The designer and founder of 5600K Designs, a production and lighting design company based in Minnesota, Tegan Curran shares her work with the Brothers Osborne with Live Design.
Live Design: What was your main inspiration behind the lighting for the Brothers Osborne?
Tegan Curran: In 2019 I started working with Brothers Osborne. The lighting rig was designed by Chris Reede (Dirks Bentley's LD) and programmed by the Bros' old lighting director as a floor package for a tour they did with Dirks. Their old LD moved on and I was stoked to take over. Country rock is really conducive to some fun lighting looks!
For the first Brothers Osborne music video (All Night) I designed the performance lighting. The video's director told me they were looking for lighting inspired by the Lenny Kravitz "Are You Gonna Go My Way" music video. They were really looking for a design that had a lot of lights through which patterns and shapes could be run. I decided to go with movers instead of conventionals because I wanted to have more options available to me for programming as well as the shoot day.
The second Brothers Osborne music video I did was for the performance version of Younger Me. It was a bonus video that was released during one of the country awards shows. For this project, the video producer already had an animatic made of the camera moves since the video would be a single Steadicam shot with the band in the round. I took that animatic and programmed the camera moves into MA3D before I started with the lighting programming. It was really helpful to see what the camera would actually be seeing while programming. This project was personal for me because I really resonated with the song's message and the story behind it.
LD: How much of the rig were you able to specify, what fixtures did you choose and why?
TC: For the 2019 rig, everything was already specified and agreed to before I came on board. It consisted of Elation Platinum 5R Beams, Chauvet Strike 1's and ColorForce 72 II units in Christie Dance Tower carts.
I was basically able to specify the whole rig for All Night. The bulk of that rig was the 60 Elation 360i units I had hung on a grid at the studio. I worked with my client rep at Bandit to find a small budget friendly mover that I could get a large quantity of and the 360i fit the bill. I had Nitros behind the band for some punch and Ayrton Ghibli for key light. The DP on the shoot wanted Wildfires for the UV segment, but we ended up going with the Antari DarkFX 2000.
On the Younger Me video, the lighting rig was already installed by the shoot location. I believe it consisted of Mac Quantum Spots among other things. The DP did bring in a DMX controlled softbox for the final look of the video.
LD: What are some of your favorite fixtures from any project?
TC: It's hard to pick just one! Over the past few years, I've become a huge fan of Elation and Chauvet's IP-65 product lines. I've spent most of my career on outdoor gigs where there is a lot of rain and dust. I love the reliability that IP-65 rated fixtures provide in those situations. I feel like Elation and Chauvet have both made IP rated fixtures that are feature packed, reliable and at a good price point.
LD: What moments were you particularly proud of on the Brothers Osborne tour?
TC: There were a lot of moments from the 2019 tour that I am proud of. There were the three sold out nights at the Ryman, playing a festival at The Gorge, and the ATLive festival in Atlanta. ATLive was by far my favorite gig that year. Because of our slot at ATLive, we weren't going to be able to use our floor package. Thankfully I had about a month before the festival to reprogram at Morris Light & Sound (now Solotech). The programming I did for that festival fit the performance perfectly and my execution was on point. My favorite look from that show was a huge pincushion look I did with the festival's Mythos units.
I was also really proud of all the performance looks from All Night. My favorite part of the final video was the cuts between the warm white and UV looks during the guitar solo. Originally the UV look was just supposed to be from the DarkFX, but while we were on lunch I talked with the DP and producer and we opted to do some of the UV looks with the movers. The final product was perfection.
For Younger Me, I was really happy with the emotions I was able to help convey with the lighting. The build outs on the chorus brought so much power to an already triumphant singing performance from TJ and the guitar solo by his brother John. Even years later, that performance video hits an emotional chord with me and I'm so glad I was a part of the project.
LD: What were the main challenges for the design?
TC: For the 2019 tour the biggest challenge was building and programming the rig to scale with the venue sizes. At the time, Brothers Osborne was booked on gigs ranging from smaller stages to huge festivals. There were times we had to cut down the quantity of Dance Towers from 18 to 3 or 6. Knowing this I programmed to make sure everything looked good no matter the size of our floor package that day,
Both videos were shot during COVID. So that did add a little complexity to the shoots overall. I don't think it really affected the lighting for either video though.
LD: In terms of your design at The Conference Live at Lititz, how did you approach the project?
TC: When I started getting involved with the design in August, I made sure to take in as much information from the organizers and other designers as possible. Early on I knew that the room was going to serve three main functions: presentations, a party, and a gathering place.
When I started placing fixtures on the plot, I started with planning the lighting for video. This is obviously a huge priority for any conference or corporate event. Next, I worked on placing the Color Strike M units around the room for area lighting. Once those two priorities were taken care of, I worked on placing units around the room for some of the set design features as well as the party look.
LD: Were you familiar with the fixtures?
TR: I'd used most of the fixtures in the plot before, but not necessarily in the modes I chose for THE Conference. I went for pixel or extended control with almost every unit in the rig. I wanted to make sure I had all the options I could, even though I might not use every feature in the final look.
In the Studio 1 rig there were also Elation Proteus Excaliburs on the towers and stage and Ayrton Magic Blade FX under the video wall. I had Chauvet Well Fits, ColorForce II 12 and 72 units scattered around the room for set pieces.
Studio 2 was a mix of Martin Viper Profiles, R2 Washes and MAC Auras for each of the four vendor spaces. When I programmed that space I wanted to make sure area had a unique look.
LD: How do you stay up to date on new technology in the industry?
TC: When I lived down in Nashville it was easy as I would see new units as they came through the Bandit Lites shop on demos. Now that I am up here in the Twin Cities, it's been a bit harder to stay up to date on things, but thankfully there are demos that come through some of the shops up here and I make it a point to go to those.
I really hope I can make it to more trade shows in the future. Theres something magical about being able to mingle with other industry professionals and the manufacturers.