On April 9, lighting and production designer Patrick Woodroffe took to the main stage at Pro Light + Sound to deliver a presentation on The Politics of Failure. Ironically, at the beginning of his talk, his slide show suffered a technical failure and the man who has created some of the most memorable live images, from The Rolling Stones to Lady Gaga, was forced to continue with a blank backdrop.
The designer has kept a diary for the last 40 years, so anecdotes with dates and places were easy for him to refer to, although for at least one his stories the date was probably memorable for the whole audience.
Woodroffe began by describing what must be a common scene for working designers: 4 am, an arena empty except for a handful of crew and a bored security guard, and the only sound the clack, clack, clack of keys as a programmer works away at the console.
He relates how the lighting looks awful, “Nothing is working, which sometimes happens as we try to turn science into art.” But then, someone kills the work lights and the stage looks better, they make some changes and things start to come together, and suddenly, the security guard looks up and smiles. That response, the visibility of the work, Woodroffe believes, marks out lighting designers from other disciplines. He says, “One of the things that fascinates me, is that the work we do in lighting is very public, unlike a set designer who can go away and work on something and then take it to the artist and refine it. We start from an empty board with no cues and usually create in front of others, if not the artist and management. It’s like being a portrait painter who picks up his brushes and the patron is standing behind him, saying, “That doesn’t look anything like me.”
Despite the high visibility of the work, he admits that sometimes, “unlike in sound where if a mic doesn’t work it is clearly a mistake, if something goes wrong, we can get away with a lot.”
He relates the story of designing for a runway show for British fashion designer Jasper Conran. The head electrician told him there was a problem with the generator and they were at 60% capacity. Woodroffe didn’t anticipate much of a problem, he says back then fashion shows were relatively simple and he decided to turn down the fader and limit some of the runway lights. As the first model came out in front of the audience, he turned on fixtures one by one as she walked the stage but suddenly, the lights started to flicker, until finally the generator was unable to cope and the stage fell into a total blackout except for a single follow spot on the model as she reached the end of the catwalk.
He says, “I was so mortified I nearly left without asking for a fee.” Fortunately, he didn’t. Backstage, Jasper Conran congratulated him on the moment, saying it was all anyone could talk about. “The buildup! The drama! And the honesty of the single white light!”
The Olympics
While most jobs do not encounter such extreme technical difficulties, others are at risk of other high-profile failures. When London hosted the Olympics in the summer of 2012, the producers wanted someone who was English and accomplished at stadium tours. While there were several contenders for the job, when Woodroffe was offered it, he was not sure he wanted it. The massive, spectacular Olympic ceremonies in Beijing were still fresh in everyone’s mind and London did not have anywhere near that budget, and in addition to that, the Olympics were not popular in Britain at the time, being seen as an expensive event without an immediate return on investment.
Woodroffe remembers discussing it with stage designer and executive producer for the London Olympics, Mark Fisher. Fisher said, “You have to ask yourself, on July 27, do you want to be in the control room doing the Olympics or at home watching it on television?” He picked the control room.
Woodroffe says, “When most people think of failure they think of public humiliation, and the last thing you want is a mistake on this scale.” The situation was challenging: the weather was terrible, the food was worse, and everyone was working to the point of exhaustion including the director, Danny Boyle, who fell asleep in a late-night meeting at least once. But the worst part, Woodroffe says, was, “It was clear from the first day we turned on all the lights that we just didn’t have enough.” Woodroffe was somehow able to get more a late stage in the process and incorporate them into the design, which involved lighting both James Bond and the Queen of England, so no pressure. He did find another opportunity though; Boyle wanted LED pixels on the stadium seats but had only limited pieces of video. Woodroffe says, “I realized that meant we had about 70,000 more lights to use as a backdrop, which is incredible to have in a stadium.”
The show was such a huge success, and the lesson, Woodroffe says, is that, “It is almost never as bad as you think it will be.”
Many of the stories from the designer’s diaries involve how he and his contemporaries knew absolutely nothing when they started out and were constantly improvising. He recounts how they created fog for one rock band by having a vat of boiling water literally above the drummer’s head to which they added oil to create smoke.
In the early days, there was no truss, only lighting towers, and Woodroffe credits Chip Monck, the master of ceremonies at Woodstock, who went on to become a Tony-nominated lighting designer, with turning the towers on their sides to create the first lighting trusses. “We made it up as we went along,” he says.
“The secret is that it is not a proper job,” he says, although he makes clear that you will end up working much harder as a creative to avoid a regular job than if you just went in to an office every day. The work has taken him all over the world and into different situations. “I went from working in a pub in West London wiring four par cans to designing on a beach in Brazil with Tina Turner, a surreal show in Baghdad Airport with Kid Rock and some cheerleaders, Paul McCartney in the White House, and to India, where an electrician checked the voltage by licking his fingers and touching live before pronouncing it 240V.” In exchange for designing the performance lighting on the movie High School Musical II, he talked the director, Kenny Ortega, into giving him a part as a mechanic, but sadly the lawyers cut his scenes when they found out he didn’t have a SAG card.
Elton & Adele
The other secret he divulges is how to talk to the artists about the design. “Never ask them what colors they are thinking of or where they want to emphasize something. You have to intuit how they want to be presented to the world.” For her first world tour, he said to Adele, “How do you want to be perceived? As a diva, or a goddess, or funny?” A few days later Adele invited him to dinner and brought a bag of personal items to help show him who she is, including a letter she got from her mother the first time she was on ‘Top of the Pops.’ That is how they connected.
Other artists want much less input into the design of their shows.
Woodroffe worked on Elton John’s Million Dollar Piano residency in Las Vegas with Mark Fisher, and while he calls John, “Funny and generous and talented,” he didn’t want to see any drawings or know anything about the design until the rehearsal, he trusted them to create for him. He was also very organized – he gave them the set list six months in advance but only allowed them one day of rehearsal. It was enough, Woodroffe believes that was one of the most beautiful shows he has been involved with
Moving Lights
The designer is most famously known for his work with the Rolling Stones. He joked with the audience that he thought that when they were all in their fifties they would retire, so he took the automated lights he worked with on rock tours and used them for opera and ballet, becoming the first designer to do this. He shared one very visible failure while working on Swan Lake at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The programmer was out for a last-minute change to the 24 VL5s around the hall, and a technician said that he could reprogram a fade in act three where the stage is a dark blue and lightens until it is a bright white wash. He double checked that the change moved smoothly, but did not check the cue after that, where the fixtures returned to position while color changing through all the primary colors as they moved—on opening night, in front a packed audience that included Princess Diana.
Stevie Wonder
Working with Stevie Wonder, he discussed emotions and colors in terms of heat, like a fire, or cold like the sky, and they understood each other. But Woodroffe also created one very memorable cue. Every night, Wonder would say, “Hey Patrick, take away the lights!” And he would take down all the lights in the auditorium, including desk lights on the consoles, and let the audience listen to "Visions In My Mind" in complete darkness, creating a real connection between them and the artist.
Michael Jackson
Woodroffe read out loud from his diary from the night before Michael Jackson died. They had been working on his comeback tour, and things were not going well as the artist sometimes didn’t show up or engage. Then one night he wrote, “Michael is electric, with a newly found confidence, moving so well. We are all on a huge high, and it is clear with Michael getting stronger we will be part of something huge. Maybe historic.”
Before he left rehearsal that night, Woodroffe showed Jackson an illusion for the stage show, all done with lighting. Jackson said, “Yeah, all magic,” before leaving with his phalanx of security guards.
The next day at rehearsal, the crew allowed themselves to bask in the knowledge that they were working on something great, before phone calls from friends began to spread the news that something had happened to Jackson. The rehearsal continued, until one of the dancers collapsed onto another crying, and Woodroffe knew the star had died.
Woodroffe paints an extraordinary picture of the events, finishing the story by saying, “He made a triumphant comeback for us, but not for anyone else.”
Woodroffe’s diaries will one day make an extraordinary, amusing, and educational record of not just rock ‘n’ roll history, but of the evolution of lighting and design. We can’t wait to read them.