An 18-year-old has been busy lighting up Cumbria – and its skies.
Matt Ellwood, of Silloth, has been working as a lighting technician since he finished school at 16 for Fluid Productions, a live event production firm based in Cockermouth.
In the three years since he has already designed lighting for festivals, theatre, conferences, DJ sets and sporting events like boxing shows.
Some lucky viewers may have spotted some of his work just last week, after he tested out a light show at his home in Silloth.
Matt shared the final video of his test show online and said it proved a hit with locals – which has inspired him to look into ways to bring some proper outdoor lightshows to Cumbria.
But it all started for Matt, who is a former pupil of Wigton’s Nelson Tomlinson School, when he was just 10 years old helping to do lighting for his school plays.
He said: “I first got into lighting at school by doing all the school plays. The first proper lighting event I did was in Year Six for one of the summer concerts.
“I then did a dance competition at The Sands Centre and I got to do the lighting design for that.
“I think it just got me hooked from there and I remember watching videos of lighting online and realising that is what I wanted to do.”
Matt first got involved with Fluid Productions through work experience which led to him scooping an apprenticeship with the team.
He said: “It was a guy called Aaron, who is now one of my best mates, that I met in secondary school that got me involved with Fluid Productions.
“He messaged one of the managers and said I was really interested in lighting and asked if I could do some work experience. So I did a couple of jobs with them and they then asked if I’d like to do work with them after school.
“So I did a two year apprenticeship at 16, and a lot of it I already knew, because I was coming home after school and self teaching myself everything about lighting.
“So when I joined Fluid, I was right on the front line operating lights at jobs and seeing people and doing lighting design for them and learning on the job.
“I’ve now been there lighting tech for three years and most of our work is actually outside of Cumbria, so we’re travelling to London, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds and we were in Dublin the other week doing a conference too.”
Matt’s job is all about designing every aspect of light shows, from using different colours to making sure everything is timed correctly.
He added: “I first come up with a project name and then I think what do I want to get out of it, and for my home test show, which I called LaserLand I wanted to pull out all the stops.
“So it was very upbeat and high tempo, but I start by compiling an audio track and I get all the audio I like, then I mix it into a seven to 10 minute track.
“It’s then using different software to build the production and for LaserLand it was all run off one laptop.
“I have a software that can build a 3D model of anything, so for LaserLand, I built a model of my house and the project took about three weeks, so it was quite a fast one to do. DJ sets normally take about six months.
“I actually also do deejaying myself as well and I’m really into music and that helps me make everything is synchronised and on beat.”
Matt tested his LaserLand show at home in Silloth as a way to practice with Fluid Production’s new lasers.
He said: “Fluid have just invested in lasers to add something new to our shows. So it’s been my little project to learn how to programme them, have some fun and learn all the safety with them.
“So the whole reason I did the light show was to learn with them. I borrowed the lasers from Fluid and some lighting equipment and then I made a seven minute long timecode track to project over the sea.
“All the paperwork was done and all the risk assessments were made, so it was safe.
“But I started posting about it and the view count just went mental. The whole sky was lit up and the reaction from people was wow, we’ve never seen this before in Silloth.”
While Matt did not play any audio out loud as the show was a test, he did add the audio he used back in to his recording of it.
He said: “When I first posted it on Facebook, I wasn’t sure how people would react, but all the comments were really nice and people were wanting to see a proper show.
“I think people were quite shocked, it’s the last thing you expect to see in Silloth on a random Thursday night.
“But I would love to do some proper shows in places like the Lakes with nice backdrops.”
Matt said that while he loved all the events he does, it’s the faster paced ones he enjoys the most.
He said: “It’s definitely the DJ events. I like the fast paced ones, but I still love the conferences we do, because you can be artistic with the lighting. Conferences are nice and slow and relaxed, so you can take your time to make it perfect.
“Some of the events we do, you do stand back once you’ve built it and go wow, this is actually really cool.
“But one of the best things for me is once you have spent quite a while programming a show and you come to do it live, you have a big build up and drop all the lights to black.
“Then you turn on a certain effect or movement, or the lasers come on for the first time, and just hearing the room react to it, that is one of the best parts of the job.”
