says Japhy, "the Nexera units add a new layer of flexibility to theatrical lighting design. Thanks to John Fuller and Wybron for letting me test them. I'll definitely request them for another production in the near future!"
(Lee Baldock)
