Situated in London’s King’s Cross, Lightroom presents its newest production, ‘ The Moonwalker’, featuring narration and co-writing by Tom Hanks and original NASA audio. The score, composed by Anne Nitkin, was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Building on the success of the previous David Hockney exhibition titled “Bigger and Closer,” Lightroom remains a hub for cutting-edge experiences.
In a recent interview, Tom Hanks described it as ‘a unique acoustic sensation.’ He elaborated, ‘With thousands of speakers in the venue, once the music starts, it envelops you from all directions rather than originating from a specific source. This creates a distinctive physical experience that swiftly translates into an emotional one.'”
Ensuring an immersive and engaging experience for all audience members within Lightroom’s concrete space is a significant undertaking. Sound designer Tom Hackley expresses his excitement about utilising Lightroom’s HOLOPLOT X1 system. This system seamlessly integrates into Lightroom’s infrastructure without visible alterations. Its software capabilities allow for flexible audio design adjustments without the need for physical changes. When “The Moonwalkers” took over residency, the hardware remained unchanged, while the sound design underwent significant alteration using the HOLOPLOT software ecosystem.
“If this were a point source system, you would physically have to move the speakers,” Hackley reveals. “It would take much more time and you could be fighting for space to hang them. With the Holoplot systems, everything is done in the software, it’s instant and once rehearsals started, it was a huge help to brainstorm when Tom [Hanks] wanted to try out ideas in the space.
“When I first got involved with Lightroom I had thought, ‘Please don’t make me use a system that I’ve never experienced!’. I was also concerned that we wouldn’t be able to deliver the same experience to every position in the room and that there would have to be compromises. But actually, you hear everything everywhere. It wasn’t long before I was thinking, ‘Thank goodness we’ve got Holoplot because I couldn’t have done it with anything else’.”
Hackley discovered enormous benefits, not only in the dynamic capabilities of the system but also in the creative possibilities.
“X1 is hugely impressive, both in terms of volume and definition,” he says. “We go from a rocket taking off, the loudest sound known to man, to a complete lack of sound in the silence of deep space. The frequencies X1 has to deal with are vast; there’s infrasound, not only when the rocket takes off, but when we have boots on the moon, and then you add the symphony of the orchestra playing at the same time; it’s gigantic and dynamic.”
The implementation of 3D Audio-Beamforming technology by HOLOPLOT grants sound designers greater control and artistic freedom, as noted by Hackley. “With this technology, I can manipulate sound within the space and even project it beyond,” he explains. “HOLOPLOT leads the field in immersive sound experiences, immersing the audience in sound while also extending it beyond them, resulting in a truly distinctive sensation. This level of audio image placement and the capacity to create spot effects surpasses what traditional line arrays or point source boxes can accomplish.”
‘The Moonwalkers’ are destined for more venues. Lightroom’s creators, 59 Productions, have recently opened a new Lightroom in Seoul, South Korea, and there are plans for more.
“We’ve already been out to prepare the show for Seoul,” Hackley says. “The interior of the venue is very similar to London, but it’s purpose-built so we have more positions for speakers and there have been some additions. We’ve upgraded to two MD80-S with two MD96 arrays in the equivalent north and south sections, together with four arrays fixed as single pairs within the East and West walls, so it isn’t a case of transferring it exactly, there are tweaks. Even so, it sounded great straight out of the box, but with Holoplot’s Plan software, I could already make any changes I needed to before I arrived.”
This has been a journey of discovery and one that Hackley is very glad he made. “Holoplot X1 is completely different from anything I’ve used before,” he concludes. “I think I’m going to really struggle using anything else for a project like this.”
