Production Futures

OLLY WALKER PRESENTS GENESIS

Burgeoning DJ talent Olly Walker brought his unique vision to Bedfordshire’s Quarry Theatre with the aid of VJ Rob Brown and LD Elliot Baines. TPi spoke to Baines about the experience.

A production completely crewed and designed by a team all aged under 20 years old, Olly Walker presents GENESIS saw the young DJ bring together a group of motivated individuals to create this unique showcase in the Quarry Theatre in Bedford. Key to the visual look of the show were VJ Rob Brown [VJ Robbie B] and LD Elliot Baines.

The LD - and winner of the TPi Breakthrough Talent Award in 2018 - spoke of his experience with the project. “The idea was to create a futuristic audio-visual experience,” he began. “Rob found me while searching for Avolites tutorials on YouTube around a year ago and we started talking about collaboration.” Walker, Brown and Baines met for the first time at PLASA 2018 and, as the award-winner put it, “the rest is history.”

The trio had big ambitions of the project which saw them take down all the theatre lights and re-design the rig. “Most of the crew was made up of Olly’s friends who had been involved with productions previously in the theatre, so they knew their way around the venue,” explained Baines.

The entire crew were aged 18 and 19, except for Baines, who is only 15. The stage crew included Max Deacon, Andy Wong, Blue Galtos, Jasper Cumming and Demis Sukys. The sound engineer for the project was Olly Dwight with Stage Management, handled by Josh Nethersole. Chauvet Professional supplied 4 Maverick MK1 Hybrids with Colour Sound Experiment supplying 4 Rogue R1-FXBs. LCH Production Services also provided 2 Chauvet DJ Geysers. The rest of the rig was featured lights already on site. Baines also brought his own personal fixtures, he told TPi, including Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot 100 IRCs, Intimidator Spot LED 350s and Minizoom-712s on the rig. “Laserworld were also incredibly helpful in suppling 2 DS-1000RGBs which took the show to a new level,” he enthused. The whole show was controlled by an Avolites Quartz lighting console.

Far be it for talents of this young age to be disinterested in the concept of time passing, Baines said the challenges on the project centred around the clock. “Most of the issues we had were to do with timing as we wanted to rig everything at a fast pace to allow for rehearsals and final programming,” commented Baines.

“On the video side of things, we had to figure out on how to make the image from the projector brighter as the content was being washed out by the smoke.” But, after “lots of experimentation” they got the balance right, he was pleased to report, adding: “In the end, our expectations were exceeded as the crew managed to set the stage in under three minutes following the supporting acts.”

The LD concluded by listing some of his highlights from the project. “One of my favourite looks was the timecoded intro as the timing has to be absolutely spot on. We also had a song where the lasers did a spotted effect on each of the fills, along with the visuals, which looked really satisfying and was most of the crew members’ favourite look.”

After the success of the project, crewed by the young and hungry industry newcomers, Baines said this is just the beginning with more events in the pipeline. TPi www.productionfutures.co.uk www.spiralstagelighting.com

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