White Light at The Electric Forest

White Light has spent the winter helping lighting designer Phil Supple bring light to the dark winter nights at forests around the UK as part of Culture Creative's Electric Forest project. This saw lighting transform the Bedgebury Pinetum and Forest in Kent during October, High Lodge at Thetford Forest in Suffolk during December, and the Moors Valley Country Park and Forest in Dorset this February.

The Electric Forest was born out of the Northumberland Lights project with which White Light was closely involved some years ago. Supple explains: "In the winter of 2007, the Northumberland Lights production team staged an illuminated night-time walk through the beautiful landscaped woodland of The Cragside Estate's Victorian Pinetum. Ideas for a technologically and creatively enhanced forest experience were further developed in 2008 on the shores of Northumberland's Kielder Water. By then the production team -- myself, event producer Zoe Bottrell and her team at Culture Creative, a core team of artists and outdoor specialist technicians, with great technical support from White Light -- had the beginnings of a plan for an event that could be transferred to different locations."

"In its present form, Electric Forest consists of a series of interventions along an accessible route of between one and two miles in length that leaves from and returns to visitor facilities in a public recreational forest, held early evening after dark." The project uses lighting and sound to create spectacular visual and sometimes audio treatments to transform the experience of passing through the forest.

To create each scheme, Supple follows the same approach as would be used to create a lighting design in a more traditional venue, though on a much larger scale. "Each design is carefully planned, costed, and equipped -- there is no time to stand in the woods umming-and-arring during the fit up, so after a series of planning visits, I draw a scaled plan over an Ordnance Survey map of the area so that equipment and cable lists can be generated -- this is just like a traditional lighting plan, only on a much bigger piece of paper!"

The design is then installed by Supple and a team lead by production manager , using a range of equipment that is both easy to carry to and install in remote locations and able to survive for up to three weeks outside in a British winter. "The PAR can is our tool of choice in all its forms," Supple explains, "and we also use, amongst other things, Chroma-Q Color Punches, IP65 encapsulite fluorescents, Source Fours, and lots of LED fairy lights." The most unusual part of the rig is not in the equipment but in the infrastructure, sharing, "we do use a quite extraordinary amount of cable!"

His working environment is also one that Supple strives to care for as much as possible. "I have always tried to find and use alternatives to diesel generator power, but sadly the bulk of the work has to be powered from conventional, super-silent event specification generators for reasons of cost, capacity, and reliability -- though we use very little diesel and are always rigorous in the specification, balancing, and loading of the generators to get the maximum work for the minimum fuel." More recently, he has started using White Light's HyLight500 hydrogen fuel cells, finding them "particularly useful for illuminated signage on approach drives and access paths some distance from power sources."

With the last event complete, Supple is pleased with his work as he reflects on the winter just passed. "The Electric Forest offers a uniquely sensitive experience -- the lighting and sound elements sitting in context with the environment, allowing our audiences the experience the forest at night, between and as part of our interventions. We think our work can only be enhanced by the hooting of owls and a beautiful star lit sky above, so we specifically design things to allow the public to see things in this way, with a minimum of glare, light pollution and sound bleed between pieces. The result is a seasonal experience -- but one which offers an antidote to the excesses of the season!"

The result has been enjoyed by countless visitors across the three forests -- and with planning already underway for next winter, seems certain to delight many more in the years ahead.

(28 March 2012)

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