Sydney is accustomed to staging spectacular launch events, but when Netflix took over Cockatoo Island to celebrate the return of Wednesday in season two, they set a new benchmark.
Rizer, the acclaimed global experience agency, delivered an event of incredible scale and sophistication, transforming Cockatoo Island into a gothic playground for the launch. From eerie installations to atmospheric lighting, every detail brought Wednesday’s world to life against the backdrop of Sydney Harbour.
Chameleon Touring Systems supplied the lighting, with Joey Sadler of Light + Dark creating the immersive lighting design throughout the entire site, including the largest room, Turbine Hall. Other areas included the Dorm Room, the Alchemy Lab, the Cemetery, the alleyway leading into the industrial precinct, and many more.
“The entire site was within my scope as far as lighting goes,” commented Joey. “It turned out to be a lot bigger than I was anticipating when we first started talking about it with the Rizer Creative Director and team.”
Joey adds that his main challenge was simply keeping on top of all the different spaces. He didn’t always know what incredible props and set pieces would be used, so he had to anticipate them during the early design stages.
In the Turbine Hall, seven Martin MAC Ultras were the main key lights, which Joey describes as his current favourite fixture, praising their brightness and evenness. With no real front-of-house truss and limited hanging opportunities, the seven MAC Ultras successfully operated as front lights from a considerable distance away, thanks to the high roof.
“I think we were trimmed at 13 meters on the house truss,” said Joey. “They had shutters if we needed them, and they were great. They were perfect for broadcast.”
Joey utilised 22 MAC Viper XIPs, which were used as the stage backlight, marking his first time using them. They also lit many of the banners that were displayed around the room.
“I wanted a fixture that could do, from the stage perspective, gobos and breakups and a lot of the eye candy that we needed for the performances,” he explained. “I also needed to be able to shape them to light the Netflix banners and give them a soft glow. They were a pretty flexible fixture for that.”
Joining the MAC Viper XIPs were six Ayrton Boras, mainly for lighting the hero Netflix banner that really needed to pop from both sides of the room.
“I only used four on the banner because they were pretty effective,” Joey commented. “Then I was able to use the other two to pick up some set pieces on stage, which was really helpful. Even though the Boras had a far throw from where they were hung, they were great.”
Sixteen MAC Quantum Washes were located above the stage in the Turbine Hall, which Joey chose as he needed ‘a big chunky workhorse that could play with the MAC Viper XIPs and give a lot of wash for a little buck’.
“They’re great, I love the big source on a MAC Quantum Wash, and it’s always a nice fixture to have,” he added. “They do a great wash as well as a crunchy beam.”
Turbine Hall featured six Claypaky Sharpy sitting off the stage, from where they were used sparingly to deliver a few stunning eye-candy moments.
The cemetery saw 12 MAC Encore Performance CLD hard at work ensuring the best Instagram moments. Joey wanted to be able to light the entire space evenly and also have shutter cuts where needed.
“The temperature was important too because we wanted to recreate the colour grading of Wednesday, the show,” said Joey. “When people were in the room, the colour temperature was set to around 6K. It was a very cold space, so when you took photos, the idea was that you didn’t really need to apply a filter. I just had to have them in the air and work with the Rizer creative team, knowing I would be able to light what was required. They did a great job and looked really good. They were smooth with great frosts.”
Out on the eastern apron were 32 Martin Sceptron VDO units, added to support the creative vision of not using video to project the Wednesday logo. Three Ayrton Dominos were used instead, placed on a truss structure to project custom gobos of the Wednesday logo.
“The problem with that was that we didn’t want to see truss,” Joey elaborated. “We were trying to make everything feel in-world and didn’t want people to see production elements. We just wanted them to walk around and think that they were on set or in the world of Wednesday.
“We decided to make the truss structures into something a little more interesting, building ‘crowns’ out of the Sceptrons that sat on top of each of the legs of the towers holding the Dominos. The legs of the truss towers were then disguised by foliage.”
MAC Aura XBs and MAC Auras lit the cemetery with the MAC Auras lighting the set pieces and MAC Aura XBs washing the floor.
Prolights gear was also in abundance, with around 25 Prolights ECLPanel TWCs used to light the red carpet, or in this case, the purple carpet, and Joey says they were a great workhorse with excellent colour correction.
“They metered really well and got us exactly where we needed,” he remarked. “We had 36 SmartBAT Wash, which was such a wonderful discovery. It was probably my favourite new light that I’ve come across in some time – other than the MAC Ultras! They were so small and so punchy, I couldn’t believe the beam that came out of a battery light like that.
“We had a bunch of those up our sleeve for last-minute deployment, which we did. We had an influencer night on Thursday, which was ahead of schedule, and so we had to have the cemetery ready for Thursday. We threw out a bunch of SmartBAT Washes just to light the rest of the space because we weren’t finished. And then, the last minute on Saturday, event day, we really wanted to light the Cockatoo Island escarpment purple, but I thought we wouldn’t have enough fixtures. Anthony Carlon from Chameleon said, ‘Let’s put the SmartBAT Washes out – you’ll be surprised!’. We used 19 of them to light that entire escarpment, and I couldn’t believe the coverage we got out of those tiny little lights.”
A dozen Prolights EclCyclorama 100 were housed on the main stage as a discrete footlight to add a level of spookiness, uplighting the dancers. Joey comments that they were an amazing keylight that was perfect for the Wednesday application.
In addition to 24 ShowPRO IP LED Duet units, 77 ShowPRO EX36 units were used outdoors to light the building exteriors throughout the island.
“There were a lot of them and they did a lot of work!” Joey said. “They were great, they’re very bright, very strong and IP-rated, which is perfect.”
You can’t create a scary and ghostly environment without smoke and haze, and fortunately, Joey had a trio of Look Solutions gear to resolve this. Eight Look Solutions Unique Hazer 2.1 hazers were scattered around the site, as the entire activation required a hazy effect.
Look Solutions Viper NT foggers were used outdoors, one positioned at the purple carpet, which was used as the public entered the tunnel. Another Viper NT was placed just behind the Nevermore Gates, running on a timer, and, according to Joey, it turned out to be such a great effect that everybody stopped to take photos.
Look Solutions Octojets were used on the main stage in the Turbine Hall. Four of them were choreographed into some of the dance numbers for the performers.
Control was entirely MA Lighting, utilising three grandMA3 light consoles, one grandMA3 compact XT, one grandMA3 compact, two grandMA3 processing units XL, and a grandMA3 processing unit M.
Design: Joey Sadler, Light + Dark
Creative Production: Rizer
Event: Netflix Wednesday S2
Lighting Team: Joey Sadler (Lighting Designer), Lynden Gare (Associate Designer), Ian Hendrick (Lead Programmer), Adam Smith (Programmer)
Vendor: Chameleon (Account Rep: Luke Cuthberston, Crew Chief: Anthony Carlon)
