Jip Nipius – Lighting Designer

“Follow-Me on Suede, The easy choice! I usually like to create a lot of contrast through dark and light. I therefore try to only light what I want to see. (The keyboard player and not his hardware, the drummer in CTO and his kit in a color.) With a moving musician (Brett Anderson :)) I would lose that contrast if I light him with a wash. Generic Followspots from FOH create a lot of bounce on the background, a circle walking around on stage all night long and they blind the artist in a very unpleasant way. (Try staring into one for an hour.) Follow-Me solves all these issues.

On the present Festival run with Suede, we use a single target system (supplied by myself) with 3 Clay Paky sharpy wash, 2 from the front (one light in the middle of the front truss would cause too many pan tilt flips)  and 1 from the back. The 2 front lights I use because Brett tends to pay a visit to the first few rows of the audience. The choice of Sharpy washes came from Terry Cook (WBD). He pointed out that they do a reasonable CTO, have plenty of punch and a nice soft edge. However calibrating with spotlights is easier, and therefore Ayrton Mistrals are also very useable.’’ 

The Follow-Me system is set up, calibrated and run by Simon Purslow.