Christien Methot served as lighting designer for the World Humanitarian Day Concert at the United Nations in August and used a number of Elation Professional and ADJ dynamic lighting fixtures to light the event. The concert, held August 19 at General Assembly Hall at the United Nations in New York City, starred American actor and singer Leslie Odom Jr., winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the hit musical Hamilton.
Methot is principal lighting designer at Design One Lighting Design, a full service lighting design and consultation firm based in New York City that stocks its own lighting gear. He had worked with production company One Dream Sound the year before on the same project and was asked by One Dream Sound CEO David Ferdinand to help out on this year’s event. Methot chose to use 12 Elation WW Profile™ ellipsoidal spots, 12 Elation Satura Spot CMY Pro™ LED moving heads and 40 ADJ Inno Color Beam Z19s in his design to light the stage, audience and venue walls, all of the lighting supplied by Design One Lighting Design.
Providing front light to the stage and for the musicians were WW Profile™ ellipsoidal spots, which, Methot describes, worked from a position in the balcony and from truss towers located half way into the audience at floor level. Powered by a 130W warm-white LED engine and projecting a soft and flat field of white light, the WW Profile is ideal for illuminating speakers and highlighting performers and includes framing for control of the beam shape. Methot used the CMY color and dual gobo wheels of the LED-based Satura Spot CMY Pro™ fixtures to sweep the audience and texture the venue’s slatted walls while the ADJ Inno Color Z19™ LED moving heads were used for color onto the walls.
“The gobo selection on the Satura’s worked great for the event and the color mixing and beam spread of the Inno Spots was fantastic,” Methot commented. “The fact that no conventional dimmers were needed as a result of this package made it a clean and efficient installation.” The Satura’s and half the Inno Color fixtures worked from the audience truss towers with the balance of the Inno Colors’s placed along the slatted wall.
“All the fixtures were fantastic, relatively quiet and looked great,” the LD commented post show. “They were also very reliable.” Methot acknowledges client David Ferdinand of One Dream Sound, who he says is great to work with. He adds his appreciation for the cooperation, stating, “He has always been a fan of my work from one of the very first shows I did in New York to now 25 years later.”
World Humanitarian Day takes place every year on August 19th to raise awareness of the humanitarian assistance needed worldwide and recognizes the people who dedicate their lives to provide it.
