IMMERSIVE MOD ODYSSEY, 2016
Staged for one night only at the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on February 11th 2016 by AEG Live, Quadrophenia: The Immersive Cinematic Experience – a multi-media presentation of The Who’s ‘mod opera’ – combined a screening of the original 1979 film with synchronous acting and dancing from a live cast, a Q+A session with director Franc Roddam and stars from the film.
The ‘immersive’ concept was created and produced by AEG Live UK’s Director of Events Sarah Greene, Event Manager Jenny Hamada and Jim King, Senior Vice President of Live Events, with Allen Spriggs brought in as Head of Production to wrangle the technical ingredients.
Alistair ‘Ally’ Parley, then the Apollo’s technical manager, said: “Entec has been a preferred supplier at the venue for many years; the company has a tremendous amount of experience here and the staff know our people very well, so it was a natural decision to ask Entec to quote.”
One of the film’s most memorable scenes showed a pharmaceutically enhanced Jimmy (Phil Daniels) diving into a crowd of dancers from a ballroom balcony – a scene recreated at the Apollo by stuntman Chris Pollard, whose leap into the audience surprised everyone.
The stunt was aided by LD Simon Tutchener, whose diverse career has conveniently included working on a number of the stunt scenes during the filming of ’80s blockbuster movie ‘The Jewel Of The Nile’. Simon was determined to reserve as much quality time as possible with the stuntman to ensure that every corner was covered.
He explained: “During rehearsal, I showed Chris my proposed lighting plot and deleted any lights that gave him a problem. The last thing a stunt guy needs is a beam staring him in the face but he also needs to see his target and be lit all the way down. That scene received a standing ovation on the night, so we did well. This was a relatively cost-effective stunt that didn’t require huge amounts of rigging. The house built a kind of diving board up on the balcony and allocated a couple of security people, while Allen Spriggs arranged a chaperone for Chris.”
CLASSIC
After watching their younger selves on screen, Phil Daniels and his fellow members of the original film cast – Toyah Willcox, Mark Wingett, John Altman, Phil Davis, Trevor Laird, Daniel Peacock, Jeremy Child and the film’s celebrated director, Franc Roddam, formed a panel for a Q&A session hosted by comedian Ian Moore, revealing some of the stories behind the making of the now-classic movie.
“The Q+A session was arranged on stage as a café scene with the original movie cast members occupying tables and chairs,” said Simon, who worked with Entec’s lighting crew members Peter ‘Pepper’ Schofield, Will Wright and Mark Wood, and piloted the show from a grandMA2 light. “I lit this with Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330s rigged on House Bar 3 which, for the purposes of this part of the event, became the front truss. We also used 4-Lite Molefays which were introduced to allow the panel to see the audience who were firing questions from all around the room.”
Completing the night was a brilliant live set by popular tribute band Who’s Who. “I leaned on my rock’n’roll experience to pull some exciting looks together on the spot, and that was immense fun,” said Simon. “I staggered Clay Paky QWO 800 Alpha Spots on three different theatre pipes and relied on the Molefays for the band, notably for the scream in ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. It would’ve been rude not to!”
AUDIO DEMANDS
“This was a very interesting event for me,” said FOH engineer Matt Butcher, who was assisted by sound technician Robert Maynard. “From a technical perspective, the audio demands were quite standard but the range of content was very different to what I’m used to and I found it refreshing.”
Taking advantage of the Apollo’s L’Acoustics K2 system, FOH engineer Matt Butcher mixed each element on a Yamaha CL5,. Part of the CL5’s choice, explained Matt, was influenced by the decision to run a Dante network and take audio from the projection booth via the Ethercon.
“I wasn’t prepared for how absolutely brilliant Who’s Who are,” Matt smiled. “They’re bloody loud, too! Mixing the drummer [Paul Kemp] must surely rate as the nearest anyone in my position could get to mixing Keith Moon because his style and general demeanour on stage is so uncannily similar.”
In the wings, monitor engineer Maurizio ‘Mo’ Schiavi described his job as “monitoring lite”, adding that his duties were “fairly minimal up until the band performance in the final half hour when it really kicked off.” Due to much of the backstage space being consumed by set building and actors’ make-up and preparation areas, Mo needed a compact console solution and the Midas PRO2C digital desk was given pride of place along with a Midas DL251 I/O processor.
Stage monitoring made its first appearance for the Q+A session which employed eight channels of Shure UHF-R, various UR2 handheld microphones and UR1s with DPA d:fine bodyworn mics, controlled from Wireless Workbench 6 using a Shure Axient AXT600 scanner. Feeds from auditorium mics were routed into d&b M4 front wedges as well as d&b two-way Y7P cross-stage fills to aid the panel members.
Talking after the success of the February event, one that might easily have been mistaken for a Mod convention, Allen Spriggs said: “This was effectively a pilot and I think we’ve set ourselves a good example.”
