|
 Point
Source Productions teamed up with Secret Cinema in a now familiar
partnership for a week-long screening of Blade Runner at
Canary Wharf, providing the lighting, trussing and power
distribution for the event.
More ambitious than Secret Cinema’s customary one
night extravaganzas, Blade Runner ran for 8 screenings and
proved to be the 11th biggest grossing film in the UK
that week.
The event took place at the end of June as a
promenade piece, in which cinema goers brought to the two-warehouse
venue in coaches, were taken through a custom-built ‘China Town’
surrounded by emulations of scenes from the film, and through an
outdoor entertainment area before entering the temporary cinema to
watch a screening of the film.
 China
Town was recreated in ‘real’ form, complete with functioning bars,
noodle stands and sushi bars, and dressed to create the atmosphere
of an Asian street market with a heady mix of Neon, fluorescent and
festoon lighting.
Point Source Productions supplied a QX30S trussing
system which formed the main support for the lighting, also provided
by Point Source Productions, which included general cover from ETC
Source 4s, CCT Minuette Fresnels and PAR 64s with floor-mounted
Birdies providing uplight.
Festoon lighting, loaded with energy saving light
bulbs to create a more ‘grungy’ feel, and a large number of fuzz
lights combined with smoke effects from a Tour Hazer and two Data II
units, with further smoke effects provided by a JEM Glaciator.
Meanwhile LD and Production Electrician, Jono Kenyon, used MAC 550s
to recreate one of the major effects in the movie of searchlights
sweeping through the streets of China Town.
 This
searchlight effect was also repeated in the screening room where MAC
300s were used to light an aerial performance against a video
backdrop of a building, in emulation of the film’s final scene. This
motif was played out on the side wall of the cinema during the
showing of the film.
All mains power distribution for the catering stalls
and shops in ‘China Town’ and for two large LED screens which ran
continually as futuristic backdrops in each warehouse was provided
by Point Source Productions, along with approximately 1.5 tons of
cable.
An Avolites Pearl controlled effects in both the
screening room and ‘China Town’. Finally, emergency exit and outdoor
flood lighting were also supplied by Point Source Productions along
with an Uninterruptible Power Supply which is offered to all its
customers as protection and back up for their control systems in the
potentially precarious environment of a live production.
“This event
was bigger than the normal Secret Cinema experiences,” explains
Kenyon. “The whole idea was to create a more authentic atmosphere
than the usual tableaux of previous Secret Cinema events and Point
Source was on hand to offer support during the run as well as in
production. The Blade Runner screening was the biggest and
most successful to date so it shows we must be getting the formula
right.”
Photographer: Mike Massaro
www.secretcinema.org
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