Fairhaven Church of Dayton, Ohio recently used fixtures from CHAUVET Professional in their Holy Week services this past Easter season. Jacob VanVlymen designed the lighting for these services.
VanVlymen relied on some evocative color changes created with CHAUVET Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, purchased from Mankin Media, for the Maundy service.
“I find the connection between color and emotions to be extraordinarily powerful,” said VanVlymen. “It’s truly amazing how color can change how you feel or reinforce the feelings that are evoked by what you’re seeing. So, if I had put out blues and greens instead of reds when the band played the song ‘Oh the Blood’ during our Thursday service, it would have made less sense to the audience.”
In contrast to the Maundy service, VanVlymen’s Easter Sunday design featured a wide spectrum of bright colors dominated by purples, blues, oranges and some green.
“Of course, my Easter colors were not saturated,” he said. “Easter is a bright, joyful day, and this was reflected in our lighting. I used a lot of pastels and had considerable movement. My Rogues served as washes, spots, blinders, crowd sweeps — pretty much anything that contributed to creating a positive, hopeful visual impression. For Maundy, on the other hand, I relied on the Rogue’s wide zoom to paint the stage in saturated colors. I also had my two FOH Rogues light the large wooden cross.”
In addition to the two FOH Rogue units, VanVlymen had seven Rogue R2 Wash fixtures on a grid 27’ above the stage deck.
“Having the Rogues in the grid gave me a great, flexible tool,” he said. “They have the output and wide zoom to cover the stage without making it look small, so they gave me beautiful saturated washes on Thursday. Then on Sunday, I was able to have the Rogues whip around with their zoom all the way in, so I could create some nice beams.”
The wide zoom range of the Rogue fixtures was especially important to VanVlymen, given the dimensions of this church’s stage.
“Fairhaven Church has two satellite campuses that receive broadcasts from the main location,” he said. “However, the main location wasn’t built with large-scale productions in mind. It has an extremely wide 75’ stage deck, which, along with the 35’ shallow curved depth of the deck, creates some unique design challenges. The deck is deepest in the center, then it tapers off on the sides. We have some tight restrictions when it comes to getting light in the eyes of the audience. This is one reason why I love the Rogues and their zooming capabilities.”
Photo Credit: Mike Rail
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