Watchmen

Point Source Productions Ltd have supplied lighting, dimming, control and trussing to Future Cinema’s preview extravaganza of Watchmen - the film adaptation of the ‘50s graphic novel - which took place the night before the film’s official UK release on 6 March.

The Future Cinema event, produced in conjunction with Paramount Pictures UK, Nokia and Smirnoff, took place at the SeOne Club in London Bridge, attended and introduced by co-creator of Watchmen, Dave Gibbons, who described the evening as ‘an enthusiastic and noisy kaleidoscope of characters and themes from the movie.’

Future Cinema and its sister company, Secret Cinema, specialise in new and classic film releases which are transformed into exciting, dynamic events. The aim is to immerse the cinema-goer into the world of the film by re-creating scenes from the film inhabited by actors playing the roles of the on-screen protagonists, prior to a showing of the film itself.

For Watchmen, Future Cinema wanted to create the futuristic New York settings of the film combined with some evocative ‘50s settings, such as the American Diner, to give the feel of the era in which the graphic novel was written.

Future Cinema called in Lighting Designer Jono Kenyon, with whom they have collaborated on a number of occasions, to create the necessary ambience.

“The venue already had a Sci-Fi feel to it, being under the arches, which we could take advantage of to re-create the lunar and martian landscapes represented in the film,” explains Kenyon. “We worked in a very filmic way to create the ‘vignettes’ taking care to get the vibe of the film just right.

“Point Source Productions provided us, in advance, with stock piles of generic lighting equipment which gave us the ingredients we needed to be able to light as we went - these events are very fast-paced! This included some deliberately old-style kit like Arcline, Egg strobes and Fuzz-light beacons in addition to a quantity of Minuette fresnels, Thomas Par 38, PAR 56, PAR 64 and Birdies. We used 500kW Codas as uplighters washing the walls and projected logos and breakups from glass gobos in ETC Source 4s.”

Point Source Productions also supplied Smoke Factory Data II smoke machines, along with all dimming, control, cabling and rigging.

One of the highlights of the show was the Musion Eyeliner™ high definition holographic video projection screen – on this occasion showing the moving blue figure of Watchmen character, Dr Manhattan - the framework for which was built from Litec QX30S box truss also supplied by Point Source Productions.

This is the third Future Cinema/Secret Cinema event Kenyon has lit with the aid of Point Source Productions equipment, having previously been involved at the showing of Anvil at the Shepherds Bush Empire in February 09 and Ghostbusters at the Lawrence Hall, Victoria in November 2008.

More information on Jono Kenyon can be found at www.jonokenyon.com, Future Cinema and Secret Cinema can be found at www.futurecinema.co.uk and www.secretcinema.org

Pictures by Barney Steel