For the past decade, Hardus Zevenster from Tygerberg FM has been responsible for bringing the popular Gospel Skouspel to the stage. Two years ago he contacted Marius Marais from Audio Logic to discuss a new look and feel for the show. That’s when lighting designer Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier was also approached to be involved. This year Josh asked Herman Wessels and Alan Muller to work alongside him as operators and co-designers for his second year running. Photos by Janco Haywood.
Gospel Skouspel 2016 took place at the Moreleta Park Auditorium in Pretoria and at the Grand West Arena in Cape Town, where the production was also filmed for DVD. MGG Productions were the main technical suppliers.
“This is Hardus’ brainchild,” said Joshua. “It’s a project he has put together for Tygerberg FM. He is really passionate about it and about getting gospel music to the masses.” The artist line-up included including Juanita du Plessis, Elvis Blue, Joe Niemand, Loyiso Bala, Henry Pike, Corlea and many others.
“This year the challenge was to make it even more exciting and vibrant than last year. We decided to make it look more technical, should I say, and used trussing over trussing to give it that advanced technologically styled look. We multi-layered the band, using truss structures as stages decks for the band members. These small stage structures raised the band at varying heights between 1.5m to 2m in the air. The trussing used for two entrances on stage were also dressed with lights fixtures, which added “bling and zing” to the whole truss and of course to the stage.”
It’s a well organised show especially from a musical point of view. The production team go to great lengths to create a feel and ambience from start to finish. “Because they put so much effort into the music we get to time code it with precision which allows us to take an identical show from Pretoria to Cape Town. Once in Cape Town we don’t have to do much in the venue other than update pre-sets.”
Joshua is eloquent in time-code. “It’s just easier,” he says. “That’s what people don’t understand. There’s more precision and once we get it right, it remains right.” Control was on a grandMA2. “We had two of them in Grand West, with VPU for pixel mapping and MPUs for backstage.”
While Joshua designed the show, he appointed Herman Wessels as the operator and asked Alan Muller to works as the co-designer and to handle the project in Cape Town as Joshua could not be there himself. Herman also went to Cape Town. “They’re a great team and they had lots of energy,” said Joshua. “Attention to detail, it’s what I noticed about the two of them. They’re both very meticulous, so when you put two like-minded people together, suddenly you get great results. What’s nice about working on a show like this is putting a new lighting team together with people whom you don’t often work with. As we’ve all been in the industry for a long time, you get to share experiences and share knowledge… it’s actually a growth experience for everyone.”
The industrial and technical looking stage theme carried out to the artists. Instead of the usual evening wear, they dressed in funky urban and modern attire, further complementing the contemporary feel and making the show more edgy. “So the whole show itself was then transformed this year,” said Joshua.
Gear wise the show was pretty standard. “We followed our tried and tested tools of how we use lights for DVDs and a similar sort of lighting rig to what I use on most of my gigs. I used the Vuepix LED strips – a 100 metres – which is the largest quantity I’ve used. It was a nice highlight in between the LED screens and it added a nice flavour to the whole stage. My tried and trusted Robe BMFLs were used front lights, and of course I had my standard Robin range.”
Once again Gospel Skouspel was a lovely production for Joshua to work on. “Why I enjoy doing it is because everyone involved in the project is extremely passionate and for them it’s a very important project. You kind of get drawn into the passion of it and you then become as passionate as they are. I think that’s the fun part for me.”
36 x Claypaky Sharpy
12 x Claypaky Alpha 1500 Spot / Profile
20 x Elation Cuepix Panel RBGA LED 5×5
2 x grandMA2 NPU Network Processor Rack With 8 DMX Split
1 x grandMA2 Full Lighting Desk
1 x grandMA2 NPU 4Port Node
1 x grandMA VPU Plus
1 x MDG theOne Haze Machine
12 x Robe ColorBeam 700E AT Electronic Ballast
20 x Robe LEDForce 18 RGBW 25 Deg
24 x Robin LEDBeam
8 x Robin 1200 LEDWash
20 x Robin 600 LEDWash
6 x Robin BMFL Blade 1700 W Profile
2 x Robert Juliat Aramis 2.5 W HMI Followspot
150 x Vuepix 12mm LED E400 (PRO) Indoor / Outdoor Mesh 3500 Nits
1 x Vuepix Q7e Sender LED Controller
100 x Vuepix VueStrip 12 1m Length 12.5mm Pitch 2000 Nits
1 x Vuepix VueStrip VDU 16 – VueStrip power supply