PRG hosted its first ever Ideas Exchange briefing earlier this month. The breakfast meeting was the first in a series of events set to bring the best creative minds together for an exchange of innovative and inspiring ideas.
Creative director Frankie Boyle was invited to speak. Frankie specialises in the medium of light. Her company, Febo Designs, art-directs unforgettable, multi-sensory experiences. Febo Designs uses light, texture, form and colour to craft unique and unforgettable multi-sensory experiences.
At the breakfast meeting, Frankie talked passionately about how light has a bigger part to play in the immersive and entertainment sector, not just as an accompaniment to the storytelling.
“We love experiences where we are transported out of our daily life, and Febo enables us to do just that. Febo is a company which specialises in high-end technology, merging it with material research to gain a greater understanding of emotion and human connection” she said.
Frankie’s lighting inspiration
Frankie believes that her lifelong love of colour and light can be traced back to early childhood where at Guy’s Hospital she had developmental testing for a receptive language disorder. She believes the light and colour, experienced in these tests heighten her senses to using light as a second language.
As an adult, she gets her inspiration from places that use colour as there main language, for example places like Chroma Yoga in Shoreditch who use light and colour therapy techniques, brain stimulating soundscapes and bespoke natural scents to creative an immersive, multi-sensory yoga experience. She also likes exploring street art, which she feels makes colour more accessible, she loves the work of Bombas and Parr and the Lord of Lightning who regularly appear at Glastonbury’s Arcadia spectacular, along with Acradia themselves!
One of Frankie’s biggest achievements was being brought onto the project, Arcadia Spectacular’s Metamorphosis show. It was groundbreaking work, combining the best of costume design by Jo Peacock with advanced LED wireless systems by Light Initiative, this show was a sight to behold.
Image Credit: Giles Mayall
Image Credit: Giles Mayall
They developed three two-piece wireless video LED neon costumes, that worked for high performance aerial choreography, designed with a synchronised inner and removable outer layer. With up to three metre lengths of LED, the costumes dramatically displayed mapped video content throughout the show, enabled by Light Initiative’s innovative design to generate a unique and unforgettable performance.
Frankie on how light can affect emotion at events
Frankie explained how the use of black light or black content relates to the impact on human response to the content itself. She said “It’s a bit like teasing someone with light. If you have minimal going on when the light comes to life, you are more responsive. Rather than saturating you in all the lights so your brain activity is overwhelmed.” She went on to add “if you are going at 100mph 110mph doesn’t feel much different!”
Frankie divulged a key tip which she uses in her lighting installations. “When using light at an event don’t give too much away too quickly - in eight minutes people become normalized to surroundings. Build it up slowly.”
Image Credit: Alitor Throup Studio
Image Credit: Alitor Throup Studio
Frankie recommended Eric Prydz’s recent Creamfields show for ‘another level’ inspiration. The Swedish DJ latest HALLO show at Creamfields’ Steel Yard designed by Mark Calvert and Ross Chapple. Prydz’s lighting designer included astronauts, lasers and holographic heads.
Light festivals to explore
The dream is to go to Day for Night festival in Texas! Frankie’s favourite English light festivals include Lumiere and the winter lights festival in Canary Wharf. She also loves light pop-ups like the spectacular pop-up by Marcus Lyall - On Your Wavelength (Canary Wharf 2017 & 2018). But Frankie would love to see more permanent places people could go to enjoy creative lighting.
Frankie’s biggest challenge
Every year Claridge’s Hotel turns its Christmas tree into an iconic art piece, a Mayfair landmark drawing visitors from across the world. In 2015 it was Burberry’s turn, and in collaboration with technology by Renagade, working with Light Initiative, and the craftsmanship of Mike Smith Studios Febo was able to bring Burberry’s dream to life. The tree was a six-metre tower of undulating umbrellas of different sizes, finished in gold and silver chrome. Each umbrella held over 1,200 motion reactive LED’s which followed guests as they descended the staircase brushing past the tree, creating the illusion of sparkling raindrops.
Image Credit: Dezeen
What’s next for Febo?
Closing the breakfast meeting, Frankie gave a sneak peek of what we can look out for from Febo over the coming months and years. She explained that she is looking to create an experience that involves food and light. She added, “Light, colour and food all nourish you. It is the perfect combination.”
Photo Credit: Jolly Schwarz
Photo Credit: Jolly Schwarz
Febo Designs has joined forces with the amazing Paranormal Unicorn to produce a lighting product which allows lighting designers to have full range of the creative spectrum. This product is now at the patenting stages and soon to be released on to the market. With the amazing skills of Jolly Schwarz, Febo used the perfect canvas of an abandoned building in Vienna to test drive the product by light painting the space. It sounds amazing and we can’t wait to see it!
The PRG Ideas Exchange is a monthly, invite only event. If you want to find out more about this and what PRG could do for your next event, whatever its size, talk to John Montague or Andy Johnston.
