Illuminate and Elation Light Mount Rushmore for Historic Freedom 250 Celebration

Full-service production company Illuminate provided lighting for the July 3 Freedom 250 event at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota; an Elation lighting system complemented a fireworks display beneath the iconic memorial.

Pyro Spectaculars produced the fireworks design/production, while Illuminate's Caleb Franke designed and programmed the light show. Illuminate collaborated with Pyro Spectaculars on a 20-minute presentation that brought lighting and fireworks together.

"It's complicated when you're working in a National Park," Franke explains. "Because Pyro Spectaculars had done it before, the park really trusted them, which helped them to really trust us. It was a very smooth and easy process working with the park."

Illuminate made a significant investment in Elation equipment for the Freedom 250 projects, and deployed a combination of high-output wash, beam, profile, and panel fixtures across the Mt. Rushmore site.

Key to the design were 16 Elation Proteus Brutus fixtures positioned along the Presidential Trail, which leads down to the Grand View Terrace, which provides visitors with a close-up view of Mount Rushmore. The 75,000-lumen LED wash/effects fixtures lit the four presidential faces from multiple angles.

"We had the Brutus fixtures positioned approximately 300' to 600' from the faces, so output was a major consideration during the design process," says Franke, adding that with limited opportunities for advance testing, he worried whether the fixtures would have enough power at those distances.

"The math seemed okay, but reality can be different," he says. "I was a little bit concerned, but when we got them there and shined them up on the faces, I could see they would be fine. It was almost too much power. It was perfect, actually."

Six Elation Proteus Atlas ultra-long-throw beam effects fixtures were also positioned along the trail, creating aerial beam effects that complemented the fireworks and interacted with the pyrotechnics' smoke.

"The thing about the Atlas is the beam; it just goes on forever," Franke says. "It comes out of the lens, and it just doesn't stop."

Illuminate also deployed ten Elation Proteus Lucius LED profile fixtures along the trail to light the rock surrounding the presidential faces, adding color, gobos, and animation effects to create texture across the memorial.

Getting equipment into position presented another logistical challenge, with a high-line rigging team enabling the crew to transport gear up the mountain. Four positions above the memorial each housed six Elation Proteus Excalibur beam fixtures and three Elation Pulse Panel FX fixtures, with pyrotechnic equipment interspersed among the lighting.

The Excalibur fixtures produced powerful aerial beam effects from above the presidential heads, while the Pulse Panel FX fixtures illuminated the smoke from the fireworks.

Behind the presidential faces is a small canyon where the larger aerial fireworks were launched. "All of the aerial shells were being shot in front of the lights, and it created a lot of smoke," Franke explains. "We were able to light the smoke really well with the Pulse Panel FX and highlight the really cool atmosphere above the heads in that space. That worked really well."

The positioning of the fixtures also allowed Illuminate to create dramatic effects without distracting the audience from the memorial itself. "From most perspectives, you could not see the lenses of any of the lights," Franke says. "It was just the beams in the air or the color that was pushing off into the air. It worked very well."

Obsidian Control Systems equipment was also used on the project, with Illuminate deploying Netron EN12 Ethernet-to-DMX nodes and DMX10-5 splitters to distribute lighting control data across the site.

"We used a lot of red, white, and blue on the faces, and being able to pull those colors directly from the color wheel looked great," says Franke, who adds that there were also CMY color moments. The Proteus Brutus fixtures also provided animation effects, while the Proteus Lucius units added texture with gobos and animation.

The event lighting presented Mount Rushmore in a vastly different way than its everyday illumination. Rather than flattening the memorial with uniform illumination, the Illuminate design cast light on each face from multiple angles and controlled shadows to give the faces a more dramatic appearance.

"It was a bit more moody compared to the lights they have illuminating the faces daily," Franke says. "It made it look a little eerie, I guess you could say, or theatrical looking, which I thought was a good thing. We were a bit concerned about the bottom-up lighting that can create some shadowing, but it all looked just fine."

The show was created in previz and coordinated between Illuminate and Pyro Spectaculars' fireworks designer Kevin Gilfillan. "We're always looking for creative ways to use lighting to bring a concept to life, and on this project we worked to make it all come together with the fireworks," Franke says. "Kevin and I worked really close together on making sure there were moments for both. It's not just a million shells of fireworks for 20 minutes; it tells more of a story."

Franke adds, "We love our country, so being a part of such a historic day was both special and a real honor. There were probably five or six big, high-profile shows that happened over the 4th of July, and for us to be involved on two of those is just a complete honor. On top of that, the Elation fixtures performed really well with no issues, and the client was super happy with how it all worked out, as well as how we took care of the National Park."