The Friedrichstadt-Palast has been the leading hub for cultural and artistic excellence in the heart of Berlin, with a history that dates back to 1919. One of the largest and most prominent theatres in the capital, its latest production FALLING | IN LOVE is a fantasy tale filled with colour, exuberant costumes and an ensemble of 100 artists on the ‘largest theatre stage in the world’. Visual design and technology studio, bright! played a pivotal role in enabling lighting and audio technology befitting such a grand production.
“The Friedrichstadt-Palast team were searching for a tracking solution that could manage both the sound and light tracking needs for their newest Grand Show FALLING | IN LOVE,” recalls Phillip Neyses, Head of the Technical Department at bright! “This was the first time the theatre had considered a tracking solution.”
The key requirement was to implement backlight follows of the three main characters during the show. Throughout the production, each artist is followed by a coloured spotlight. “There was not enough room to have three manual spotlight operators in the lighting rig above the stage,” explains Patrick Lenkeit, Technical Director at bright! “Without an automated tracking solution, this effect would not have been possible.”
“We’ve worked closely with Stage Precision for a long time, and already knew they were looking to develop an optical tracking feature within SP,” continues Neyses. “The needs of the Friedrichstadt-Palast team led to the development of this new feature in SP, resulting in an ideal scalable option for the lighting and audio tracking required for the show.”
The production of FALLING | IN LOVE is the first project with camera tracking functionality natively integrated within SP, whilst the system also allows for video tracking in the future, ensuring the investment by the theatre team came with system longevity.
Once the decision had been made to implement SP for tracking on the show, the bright! team proceeded to integrate the technology required, including a total of 31 OptiTrack cameras to cover a tracking area of 400 square metres. Incoming data from these cameras is received in SP where it triggers automated commands to control the spotlights.
“A total of six or seven artists are being tracked on stage at any time,” explains Lenkeit. “With all the costume changes, there are multiple tracking beacons in play at any one time. SP allowed us to set up on-cue switching to deal with the complex spotlight changes required as the story unfolds onstage.”
SP is utilised to manage audio tracking. Artist voices are controlled using the L-Acoustics L-ISA system using positional information from SP to change the filters ensuring clarity of speech for the audience.
A key advantage of the SP system is the ease of set-up and simplicity of ongoing recalibration. “Before the show opened we implemented the system and collected all the connections to both the lighting and audio departments, but with SP the in-house technicians are able to recalibrate the system themselves very easily,” explains Lenkeit. “It’s fast, with recalibration taking just a matter of minutes.”
“It was our first experience with a tracking system at all, so it was a little difficult to begin with, but with the support from the Stage Precision team we quickly got the hang of it,” recalls Florian Schiewe, Lighting Operator at Friedrichstadt-Palast. “We received significant support from Stage Precision.”
Stage Precision’s SP tracking solution has proven to be an effective, future-proof solution that fits the Friedrichstadt-Palast budget and offers both precision and ease of use. “Whilst the tracking capabilities would have been possible with other technology, we would have needed at least 20% more cameras and additional licenses,” says Neyses. “The SP solution was 100% on budget and offers a tool kit that is upgradeable.”
