Singapore - Hong Kong-based lighting designer and technical producer Onefai Mak specified a zactrack mini system to control both audio and lighting sources for a production of Detective Theatre 13.67 staged by theatre company Zuni Icosahedron at the Esplanade Theatre in Singapore.
Onefai has collaborated with Zuni for many years and is frequently asked to light their shows. For this production, he designed lighting and was also the technical advisor. They used the Esplanade’s in-house sound and lighting systems with a zactrack mini system that was supplied by C’est Bon Projects Corporation Limited.
Authorised by writer Chan Ho-kei and the Crown Culture Group, Mathias Woo adapted the novel 13.67 into a new Detective Theatre production featuring a legendary Hong Kong detective operating between 1967 and 2013. Each case taps into Hong Kong society via identifiable characters and events, like tycoons, idols, kidnapping incidents, and bomb maniacs.
The play reflects Hong Kong’s shifting cultures presented via pop songs and the immersive projection of comic graphics, mixing a busy soundscape with singing, narration, comedy, and an assortment of storytelling techniques.
Onefai recommended that zactrack was used to assist with providing directional audio – based on the location of actors onstage – and also for spotting them with very minimal but essential and intense elements of light that did not interfere with the projections that gave this production its dramatic aesthetic.
Three zactrack trackers were positioned on three actors and mapped via six zactrack anchors, three located along the front of the stage, two on the stage left and right sides and one at the back.
The lights – six Martin Mac 700 performance moving lights – rigged on the front truss were programmed on a grandMA3 lighting console, with various lighting cues also including positional info from the zactrack server so they could move and track actors onstage.
The same actors together with a prop gun were tracked for audio via a d&b DS100 Signal Engine, which mapped the movement and immersive effects – time delay and level control – to every speaker in the house system. d&b’s S100 Soundscape was applied to create a layer of sonic atmosphere helping transport the audience into another world where actors sometimes switched to being storytellers.
This was where they specifically wanted the voices to move with the actor via the soundscape to enhance the general audience experience. Once the actors’ voices were set up and working as required, Onefai and the team worked on more sonic elements, like where to locate props in the gunfight scene.
“The outcome is really cool, it allowed the entire scene to become more three-dimensional compared to listening to a traditional stereo system,” he noted. Detective Theatre 13.67 was the first time Onefai had used zactrack on a full production show, a decision he made after some testing and a lot of research into the best tracking system to get the results everyone wanted.
“The zactrack mini is super easy to set up being wireless based and works for both audio and lighting,” he commented, adding that he really relished the ability to finesse and add detail to the gunfight scene by having access to tracking both elements. He was also impressed with the way this newest tech can be integrated seamlessly with existing and more classic tech to get excellent results for audiences.
The zactrack mini was supported in Singapore by Glen Wong from Total Solution Marketing, zactrack’s Singapore distributor, and Alan Loh, zactrack’s regional sales manager for South East Asia, who were “extremely helpful and great to work with” concluded Onefai.
