18.01.2016 | Elation Rig Plays Role in Latest “Alvin and the Chipmunks” Movie

An all-LED lighting system from Elation Professional features in the new 20th Century Fox movie “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip,” which had its release over the recent Christmas holiday. Gold Room nightclub in Atlanta, which houses a large Elation rig, played host to a key scene in the movie in which character Ashley Grey (Bella Thorne) and The Chipmunks perform their original song ''Home.'' The movie is the fourth in the popular film series.

Lighting programmer Jared Greenstein designed the looks for the performance with help from gaffer Dan Cornwall. “The club is open Thursday through Saturday which gave us only Sunday to prep so for that particular scene we had very limited planning process because of how the workflow was,” Jared stated. “We chose Gold Room because it was shoot-ready and the location played well for what was described in the script. The rig there was very capable of creating the looks we needed and we didn’t have to add a lot of fixtures.”

In 2014, Gold Room received a major lighting renovation that included Elation Rayzor Q7™ LED moving heads and Platinum Spot LED II moving heads, as well as Elation Flex Pixel Tape™ along the walls of the club. Elation dealer Atlanta Sound Lighting was the lighting vendor on the install.

“The scene was a performance piece and all the Elation gear was used for that reason. The Elation gear played a big part in this scene, especially the Rayzor Q7,” Jared says. “We used the Platinum Spot LED II to light up certain areas of the crowd as well as backlight for the actors.

“Certain cameras that we use can be sensitive to the LED refresh rate,” he continues. “You always take a risk using LED because there is a good chance the camera will pick up the strobing of the light. Most of the time we will always do camera tests with LED fixtures for that reason. This was different because of the limited time we had and I was very nervous it would be an issue. We never had any flickering issue with any of the fixtures however. It was a huge relief that everything worked very well. I was very impressed with the quality and reliability of the fixtures.”

A few fixtures were brought in for added looks, namely Elation Platinum Beam 5R™ beam lights to add more punch to the custom-built stage (built by Screen Gems Studios in Atlanta) and LED tubes for added color around the bars, booth areas and underneath the stage.

 “Our rigging crew headed by Rigging Gaffer Tom Fendley did an amazing job to put everything together and give me plenty of time to program,” Jared commented. “We couldn’t have pulled this off without them. I had about two hours to program and time code the cues to the song. I felt the song had a lot of EDM influences so I programmed the looks with that in mind. After I built all the looks and linked the looks appropriately Gaffer Dan Cornwall and Director of Photography Peter Collister were very pleased with everything. On shoot day all we did was tweak the looks a little.

”Whether dressing up the room for a high-energy night of EDM or dressing the part for a scene in a Hollywood movie, Gold Room’s Elation rig is full of potential. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip” premiered December 12th in Los Angeles with opening dates across the rest of the world through February.