Liverpool based rental company ADLIB supplied Lighting, AV and PA to the latest hugely successful UK tour by award winning comedian Jimmy Carr.
ADLIB has worked with Carr for the last 4 years and they have also been enjoying a spurt of comedy tours in recent months which included Russell Howard’s pre-festive arena tour.
The company has perfected the specific requirements of this entertainment genre when it comes to technical production and enjoys a long standing relationship with the Carr camp.
Lighting
The lighting rig was designed and operated by ADLIB’s Tim Spilman.
The set up featured a front truss with 8 Martin Professional MAC 250 wash lights, with three 90 degree ETC Source Four profiles on side booms each side of the thrust stage for downstage side illumination. There were 6 floor PARs, fitted with front filters to eliminate facial shadows.
A black back curtain was up-lit with another 5 floor PARs.
There were 3 main performance positions – centre stage, sofa stage right and table stage right – each of which was lit with 2 profiles and 2 floor cans.
Spilman programmed and operated the show on a Hog 3 console.
Video
Video was co-ordinated by ADLIB’s Tristan Bryant.
This featured two 12’ x 9’ Stumpfl side of stage screens, each fed with a Sanyo XP200 projector. Two Sony D50 cameras were positioned at FOH and to the side of the venue, and fed into a Panasonic MX70 vision mixer with Datavision Preview monitors. Playback was from Laptop and DVD and controlled via an Analog-Way Opus. The show was mixed by Iain Christie.
ADLIB’s Hassane Essiahi took care of FOH, which might appear straightforward in terms of inputs, but required superlative precision and balance to get Carr’s voice sounding completely natural – and therefore what the audience are used to – to appreciate the delivery of his humour and punch-lines.
Essiahi chose a JBL VerTec 4889 line array system – 10 elements a side, with ADLIB AA281, AA81s and AA122s as front fills. All of this was powered by Camco Vortex V6 amps and EQ’d via Lake DLPs complete with remote tablet. The mixing desk was a Yamaha LS9 digital console, chosen for its small footprint and appropriateness for the project. Carr uses a lavalier headset with a DPA mic.
“The challenge is EQ’ing the system to get the colouration and tonality of the voice spot on,” explains Essiahi, adding “The VerTec is extremely good for getting nice tight focuses and clear & even coverage all around the room.”
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