Follow-Me Tracks The Action In Guildhall School’s As You Like It

Follow-Me performer tracking was utilized at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD) this year, supporting the lighting design for a student production of As You Like It. Produced entirely by a student production team, the show saw Lighting Designer Catja Hamilton working alongside third-year Theatre Technology student Rohan Green, who took on the role of ALD/Programmer, with the Follow-Me system operated by second-year student Jazz Weekes.

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It was Green who first suggested using Follow-Me on the production, as Hamilton was keen to bring in spotting from multiple angles, different to the venue's usual spot positions. The venue's default follow spot position is relatively flat, which, combined with the team's aim of losing light upstage to make the stage feel deeper, risked casting unwanted shadows on the upstage black. The first 20 minutes of the show also took place far downstage, beneath a roofed truck that a conventional spot would have struggled to get under, while a large staircase and platform on top of the truck brought further changes in playing height for the system to handle.
“When researching more into it, I liked the concept of tracking the performer rather than controlling a light, as other systems do, as well as the amount of control I was able to have as a lighting programmer over the system and target assignments,” says Green. “Because of the large set of stairs and platform on top of the truck, we needed something that handled the changes in Z height well.”

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The Follow-Me 3D system was built around four Robe T1 Profile units and controlled from an ETC Eos Ti, using a single mouse console and fader console operated from the production's lighting control setup. Two of the T1s were rigged in the venue's front-of-house bridges, giving a more traditional follow spot angle that helped keep light off the masking. The other two were rigged low on the side galleries at front of house to provide a side spot. All four units continued to run conventional presets throughout the show and were reassigned to follow spot duties whenever needed, with the system integrated into the venue's network using sACN priorities to manage the switch between desk control and Follow-Me control.

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“Our aim for As You Like It in both scenic and lighting design was to create a theatrical space which kept the mechanics of the design hidden,” explains Hamilton. “Performer tracking enabled us to pick up and follow the actors without having to broadly light the entire stage as they moved around, so I was able to keep the lighting much more closed down and atmospheric throughout. This enabled the dark space surrounding the actors to spark the audience’s imagination; the stage felt endless, stretching into the darkness. As Follow-Me allowed us to turn any of our moving lights into spots, I was also able to avoid the noticeable beam of light that a traditional follow spot casts above the audience. We could highlight and track performers very subtly, without drawing the audience’s attention to how they were being lit.”

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Performer tracking proved valuable across several key moments in the production. During a party sequence at the top of Act 2, a Follow-Me spot served as the only face light on the featured characters, focusing the audience's attention on the unfolding plot while the rest of the cast remained in silhouette. In the production's search party sequence, as Celia and Rosalind escape to the Forest of Arden, a single T1 under Follow-Me control provided the only light on stage, swinging live between different vignettes with movement Green describes as “smooth, controlled, and able to adapt to the actors’ performances rather than locking them into a series of rigid presets.” The same transition doubled as a searchlight effect, tracking an actor moving from one group to another, while a dream sequence in the middle of Act 2 used the system to keep one performer clearly lit as she encountered a series of dreamlike visions crossing the stage around her.

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“This was a show on a large stage, with a large cast,” Hamilton continues. “I found that Follow-Me allowed us to use the spots as little pick-ups to just slightly highlight a particular performer. This worked well as a subtle way to guide the audience’s eye, especially as we were able to use any of our moving lights. The system was much subtler than a traditional follow spot, and we were able to get a much better angle in this space than we would have from the follow spot positions. Without the system, and the ability to create a really subtle look, I don’t think I’d have chosen to use spots as much as we did, and the show would have had quite a different look.”

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For Green, the system's speed of setup stood out on a student production schedule: “The speed of setup and calibration is amazing. Being able to recalibrate a light in under five minutes if we noticed it was slightly off from the target was brilliant.” He also noticed a shift in the team's own creative instincts as the tech process went on, reaching for a follow spot to highlight moments “a lot more than we would have done if it had been a conventional spot.”

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“Having Follow-Me on this production provided great artistic opportunities within the lighting design, while also providing a great learning opportunity for students going out into the industry,” says Green, summing up its impact. Hamilton agrees: “Follow-Me allowed us to develop a language of subtle follow spot use across the production, which in turn enabled the design concept as a whole to be brought to life.”

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“As You Like It is a brilliant example of what Follow-Me can bring to a production of any scale, not just the biggest arena tours,” concludes Luke Edwards, Designer Relations UK at Follow-Me. “Rohan and Catja used the system with real creative intelligence, and it’s fantastic to see students getting hands-on experience with performer tracking this early in their careers. Guildhall is exactly the kind of creative user we love working with, and we can’t wait to see where they take the technology next.”

For more information, please visit our website at www.follow-me.com

About Follow-Me
Follow-Me specializes in advanced performer tracking solutions for a wide range of productions, from international tours and TV broadcasts to theatrical performances and theme parks. Our products are designed to meet the challenging demands of concert touring, in- and outdoor live events, theatrical and AV industry, ensuring top-quality performance tracking for lighting, immersive audio, video mapping and stage automation applications in any environment.

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Photo Credit: David Monteith-Hodge