This is the year that iconic crooner Frank Sinatra would have celebrated his 100th birthday, and to mark that milestone, Sinatra – via 3D rotoscoped imagery and never before seen video – is on stage once again at the London Palladium, starring in Sinatra: The Man & His Music. The sleek, cutting edge production, mounted by Producer Karl Sydow, takes place 65 years after Sinatra played his first gig outside the United States. Sydow explains, “Sinatra: The Man & His Music is the official celebration for the centenary of Frank Sinatra’s birth, and we’ve brought some of the biggest names in the industry together to do it justice. A show of this magnitude requires the best in the business.” Those biggest names in the business include Set Designer Ray Winkler of Stufish Entertainment Architects, Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Bassett Design, Projection Designer Leo Warner of 59 Productions and a 24 piece orchestra headed up by conductor Richards John.
As one would expect, the production is projection heavy, relying on images and vocals from Sinatra’s colored past. The songs featured in the production include ‘Come Fly With Me,’ ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ ’New York, New York’ and ‘My Way, ’among others. The set features an impressive band stand with two moving sets of stairs; there is also an area below the band stand that’s comprised of 18 rotating LED panels that are 6’ 5” high by 3’ wide. The back of the LED panels utilize blue velvet with LED strip lighting; six of the center panels can move on and offstage, allowing entrances and exits of performers and set pieces.
The production itself had a rather accelerated production schedule. Sinatra: The Man & His Music Senior Production Electrician Harrison Cooke explains, “We didn’t have a lot of time; pre-production was only four weeks and typically for the West End it could be months.” Pre-production was done at the LH2 rehearsal facility in London.
Lighting is tastefully integrated into the scenery – specifically in two sets of stairs and a curved deck piece. Because these are moving pieces, there was a need for reliable wireless DMX for lighting control. Cooke says, “It’s certainly the biggest wireless system I’ve ever come across and normally we would have a dedicated technician to look after the wireless equipment. In our instance, we didn’t.”
The original wireless DMX that was specified for the show had significant issues. “The only thing that we had to spend a lot of time dealing with was the wireless system,” admits Cooke with chagrin. Those issues seemed to relate to a firmware issue within their transmitters. “We were the first in the UK to have their new transmitters, and it was going to take them three weeks to fix it,” Cooke reports.
Time was the major challenge. Cooke adds, “I didn’t feel like they [the original wireless vendor] were particularly interested in our project. I told them that I have a big lighting designer behind me, and the production won’t accept anything but the system working. And neither will I.” Stresses were high.
Since waiting weeks for a workable, reliable system wasn’t in the cards for Cooke, he turned to Technical Performance and Presentation, the London-based representative for RC4 Wireless and the firm’s owner, Beverly Grover. He says, “We didn’t try any other systems; we simply didn’t have the time. I’ve used RC4 before; you plug it in and it works.” That kind of reliability was exactly what Cooke and his team needed for Sinatra.
It was June 18th when Grover came out to the LH2 with a pair of RC4Magic Series 3 DMXio transceivers for the staircase unit. They did a simple side by side test. She notes, “We put the RC4Magic receiver on the stage right side, and we left the stage left as it was; then we switched them back on and the difference was quite remarkable.” The original unit was still non-functional, while the RC4Magic DMXio receiver worked perfectly with a solid connection to its associated DMXio transmitter. Cooke notes, “I said, ‘That’s it then.’ So we got the RC4 system.”
Grover has been working with RC4 Wireless for five years. “I went up with the completed order on the 6th of July and we put part of it in, tested it, and again it worked the first time and it’s working to this day.” The show opened on the 10th of July.
There are several RC4 products that comprise the Sinatra wireless DMX and dimming system. The production has four RC4Magic Series 3 DMXio receivers that deliver DMX data to the lighting on the two sets of stairs – the main performance stairs and the rolling stairs – and on the curved deck piece that enters when the center LED panels open. James D. Smith, President and Chief Product Developer at RC4 Wireless explains, “More and more, modern musicals have no room for blackouts. Directors are thinking cinematically and want the show to be tight with quick changes. Scenery, furniture, and props rush on an off with the fluidity of film edits and dissolves. In the past, a crew member could run a cable out to a floor pocket and connect the odd set piece equipped with on-board lighting. Now there is no time for that — and no room, either, because many more set pieces have lighting in them.” Wireless products have solved the dilemma.
The RC4Magic Series 3 DMXio can receive – and transmit – a full universe of DMX data. Any number of receivers can be used in the system, replacing splitters and distribution boxes. RC4Magic avoids RF channel hopping, and consequently avoids competing with most other devices using the 2.4GHz band. “Unlike other products on the market, RC4Magic uses only 1/15th of the 2.4GHz spectrum. Rather than hopping through, over, and into other systems in the room, we play well with them. RC4 systems are ideal for use in congested areas with many theatres right next to each other, as is the case in London’s West End,” notes Smith.
The back of 16 of the rotating LED panels are using new RC4Magic Series 3 DMXmrx miniature DMX receivers, which the firm created for Sinatra: The Man & His Music. Cooke notes, “In the soffit panels there’s lots of LED strips, and there was in issue with the amount of cable that could be run to them. The easiest thing for video, lighting and power, was to remove the DMX and do that wirelessly.”
So the engineers at RC4 got work, and created the miniature DMXmrx receiver. Smith explains, “Creating new products for customers is something we do regularly — pretty much whenever the need arises; in fact, every product and feature in our RC4Magic Series 3 line-up was requested by a customer. Sinatra needed small and reliable wireless DMX receivers, easily connected to batteries. The ideal solution was a product much like our Series 3 DMX2dim, which includes DMX data output, but without the dimmers. In this case we had the concept, the basic outline of what a DMXmrx should be, on our to-do list before Sinatra came along. The immediate need just moved it to the front of the line and we were able to deliver it — a brand new product — in a matter of days.”
RC4Magic Series 3 DMXmrx miniature DMX receivers are indeed small – 2.40″ x 1.41″ x 0.79”. The receiver DMX data output replicates the DMX data input at the RC4Magic DMXio transmitter, providing the same number of DMX channels and the same number of packets per second with excellent data integrity. It’s output can drive more than the DMX specification limit of 32 devices downstream, and, as expected, the DMX output meets USITT DMX512/1990. “We knew that space was an issue in this installation, so we offered them the choice of standard RC4Magic Series 3 DMXio receivers or new DMXmrx receivers. They chose the DMXmrx because it provided a shorter installation time and we were able to deliver it at a lower price than our standard DMXio. That’s right – it was a brand new product, less expensive that the previously existing option, and available in the same time frame. When does that ever happen?” Smith asks with a smile.
To ensure good signal propagation throughout the theatre, the wireless transmitters installed for Sinatra: The Man and His Music are two high-gain RC4Magic Series 3 DMXio-HG units; Sinatra: The Man & His Music is running two full universes of wireless DMX. “Our Series 3 DMXio-HG is the most versatile RC4Magic Wireless DMX transceiver. It can operate as a transmitter or receiver, has an RF connector for use with a wide range of external antenna options, automatically scans the RF environment to find a clear channel with the least interference, and provides unmatched system security with RC4 private digital IDs,” Smith notes.
Things have been running smoothly for Cooke and his team at the Palladium with Sinatra: The Man and His Music. “I don’t particularly feel that you should have to employ someone who is a specialist in wireless DMX to put a system in and operate it; it shouldn’t have to be that complicated. The RC4 Wireless system has been brilliant for us,” Cooke concludes.
Sinatra: The Man and His Music is playing at the Palladium until the 10th of October.
In Manhattan, the heart of the city that never sleeps, creating something spectacular can be a challenge. The New York Spring Spectacular starring the Rockettes does justice to the word. Animated statues, rain, 3D video, moving video screens, and more, all make this show something to behold.
An RC4Magic Wireless DMX and Dimming System delivers subtle and not so subtle effects that help make this show great. Act 1, Scene 1: Grand Central Station, complete with its world-famous ticket counter and clock, center stage. Lights are controlled using RC4Magic Series 3 wireless, and that’s just the beginning of a long list of untethered props and set pieces brightening practically every scene to come.
When the plot brings us to the Empire State Building, four coin-operated binoculars are on the Observation Deck. These free moving props, pushed around by the ensemble dancers, are tricked-out to become deck follow spots illuminating two aerialists that fly above the scene. The binoculars hold custom LED spotlights created by Microlight Systems and controlled via RC4Magic Series 3 DMXio receivers.
One of the show’s most technically advanced elements is delivered using new RC4 Wireless technology. The RC4Magic DMXi2c is a versatile data interface for microcontrollers including Arduino, RasberryPi, and others. Paul Sonnleitner, who served as the Lighting Programmer, explains, “We have 36 LED-covered Jackets worn by the Rockettes — 44 with swings and spares. Each jacket provides individual control of many separate color-changing pixels. To avoid massive wireless traffic and to make playback flawless, each jacket utilizes an Arduino controller with an SD card storing cues. We only send one universe of control signals via an RC4Magic DMXio transmitter, and an RC4Magic DMXi2c delivers DMX channel data using an interface Arduinos really like, ensuring all the jackets are perfectly synchronized at all times. At the end of the segment, as the Rockettes form a kick line, the 36 active jackets play back full-motion video sequences.”
RC4Magic has been the wireless lighting system of choice for many technology directors due to RC4 Unique System IDs and minimum bandwidth demand; RC4Magic uses only 1/15th of the 2.4GHz spectrum, versus hopping through the entire band as most others do.
RC4 Wireless technology is the preferred choice for the Rockettes flagship venue. Lighting Designer David Agress notes, “Here at Radio City Music Hall, all RC4Magic transceivers are configured to operate on one selected radio channel, carefully coordinated with extensive WiFi and other systems in our show. This, along with the narrow channel width, is the biggest reason RC4Magic is here. The guarantee that no other device can interfere with this dedicated frequency is priceless. When you invest in the time and technology needed to play a movie file across a line of dancing Rockettes, there is no room for error from signal dropouts.”
From Grand Central to the red steps of Times Square, which are illuminated from the inside with RC4 receivers and multiple pixel controllers, RC4 Wireless helps make this show spectacular. RC4 Wireless is proud to help Radio City Music Hall and The Rockettes Live Life UntetheredTM.
About RC4 Wireless
Winner of the 2014 PLASA Award for Innovation, RC4 Wireless has specialized in low-voltage dimming for arts and entertainment since 1991. RC4 products are used in top venues around the world, including New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and London’s National Theatre, and supporting touring artists including Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. RC4 products are recognized for their reliability and their compact size, making them ideal for easy integration into props, costumes, and set pieces.
About The New York Spring Spectacular
The New York Spring Spectacular starring the Rockettes presented by Chase is a whirlwind musical adventure across the world’s most iconic city. Created by an Oscar and Tony Award-winning team and featuring Tony Award winner Laura Benanti and Emmy Award winner Derek Hough, the New York Spring Spectacular is running now through May 7.
Big musical numbers, whimsical props, flashy dance sequences — all are key parts of any Broadway musical, and the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of On The Twentieth Century delivers all of the above. From the moment the immaculately detailed show curtain goes up, RC4Magic Series 3 Wireless DMX and Dimming takes center stage, supporting a Tony award winning show that was also nominated for 4 Drama Desk Awards, 9 Outer Critics Circle Awards and 3 Drama League Awards.
“Almost every piece of scenery in this show uses wireless dimming, along with several props, most of which have multiple fixtures requiring wireless dimming. And the show’s main scenic element is a life-sized train automated on a free spinning turtle. This turtle transports the train up and downstage as well as left to right. The train contains over fifty individual lighting fixtures and we certainly cannot have cables following it,” explains Brian Maiuri, the I.A.T.S.E. Local One House Head and Production Electrician at the American Airlines Theatre.
Maiuri continues, “There are a number of reasons I opted to use the RC4Magic Series 3 devices, first of which is the dependability of the product. I have been using RC4 products for over ten years with consistent results, and their customer service is unparalleled.”
Small size is something RC4Wireless has been skillfully addressing for more than 20 years. Tiny dimmers aid prop people and electricians alike, as Maiuri explains. “There have been so many times that I’ve been handed a show prop that needs to light up, but there is virtually no space to hide the gear necessary to make that happen. Add the fact that the power requirement for 12V lamps sometimes exceeds 10 amps. On the Twentieth Century is one of those situations where two of the show’s props can only be accommodated with an RC4Magic Series 3 DMX4dim-500 high power dimmer pack because they are small enough to fit. We also have hundreds of LED pieces in the show and I favor the options that RC4Magic Series 3 provides for perfectly smooth dimming.”
In one of the dance numbers, hidden crosses are illuminated with LED tape, each controlled by an RC4Magic DMX4dim. On the stage deck, the large candelabra has been dimmed to push audience focus to the crosses. Each candelabra contains an RC4Magic DMX4dim-500.
RC4Wireless is proud to help Donald Holder, Lighting Designer, and David Rockwell, Set Designer, to Live Life Untethered, realizing their breath-taking vision for the show.
Since its debut last October, the RC4Magic Series 3 system has taken the world by storm, appearing in four new Broadway productions as well as garnering the PLASA Award For Innovation and an Honorable Mention at the LDI new product awards.
About RC4 Wireless
Winner of the 2014 PLASA Award for Innovation, RC4 Wireless has specialized in low-voltage dimming for arts and entertainment since 1991. RC4 products are used in top venues around the world, including New York City’s Radio City Music Hall and London’s National Theatre, and supporting touring artists including Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. RC4 products are recognized for their reliability and their compact size, making them ideal for easy integration into props, costumes, and set pieces.
About the Roundabout Theatre
Roundabout Theatre Company is a not-for-profit theatre dedicated to providing a nurturing artistic home for theatre artists at all stages of their careers, where the widest possible audience can experience their work at affordable prices. Roundabout fulfills its mission each season through the revival of classic plays and musicals; development and production of new works by established playwrights and emerging writers; educational initiatives that enrich the lives of children and adults; and a subscription model and audience outreach programs that cultivate loyal audiences.
As The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night settles into its new home at the Gielgud Theatre in London’s West End it continues to receive rave reviews.
The technical elements are breathtaking as Paule Constable’s lighting interacts with Finn Ross’ video designs; Dickinson’s incredible sound design; and Bunny Christie’s versatile set design allow us to join Christopher’s world. Many of the technical lighting achievements are done using RC4Magic wireless DMX and would not have been possible without tiny RC4 dimmers.
The National Theatre was an earlier adopter of wireless dmx and dimming and have used multiple generations of RC4 Wireless products. Nearly every show produced by the Royal National Theatre has incorporated RC4Magic devices into the show. Additionally, each theatre space operates their own individual set of unique digital IDs to ensure no interference from other systems. Only the RC4Magic ID system provides customer-specific data security while ensuring equipment can be moved from space to space as needed.
Now on tour in the UK and in residence in New York, The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night continues to impress audience members with its magic. RC4 Wireless is proud to have helped the National Theatre’s artistic team realize their stellar vision, with the power of RC4 showing through dramatically throughout the show.
Cirque du Soleil is known for its visual spectacle and technical innovation. Their newest tent show, KURIOS – Cabinet des Curiosités, is no exception. They describe the show as following “an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of time, space and dimension in order to reinvent everything around him.” But the Cirque artist tasked with actually inventing the props and gags to bring the show magic to life was Marc André Roy, the lighting project manager on Kurios.
Although this is only Roy’s second show with Cirque du Soleil as a project manager, he has been with the company for 12 years, mainly as head of lighting, so he knows a lot about all the shows and how the company likes to work. Although the aesthetic for Kurios is different from previous Cirque productions, the process remained the same. Two years before the show opens, the designers and creators begin working on ideas. After six months, the project management team comes in and tells them what is actually possible. For Roy and the other people in production roles, this starts a busy 15-month period. “First we have to get familiar with what the show is supposed to be and what is desired, and after that, to try to make it happen as much as possible, respecting all the designers’ wishes.”
For this show, the designers came in already wanting to incorporate equipment from RC4 Wireless. “It met their needs and matched the aesthetic they wanted to give to the show.”
And the needs were considerable. Roy and his team had to “fit as much equipment—fixtures, controllers and battery packs—into the smallest, smallest space given to us,” Roy explains. In one scene, a juggler balances a giant Edison “lightbulb” on his head. It’s a simple-looking gag, but making it a reality meant a lot of engineering. Roy and his team began by completely deconstructing the artist’s equipment, and then figuring out how to integrate the necessary components before rebuilding everything. The light source is a simple LED fixture with a lithium polymer (LiPo) battery and DMX dimmer inside the lightbulb. Roy and his team tested different configurations and prototypes until they got the technical result they wanted—while making sure the artist remained comfortable and confident with what they used. And they had to do this for a multitude of items in the show. Adding even a small amount of weight to a prop an artist needs to juggle or manipulate with precision can affect their balance and timing. In this they were aided by the miniscule size of RC4’s equipment, which was really important for Cirque—no matter the size of the piece, whether it was the lightbulb for the juggler or a gigantic Russian cradle for acrobats. The cradle for Kurios has six 50W LED floodlights and two strings of festoon lights, all controlled wirelessly with just one of RC4 Wireless’ DMXio receivers.
Roy and his team were able to introduce a lot of LED fixtures to Kurios, now that LEDs perform better and are more available than they were in the past. It also helps that RC4 dimmers have handled LEDs with ease for almost a decade, using a custom dimming curve developed by James David Smith, founder of RC4 Wireless, that dims LEDs as smoothly as incandescents.
In addition to lighting, the wireless dimmers control a lot of little DC motors and relay switches. “We are now seriously introducing the wireless control to the automation system,” Roy says, though he emphasizes that RC4 Wireless is used only for basic automation; anything involving human safety is a different system.
Getting Involved
Sometimes, though, the designers’ imaginations go beyond what the technology is capable of. When that happens, Roy is happy to have Smith on speed dial.
“They sometimes arrive with a basic plan, and a slightly off-center idea of how they’re going to accomplish it,” Smith says with a slight smile. “Often they hope to use a regular RC4 product in a way that will not quite work.” That’s when Smith has to modify one of his existing products, or create a new one from scratch.
Working on Kurios led to one such new product. In one scene, five remote-controlled dollies run around on stage. They were using tiny 24V DC motors to run them, but nothing existed on the market that could control them. So they turned to James, who made a 24-volt wireless controller and had it in their hands within a week. Unfortunately, the power draw was too high and the boards began overheating. “These little things, they’re often something completely new, and you don’t know what’s going to happen until they actually run them.”
Smith added a fan to cool the boards down, and thanks to the magic of FedEx everything was fixed within 48 hours after discovering the problem. “We only missed two days of staging with those elements,” says Roy. “They’re still in action now and performing very well.”
Smith is not surprised they are still working. “Tech rehearsals in general push everything a lot harder than actually running the show,” he says. For a really difficult scene with batteries and controllers, the same cue will be run over and over again until it is right. If a piece is going to fail, it is going to fail then, rather than during the run.
Solutions like the 24-volt motor controller become new products RC4 Wireless can offer to other customers. “In the last several years, I would say every new product that I’ve come out with originated as an actual need by somebody.”
Wireless Storms
In addition to their small size, the flexibility of the dimmers, and the speed with which new RC4 products can be created, Roy shares another important reason they use them: rock-solid radio. “Our venue is quite sensitive to radio waves and frequencies in general,” he says. “Basically, the big top in which we perform is a gigantic tent that will let just about anything but the rain come in.”
That tent is located in a part of Montreal known as The Old Port, (before going on a worldwide tour for the next 10 years); it is still an active port, filled with the radio waves from navigation and water traffic. The city also broadcasts WiFi at a high level to all the tourists in the area. Cirque uses a lot of wireless in their own infrastructure; the offices are wireless, and the box office and merchandising use wireless credit card machines. In the house is Clear-Com and wireless mics, and every night, 2,500 audience members show up with their smart phones. The amount of radio waves flying through Cirque’s tent is quite the challenge for Roy: “Each time we decide to go wireless, it’s a horrible, horrible headache.”
But the RC4 system gives his team the flexibility to either identify a specific position in the wireless spectrum each piece of equipment should operate in, or to just let the equipment scan the frequencies and find where it is safest to be. Each piece of RC4 equipment for each show is given a unique digital identification code, so it will never get confused by other equipment in its vicinity. “Even though basically the full RF spectrum is heavily, heavily used, we still manage to keep control over all of our equipment,” says Roy.
RC4 products are compliant with various regulations and have obtained the necessary certifications for the main markets Cirque operates in, such as Canada, the US, Europe, Australia and Japan. Many other manufacturers have only pending authorizations; for a company like Cirque du Soleil, details like that make a huge difference.
As for control of the wireless dimmers, Marc André explains, “We’re using 10 DMXio transceivers on this show. One is assigned as the main transmitter connected to the lighting desk, and all others are located at different areas, where they will be controlling a group of lights.” They also use the transceivers to control independent dimmers on top of the two 96 dimmer racks that they tour with.
Everything is programmed and controlled from one lighting desk in the main control booth (an MA Lighting grandMA2 console). Out of the 14 universes used in the show, two are dedicated to the different wireless equipment; one controls all the remote control lights, fixtures and motors. The second one is dedicated to one acrobatic act that, for safety reasons, is operated separately by the head rigger from a different, smaller console.
While it’s great that the RC4 transceivers tie in nicely with the console, their flexibility with control was nice, too. During creation, Cirque’s facilities have all of the elements and different parts of the show spread out in different rooms and Roy often needed to work on RC4’s wireless elements in different rooms with different artists.
“We’re lucky we have enough space to basically install an entire big top inside our studios, so all the elements that the audience can see tonight, inside the tent, was at some point completely installed inside our studio here. People will come in, dressed up in their brand-new costumes, and everybody—the artists, the crew, the cast, everybody—gets to see it as it all happens. It’s really stimulating,” explains Roy. To help him out they would move the main transceiver from the lighting console to his computer for control, using RC4’s PC Control Software.
“We would just move with a laptop and go from room to room to work on one act or with one artist specifically,” he adds. “That flexibility was quite appreciated.” Since it meant that, in Roy’s words, “We can do just about whatever we want with them.” Which is something prop makers and lighting crews for any theatre company can appreciate.
RC4 Inventory in Kurios
13 DMX2dim – 2 channel dimmer
3 DMX4dim – 4 channel dimmer
7 DMX2micro – mini 2 channel dimmer
1 RC4MagicPC-USB1 – connects PC to RC4 system
1 DMXioR3 – data transceiver
9 DMXioR3-HG – data transceiver with external antenna
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