A shot during load-in

For all of the technical departments for Spider-Man, the scale of the systems was the primary challenge. “Spider-Man’s biggest challenge was really just sheer size,” says production sound engineer Simon Matthews. “The audio system is 50% larger than any other Broadway show. There are Cirque du Soleil shows that get pretty close but nothing on Broadway. From every aspect Spider-Man is larger than any other show.”

Sound designer Jonathan Deans and sound designer Peter Hylenski, who consulted after Deans’ left the show due to a scheduling conflict, worked closely with PRG to engineer the audio system which includes almost 17 miles of microphone, control, and power cabling, of which 5½ miles is Ethernet cable.

For the main audio control, PRG supplied a Meyer/LCS CueConsole 2, used in conjunction with Meyer/LCS D-Mitri Digital Audio processors. Three Avid Digidesign Profile consoles handle additional audio mixing and routing. The audio system sends SMPTE triggers to the PRG V676 lighting console to trigger the video system and it receives MIDI from the V676 as a DMX channel to trigger audio cues from lighting.

The centerpiece of the sound system is the Meyer D-Mitri mixing system, which has a very large input/output setup (144 in x 144 out). “We aren’t limited; each speaker can essentially get its own mix,” says Matthews. “As much as we can think of the systems as there being a monitor system, a proscenium system, and a surround system, we can put vocals in surround; we can put the band into the surround or a singular instrument that pans and moves around overhead.”

The speaker package for Spider-Man includes left and right line arrays that consist of the Meyer M’elodie speakers and two center clusters made up of Meyer JM1P speakers designed to put the audience in the heart of the action. “We have overhead surrounds, side surrounds, rear surrounds on the rail plus proscenium and stage speakers. It was designed to envelop the audience,” adds Matthews.

Spider-Man also has Broadway’s largest wireless RF system, which runs 100 wireless frequencies on a daily basis. “This system includes RF microphones, god mics, in-ear monitors for the aerialists, walkie-talkies, wireless intercoms, and then a whole slew of 2.4GHz for all of the standard access points for control networks,” says Matthews. “Lighting uses quite a lot of wireless for control, and there is wireless in some of the props.”

In coordinating the wireless RF systems, PRG’s audio team had to take into consideration the potential areas of interference. Aside from the other wireless used on the show itself, many of the scenic elements are made primarily of metal; the deck consists mainly of lifts with a lot of steel and aluminum; there are LEDs in almost all of the scenic elements including the large moving LED video walls; and the theatre is just off Times Square and near other Broadway shows all with massive WIFI and RF wireless networks. “As we went along, we needed PRG to come in and make tweaks and adjustments,” says Matthews. “That’s their area of expertise; and they’ve done a great job with it. We rely very strongly on them for all of our wireless coordination.”

PRG also provided a closed circuit video (CCTV) package in conjunction with a redundant intercom system for all of the stage managers, automation operators, orchestral performers, and anyone who needed to be able to see what happening during the intricate production. The 45-camera system handles the cueing and coordination of the orchestra, housed in two separate rooms below the stage, as well as providing needed life-safety support for both the scenic automation system and performer flying rigs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Jacob Cohl

A spider is an eight-legged creature. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has as many moving parts, and keeping them fully functional is the job of Fred Gallo, Production Resource Group founder and president of PRG’s Scenic Technologies division.

“The hardest thing about this production was that the rehearsal period for the flying took as much time as it takes to rehearse a show,” Gallo says. “Both camps fought for the same real estate, using separate systems for the scenic automation and the flying. Just getting the time was difficult.”

Nothing came easy once the time was found, however. “Engineering the lighting was as hard as engineering and building the scenery,” he says. “Just about every piece in the show is internally lit. The eight ‘legs’ of the city [there are four pair] travel on and off stage, fly in and out, and pivot 45 degrees on and off stage. We built prototype after prototype, at least six, with George [Tsypin] and Don [Holder], trying to figure out how to get them as ‘kite-like’ as George wanted and then how to light them from within, which intrigued Don. We went through a number of iterations to find the right type of LED lights bouncing off the right bounce at the right angle. Don also wanted to backlight the legs, so they had to be somewhat translucent so he could backlight them off a standard lightpipe.”

Using carbon fiber, the material used in racecar shells and jet fighters, made it possible to achieve these goals. “It’s strong, light enough to be lifted, and stiff enough so it won’t deflect. We had to learn about it, then build with it—and not many shows can pay for that,” Gallo says. “Expensive beyond your imagination.”

The show has about two dozen motorized effects for the flying and 145 motorized effects for the show, or about three times more than a typical large-scale musical, Gallo says. While the systems are separate they are in communication, via encoders in PRG’s Stage Command, so Fisher Technical knows exactly where the scenery is as the Spider-Men take to the air.

Scenic model shot courtesy of George Tsypin

On the ground, a particularly difficult sequence pops up, literally, early in the show, as a high school opens up like a picture book around the characters. “Picture books work because the paper is so thin,” Gallo says. “The carbon fiber that we used is full of mechanics and linkages so that all the desks can pop out of it as it opens. Similarly the row houses that Peter and Mary Jane walk past have nine to 12 scenes that keep unfolding. It’s great that no one thinks they’re difficult when they look at them, but it took months of investigation to get them to work. The show took us a year to build.”

Tsypin’s unusual design process proved useful. “He builds model after model after model, builds one he likes, and then he draws it, which is the opposite of most scenic designers,” Gallo says. “But he’s figured out how he thinks it might work, and that gave us some good ideas.”

The Chrysler Building scene

Some of the most inspired involve the climactic battle of Spider-Man and the Green Goblin atop the Chrysler Building, which combines flying with vertigo-inducing spectacle.  “The stage never stops working at the end of the show, and it’s working at high speeds,” Gallo says. “The building is in three separate layers that open up. George’s concept was that the layers and the internal lighting would create the perspective, which seemed like a terrifying engineering problem. But his models and our 3D modeling in AutoCAD allowed us to convince ourselves that we could build this and it could work. We knew what it would weigh and the loads it had to pull and we’d figured out the rigging. And, surrounded as it is by the stage ramps that come up to create the cityscape, our taxi drop with the roads that comes in, and all the little taxis that go back and forth that you seem to be looking down on—it worked the first time, and has continued to work.”

Simply readying the Foxwoods for load-in of the production was a major task. “We had to remove the landmark proscenium arch and front vaulted ceiling, and worked with many groups and consultants to make that happen. That took us six months,” says Gallo, who adds, “We took it apart and stored it in such a way that all you have to do to put it back together is follow our instructions, which hopefully someone will know how to do 30 years from now.”

Click here for a link to some shots of the Spider-Man load-in.

Partial Technical Crew Credits:

Hillary Blanken (Production Manager- Juniper Street)
Mark Peterson (Project Manager- PRG)
Ben Lampman (Assistant Project Manager- PRG)
Forrest Hoffnar (Engineer-PRG)
Jim Kempf (Engineer- PRG)
Sam Pierce (Foreman- PRG)
Lisa Cline (Production Manager- PRG)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kyle Cooper's video content

Unlike his colleagues, Kyle Cooper, an Emmy winner, has Spider-Man experience, having designed the acclaimed title sequences for all three movies, and for many others besides. But this is his first Broadway show, and it came to him via his work with Julie Taymor on her films Titus (1999), Across the Universe (2007), and, as production ramped up, The Tempest (2010).

The Act II number “Sinistereo,” where the Green Goblin and his band of mutants, “The Sinister Six,” run amuck in Manhattan, is a projection highlight of the show, as is his “interpretation of the set as it moves in a Cubistic way” for another second act song, “The Boy Falls From the Sky,” where Peter Parker regains his powers. “There was a lot of awareness of George’s set in the design of what we were doing, this comic book and forced perspective language that he was coming up with,” says Cooper. “The architecture of the animated material had to be consistent with the set.”

One of Kyle Cooper's images for the "Sinister Six" taking Manhattan.

Cooper developed the sequences from his studio, Prologue, in Venice, CA, animating in Maya and Adobe After Effects. “With ‘Sinistereo,’ I went to New York and shot against bluescreen all the characters dancing and fighting, then brought it back to L.A. to key everything out and rotoscope it. I’d show Julie environments in which they could behave, and add, for example, animated lightning from the hands of Electro, or 3D blood from Carnage. We’d then composite all these layers in Flame.”

Projection coordinator Howard Werner (who is also credited with additional content design) got them up and running at the Foxwoods. “If you’re working on a feature, it might look okay on a computer screen or TV monitor, but what does the Goblin’s face look like 40’ high? We’d screen, rework, and refine them. Julie was relentless about getting them right. And Howard was there onsite to slow down or invert or layer the animation.” (Cooper’s work was completed before the show’s spring hiatus, then edited by Werner to reflect changes to the book, notably the deletion of all references to international locales as “Sinistereo” was grounded in Manhattan.)

A shot of Cooper's projections

“Theatre is a moving target,” Cooper says of his experience. “It’s more interactive. With the credits, I certainly interact with the director, but you can have a locked cut and a locked color correction, deliver it, and nothing changes. In the theater, however, when the actors interact with it and come out from behind the panels, you realize that it works differently each time. The sensibility is completely different, but I really enjoyed it.”

Detail of the emergence of Carnage as part of "Sinistereo."

Projections Designer Kyle Cooper provided us with a veritable comic universe of images for Spider-Man. We broke them down into characters, seen here, as well as architecture, available on the photo gallery found here.

[View with PicLens]

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Artwork for a church scene from version one that was cut.

Here are more of projections designer Kyle Cooper’s images for Spider-Man. We broke them down into architecture, seen here, as well as characters, available on the photo gallery found here.

[View with PicLens]

Click here to view the embedded video.