Artistic Licence Sponsors Fire Exit's Sub Rosa

Artistic Licence sponsored Fire Exit's re-creation of David Leddy's Sub Rosa at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by supplying a range of new products.
The latest colour mixing product Flexi-Strip was used in combination with the new higher power version of Rail-Pipe. This allowed the 15m of Flexi-Strip RGB60 to be DMX512 controlled and so integrated into the overall lighting control system.
Flexi-Strip RGB is a range of colour-changing LEDs encapsulated on a flexible substrate with a transparent silicone lens. The product is backed with a self-adhesive tape for ease of installation.
Sub Rosa, which ran for four weeks and was awarded a Bank of Scotland Herald angle award, is Gothic Victorian promenade show. Seven groups of 15-20 people are taken nightly through five rooms of the Hill Theatre, a Masonic Lodge on George Street.
Lighting Designer Nich Smith was responsible for translating from the original 2009 production at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow. Smith had to take the key elements of each scene and reproduce them in a non-theatrical environment whilst maintaining the ambience of the piece throughout the building.
Smith said: "Lighting is a big part of the show used as if to evoke a 'seventh character', the building itself. When I heard about Flexi-Strip it struck me as the perfect product for the opening effect in Sub Rosa.
"The opening scene needed to be dramatic, high impact to draw the audience immediately into the world of the production, even before the actor's first entrance and dialogue. The key element of this was to light the entire room with a multi-coloured, immersive colour-changing sequence.
"The audience enters the Masonic Master's Room at the start of the show, a 4m x 4m meeting room dressed to look like an office and dimly lit with only a desklamp. Suddenly, a multi-coloured son et lumber bursts into life around them, illuminating objects in the room and making the room explode with vivid sequences of colour."
Smith achieved this using Super-Bright Flexi-Strip concealed on top of the Master's Room picture rails. He said: "I have worked with Artistic Licence several times in the past and read about their new Flexi-Strip LED lighting in the press. It was ideal for this application: its self-adhesive backing meant it was easily deployed without damaging the fabric of this historic building. Installing it on top of the picture rail meant it was all but invisible to the audience as they first entered the room. But the output bouncing off the ceiling was bright enough to light the whole room and catch the audience unawares. The element of surprise, and the subsequent wash of bright colour, gave us the big impact we were after."
Smith's intention was to dress the set with old style lighting equipment, but to create the lighting effects using the modern technology available. Smith continued: "I like to use new equipment in different ways and knew from experience that Artistic Licence would also have the required control products, in this case Rail-Pipe, to give me full DMX control over the Flexi-Strip. The show was well received and well reviewed in the national papers including the Guardian and Sunday Times. Flexi-Strip did everything i was expecting it to do! It was a crazy show to light so it was great to have the support and help from Artistic Licence."
Flexi-Strip is available in a variety of colour options, full colour RGB, warm white and cool white. The RGB colour mixing versions comes in Bright and Super-Bright intensities. A number of Flexi-Strip bundles are also available containing all that is needed to get started, including a power supply and wiring instructions.
(KMcA)