Hog 4 lights up the runway at Milan Fashion Week

Danilo La Rosa is an Italian lighting designer with a successful career spanning more than three decades. He has worked on live events and theatre productions all over the world. A long-time Hog platform fan, Hog 4 was the obvious choice for La Rosa when he was tasked with lighting runway shows at the recent Milan Fashion Week.

For Milan Fashion Week, La Rosa was eager to put the latest Hog 4-18 hardware and 3.17 software to the test after being consistently impressed by Hog consoles in the past. "I’ve been using the Hog platform for many years, so I know the tools it’s equipped with,” he says. “The color-mixing and the speed of use make it a top performer for fashion events where quick set-up and the technical realization really make the difference."

The goal was to illuminate and color the clothes, giving them character, while at the same time respecting the artistic needs of the designer and the aesthetic demands of the event as a whole. The key words were “strong colors” and “rainbow”. Therefore, it was equally important to devote part of the work to the creative aspects and part to programming. Thanks to the Hog 4-18 console, La Rosa was able to simplify the programming work and allocate sufficient time for the imaginative aspects.

"With Hog 4 I was definitely able to optimize realization times,” La Rosa explains. “In collaboration with the director and the set designer, I established the sequences and colors to be used quickly and intuitively, creating the sequence of lights, colors and any effects that had to alternate during the scene.

“We illuminated, colored and produced an exciting show, managing to generate the ‘Wow’ effect, giving emphasis, and involving the audience,” he adds. “To get the perfect colors and shades for the show, I made extensive use of the Color Picker window with the Fan function on the saturation parameter, which is really useful and practical."

La Rosa describes his typical set-up for events of this kind. "A backup Road Hog 4-21 is a must for this type of production,” he says. “I use it mainly to have more playback on hand, to work a bit in the old way, with the submasters.

"In my setup, sACN communication with the respective nodes is never missing. The Hog 4 console lends itself very well to be used in combination with other third-party software. Specifically, I use TouchOSC to remotely control the lighting desk from the stage. This system is very convenient as it allows me to recall, turn on and move the fixtures, even when I move on stage," he concludes.