‘Distinctive’ MAC TW1™ Feel for Mark Ronson

BRIT and Grammy award winning artist Mark Ronson has recently wrapped up a UK tour before the wave of summer festivals kick in. Alongside his phenomenally successful record label, DJ and producing career, Mark is also a persuasive performer who puts everything into his shows.

As you would expect, someone with Mark’s energy has a serious hands-on approach to lighting his shows. For the tour he sat down with Matt Arthur, who together with Lite Alternative fleshed out a light show which, like his music, uniquely referenced other great performances. Lighting choices for the tour included Martin MAC TW1™, MAC 700 Profile™ and MAC 250 Wash™ fixtures.

Retro look
Matt explains Mark’s desire for a 60’s look and feel to the show as “a retro ‘bandstand’ look that was away from rock and roll lighting. The show was very brass and soul orientated and this fit together really well with the lighting,” he states.

“I went away from our meeting and researched some of the old bandstand television shows on YouTube and other places for inspiration,” he continues. “From this we ended up with a retro, multi-tiered stage with rises ranging from two to five feet and red drapes everywhere.” The band was arranged in a ‘V’ shape behind Mark.

Minimalist lighting
“We kept the lighting as minimal as possible with not too much movement,” Matt says, “but also setting a different scene for each song. There were a lot of individual singers who came out to perform with Mark so it had a variety show feel to it with lots of spot work.”

Martin MAC TW1 tungsten washlights were used as both spotlights and washes with 5k Fresnel’s with LED inside and barn doors incorporated for an old school look. MAC 700 Profiles were split over three trusses with MAC 250 Washes on the floor and upstage behind the rises and video screens.

MAC TW1
“I went for TW1’s to get as much punch down stage as possible,” Matt says. “The warm tungsten was great for skin tones in a minimalist show like this. I knew that I had to have a fair bit of coverage and needed it to be warm yet powerful. I used a wide zoom for washing the whole stage area and drapes, and then spotted them down on performers.”

The MAC TW1 is a powerful, silent tungsten wash light that is regularly specified by LDs in theatre environments and increasingly on touring shows worldwide. It features a clean and even soft-edged beam, motorized zoom, rich CMY color mixing and can be run from either a built-in dimmer or external dimmer.

“The fact that the TW1’s have the ability for an internal or external dimmer source is great,” Matt comments. “Using an internal dimmer with a tungsten light source is unique and gives you a nice flexibility. Having tungsten as the light source also gave the show a distinctive feel.”

Matt, who originally hails from the warmer climes of Australia, concludes, “There were no dramas and they all worked well. They were easy to set up and they’re quite light.” Matt will be working with Mark on some of his upcoming summer shows. Let’s hope this summer reminds him of home.