Television Lighting & Design: Autumn/Winter 2012 (Issue 107)

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Television Lighting and Design

Autumn/Winter 2012

Issue 107

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Editorial A season of ceremonies, Bond style and the sport of kings

I

t’s been an epic summer! Tim Routledge has given us his amazing experience of the London 2012 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony, which you can read about on pages 8–10. We’ve been to the races with AC-ET (pages 17–19) and had a great opportunity to get to the Bond exhibition, Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style – more on that overleaf. PLASA had an eventful show, with many sponsor members exhibiting. It’s the last year for PLASA at Earls Court and you will see them next year at ExCel. The 5th Knight of Illumination Awards (pages 13–15) gave everyone a chance to get their glad rags on, and a good evening was had by all.

Showlight 2013 will be coming up in February. The STLD has decided to sponsor 10 members once again – see page 10 for details.

We are looking forward to 2013, with some great visits planned nearly every month!

So from all of us at the STLD, have a wonderful Christmas, and we look forward to seeing a lot of you next year at the AGM on 17 January (see page 10 for details).

The next issue of the magazine will be out in spring 2013.

Emma Thorpe Editor

Contents 4

Visit: Designing 007

20

Sponsor News

8

Lighting: Olympic Closing Ceremony

35

Society Committee

10

Information: AGM and Showlight 2013

38

Society Sponsors

13

5th Knight of Illumination Awards

38

Welcome to new members

17

Visit: AC-ET

38

Index of advertisers

Cover picture by Mike Baker

TV Lighting and Design is the journal of the Society of Television Lighting and Design and is published three times a year. ISSN 2050-4012 Editor: Emma Thorpe and Bernie Davis E-mail: editor@stld.org.uk Web: www.stld.org.uk Production Editor: Joanne Horne Sponsor News: Emma Thorpe E-mail: sponsornews@stld.org.uk Advertising: John King E-mail: adverts@stld.org.uk

Printed by: Andus Print, Brighton Deadlines for the next issue: Editorial: 31 January 2013 Advertising: 31 January 2013 Advertising is accepted only from sponsor members of the Society © Society of Television Lighting and Design 2012

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STLD visit A not-so-secret agent Words: David Laske Photographs: John O’Brien Before James Bond graced our screens there were, of course, spy films. But those spies, such as The Third Man’s Harry Lime, inhabited the sordid alleyways and back streets of Eastern European cities, filmed in black and white. Then, in 1962, film espionage changed forever as 007 stepped out of the shadows and into a fantasy world of Technicolor in Dr. No. No more dirty raincoats, smouldering cigarette butts in cut lips and bourbon or whisky in shot glasses: Bond’s tipple was a dry martini, shaken and not stirred, or a bottle of Dom Perignon 1953 champagne. He dressed in dinner jacket and bow tie for evenings gambling at the casino, a beautiful woman admiring him from across the roulette table and, outside, an Aston Martin DB5 for him to whisk her off to his luxury hotel suite.

The rest, you may say, is history. Fifty years on and the 23rd Bond movie, Skyfall, out now, was still eagerly anticipated by generations of fans.

In 1958, as Ian Fleming started writing the book Dr. No, the Chamberlin, Powell and Bon architectural partnership commenced designing the brutalist-style Barbican Estate in the City of London. Although the estate, built between 1965 and 1976, took a little longer to come to fruition than Fleming’s book and subsequent film, it seems fitting that Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style was held there.

The exhibition contained nearly 500 design-orientated items, mostly from the Eon Productions archive. They included, among other things, artwork, models, storyboards, costumes, makeup, gadgets, film clips, interviews and music.

About 90 per cent of the Eon Productions collection would not exist had it not been for Peter Lamont. Since 1964, Peter has worked on 20 of the Bond films. Beginning as a draughtsman in Sir Ken Adam’s art department for Goldfinger, he went on to be Production Designer on nine films. In his spare time he would ensure that things were kept, storing them in garages and rooms scattered around Pinewood Studios.

The STLD was fortunate to have as our personal exhibition tour guide Stephen Scott. Stephen was Art Director on two of the Bond films: Tomorrow Never Dies, 4

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released in 1997, and Die Another Day in 2002. Following the tour we had a Q&A session with Stephen, but more of that later.

This was in no way a technical exhibition.

If you were there to learn about any technical equipment or techniques you would have been disappointed as there was not a lamp, camera or piece of sound equipment in sight.

However, there were design drawings and objects galore: a feast for the eyes.

The exhibition was divided into seven areas. The first, ‘Gold’, a darkened room with dull-gold painted walls, was dedicated to Goldfinger and included a screen framed by a title sequence-style bullet hole showing clips from the film. There was also a white circular revolving bed containing a caste of Jill Masterson’s Shirley Eaton’s gold painted naked body. For this effect her makeup artist, Paul Rabiger, used gold makeup foundation. Stephen said that film had become much higher definition since then and there were now more convincing products to use.

The opposite wall was made up of black, internally-lit display cabinets, suspended on gold painted steel rods, to replicate the gold vault bars of Fort Knox. These cabinets held a comprehensive display of various film props, plus costume and set-design drawings.

We stopped to admire the beautifully realised set proposal drawings by Sir Ken for the interiors of the Fort Knox gold vault and laser room. Sir Ken was the first Bond Production Designer, working on Dr. No and a further six films. He created the visual aesthetic for those films and left a legacy for every Bond film since.

Sir Ken’s drawings, in a mixture of felt-tip pen, pencil and watercolour, gave the scale, atmosphere and drama of the sets. His drawings were in a forced perspective, which emphasised the size of the set. The finished studio set was constructed in the same manner, in perspective, enabling the camera to see the whole set in the establishing wide shot.

Thus, the rear walls were built quite low in comparison to the foreground but were still good enough for close-ups.

Sir Ken’s philosophy, and Stephen’s, is to show in the first

Opposite page, top right: Model of Zorin Airship used in A View to a Kill.

Bottom left: Former ond Art Director and tour guide Stephen Scott and the STLD’s Les McCallum stop for a photo in front of Sean Connery’s Bond and an Aston Martin DB5. Bottom right: Models of aircraft used in various James Bond films (above) and a model of the set from Die Another Day (below).

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Designing 007

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STLD visit

conception drawing a feel for the environment of the finished product and not to get bogged down in detail. The set is bound to evolve before it reaches the studio and you certainly don’t want to disappoint someone if you have not recreated that drawing.

Sir Ken said Bond films needed a ‘villain and a lair’. The Production Designer ‘establishes a style and visual progression for the film and then physically realises it’. For the audience, ‘a form of escapism is more exiting than reality’.

Of all of the props in this first room, my ooh moment was on seeing Goldfinger’s henchman Oddjob’s steel-rimmed bowler hat. This flew like a Frisbee and was used to decapitate his enemies.

There was also a collection of drawings by Costume Designer Beatrice Dawson of the outfits worn by Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus, as well as a recreation of Pussy’s gold leather waistcoat, which, worn by Honor Blackman in the film, set many a young boy’s heart on fire.

Following the ‘Gold’ room there was a display of the first-edition dust jacket designs by Richard Chopping for many of Fleming’s Bond stories, as well as a pictorial history of Fleming’s life and a gold-plated Royal typewriter similar to that on which he wrote Casino Royale.

Gadgets and gismos

Sean Connery’s Bond (pictured right at the exhibition next to an Aston Martin DB5) was a character of charm, sophistication and glamour, and Connery’s own Saville Row tailor, Anthony Sinclair, designed and made his costumes. In M’s office, the next area, could be found his overcoat and Homburg hat.

Bronwyn Cosgrave, Co-Curator of the exhibition, likened Sinclair’s designs to the male equivalent of a Chanel suit.

This room also contained replicas of M’s buttoned leather office door, Miss Moneypenny’s costume (apparently her own clothes), an oil painting of Bernard Lee’s M by artist Jill Andrea Read and a scale model of M’s office composite, designed by Terry Farrell for The World Is Not Enough. A cabinet contained a collection of Bond’s personal paraphernalia, including passports and American Express card.

Perhaps the most popular area for the Bond obsessive was Q Branch. Here, displayed in packing cases labelled ‘attache cases’, ‘Lotus submarine’, ‘Q boats’, ‘Q balloon’, ‘weapons’ and ‘Little Nellie’, were drawings and props of gadgets and gismos conjured up by Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service.

Stephen explained that these gadgets were not just chosen at random but that the art department would be in touch with the R&D departments of companies such as BT to find out what ideas they were currently working on and how they might apply them for use in the film.

My favourite exhibits here were the drawings and details for ‘Little Nellie’, Bond’s combat gyrocopter. A group of beautiful storyboard drawings by Robert Laing illustrated Little Nellie’s battle with four villains’ helicopters, while, in an interview shown in the exhibition, Sir Ken recalled how he conceived the gyrocopter as a kit, which, in the film, is shipped to Japan in a set of crocodile-skin suitcases.

Moving on, there was a recreation of a casino, with costumes displayed on mannequins and original costume6

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design drawings on the walls. There was even a prop bottle of Dom Perignon 1955 in an ice bucket, although Bond preferred the 1953 vintage!

Location, location, location

The Foreign Territories area was divided up into locations throughout the globe that have appeared in Bond films. Each area had design drawings, models, props and stills from the films shot at that location. The producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, would always ask: ‘What journey could we take Bond on that he hasn’t been on before?’.

At the entrance to the ‘Japan’ section there was a large photo of Sir Ken’s impressive drawing of the volcano’s interior in You Only Live Twice. We also watched an interview with Sir Ken and Peter Lamont, in which the latter recalled that one of the first scenes shot was the destruction of the volcano’s control room, and the art department had to reinstate the set to continue the shoot.

In the ‘City in Space’, which appeared in Moonraker, there were yet more of Sir Ken’s glorious design drawings – this time for the interior of the space station – as well as a storyboard by the art department illustrating the film sequence for the destruction of the space station.

It’s interesting to note that for GoldenEye, the heart

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Designing 007

worked on five of the Bond films and was Guest Curator of the exhibition.

It’s interesting to note that some Bond costumes were designed by Prada, with jewellery designed by Jasper Conran.

My favourite exhibit from this section, however, was the chambermaid Rosa Klebb’s shoe, with its poison-coated flick knife, which featured in From Russia with Love. With a click of her heels, a spring mechanism would release the blade to subdue her opponent.

The final exhibition space was devoted to all things snow and ice. Film footage projected on each wall surrounded the visitor viewing the exhibits.

Around the perimeter of the room were several ski suits designed for Bond and his female companions. Lindy, who designed the wardrobe for two Bond winter venues, has commented that ‘it is difficult to make people look comfortable and glamorous while dressing them for sub-zero temperatures’.

There was an impressive large-scale model of the ‘ice dragster’ used in Die Another Day, a full-size Ski-doo – one of 14 –used by Gustav Grave’s henchmen, more costumes designed by Lindy and the piece de resistance: the ‘ice palace’ set design, in drawings and models.

Snow business

of the city of St Petersburg was recreated by the art department in Leavesden Studios.

In the ‘Vietnam’ section for the film Tomorrow Never Dies was displayed the BMW R1200 motorbike used in the film.

It was originally thought too heavy to do the stunts required but the special effects department, of more than 120 personnel, liked a challenge. Moving on to the ‘Venice’ section, there were two beautiful scale models of a palazzo: one exterior and the other illustrating the mechanics for the sinking of the interior, as used in Casino Royale.

In the first Bond films, no locations existed to meet the requirements of the scripts. Hence, in The Spy Who Loved Me, the submarine base set, inside an ocean tanker, was built at Pinewood Studios. No existing stage was large enough so the 007 Stage was built, originally as a temporary structure.

It’s still in use! The interior shape and structure of the studio walls and roof were actually used as the interior set of the ocean tanker hull. This was perfectly illustrated in Sir Ken’s drawing for the set, which was on display in the exhibition.

Villains and enigmas

This room contained large photos of Bond villains attached to cabinets displaying yet more costumes and props. These included many by Costume Designer Lindy Hemming, who

Once the exhibition had closed to other visitors for the evening, Stephen held a Q&A session. He explained that each Bond film was in production for a year, about half of which was design preparation. On Die Another Day there was an art department of about 45 people and a budget of about £16m.

He was given virtually a free hand in designing the ice palace for Die Another Day. His original concept was for it to be located in the interior of a glacier. This proved to be beyond even a Bond budget and so the set was reduced to accommodate the launch party and interior bar area, plus a series of rear corridors.

Stephen explained that the script changed throughout the filming and one new proposal was that there would be a car chase sequence within the rear corridors of the ice palace. Originally, the palace floor was to be made from an electrolytic sheet material, with sheets of clear acrylic on top. This idea was abandoned due to cost, but this was fortuitous as it would have been totally inadequate for the car chase. Instead, Stephen went back to the tried-andtested method of using timber sheeting painted with robust white gloss paint and sprinkled with artificial snow, glitter and a light covering of dry ice.

At the end of the evening I asked Stephen if he yearned to work on any more Bond films. He said the experiences of two had been enough to satisfy his desire and that there were a lot of other fantasy feature films out there waiting to be made. He then paused, gave a wry smile reminiscent of Bond himself and added ‘but... never say never!’.

On behalf of those STLD members who attended the evening I would like to thank Les McCallum for the considerable amount of time he put in to organising our visit and the tapas meal afterwards. I would also like to thank Stephen Scott for his guided tour and Q&A. TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Lighting Blind man’s bluff: Programming the Olympics Words: Tim Routledge On 27 July, London was the centre of our world, with billions tuning in to see the greatest show on earth. The story of how the Olympic Opening Ceremony came to be will be told for years, but that’s not this story: this is the story of how you programme the lighting for the Olympic Closing Ceremony (OCC) in just two weeks.

In 2011 I was approached by Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe to head up the programming team for the four ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Having been in Beijing four years previously, I was keen to have a full bite of the cherry this time around.

Creating the lighting for the OCC was a very different experience to the Opening Ceremony, however. The Games were now live and the park we had had to ourselves for so many months was now shared by hundreds of thousands of spectators. Where once Danny Boyles’ green and pleasant land had stood, there was now a sports arena for what Piers Shepherd, Technical Director, described as the ‘entertainment between ceremonies’! We no longer had a set to focus to and a cast to light: this was going to be an exercise in imagination.

T-12: with the biggest lighting rig in the UK’s history, there was some reinstatement and maintenance to do, and the next 48 hours consisted of programmer time to get ready for the creative work to follow, with focusing and re-patching for the OCC. The overhead core rig stayed the same for all four shows and a new floor package and scenic lighting package was added depending on each show’s creative requirements. Rich Gorrod, Lighting Crew Chief for PRG, supplied each programmer with their section of the patch for each show and the grouping and re-patching began. The rig was roughly split as follows: me, Lead Lighting Programmer, spots and searchlights (Sharpys, Synchrolites, Best Boys, Bad Boys and roof GLPs); Andy Voller, Lighting Programmer, washes and keys (VL3500, CP Beam 1500, VL5 and VL6); and Pryderi Baskerville, Lighting Programmer, architectural and scenic (exterior roof arena colours, floor GLPS, 1100 ACLs, rock stage package and many miscellaneous extras).

Time was of a premium, but without the nuts and bolts working, we would only slow things down. The athletics would finish at 10pm, with half an hour for audience egress.

Following that, the world’s media had a contracted hour of full stadium lighting for filing their reports and interviews.

Then came the next hurdle: the lawn mowing! At midnight each night we watched two chaps with what seemed like the world’s smallest lawnmowers cut the grass. Dawn was about 5am – not a lot of time at all for programming.

With an initial brief from Patrick and Adam Bassett, Associate Lighting Designer, we three programmers commenced focusing the thousands of moving lights for the various looks we needed for the show. The OCC had a simple and strong stage shape of six Union Jack ramps.

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Production produced a canvas template to stretch over the pitch to give us the shape and, while we programmed, the many sprinklers soaked it, making it three times as heavy for the packdown each night.

Each programmer would take it in turns to work in different sections of the arena so as not to interfere with each other’s focusing (turning on 400 VL3500 while someone else is programming makes things a little difficult!). So, for example, I would focus my Sharpys as an even wash on the ramps, while Andy would focus on to the ‘M25’. The M25 was our nickname for the athletes’ parade route around the main set. This was a long and lengthy focus and needed to be perfectly even as the athletes paraded around. It also needed to be biased in favour of which way round they paraded. This had to be done differently for each show as each parade route was different.

Each focus was extremely time-consuming, with hundreds of fixtures required for each position. For me, a gobo wash across the whole M25 would take 224 Sharpys spaced evenly around the track: spread them too thinly and there would be a gap near the end of the circumference; spread them too thickly and there would be some left over. It all took time.

Once the focusing was complete, we were down to T-10.

While we were endeavouring overnight, the others were at rehearsals at the old Ford Plant in Dagenham piecing the show structure together. Essentially a huge car park, the site had enough room for two 1:1 rehearsal spaces and managing, feeding and looking after 10,000 volunteers. Terry Cook, Followspot Captain, would remain at Dagenham until show day in order to follow all the changes and blocking required.

He also devised an ingenious method to rehearse the spot operators, but I will come to this later.

For each show, Patrick, Adam and Miriam Evans, Lighting Design Assistant, would produce a full storyboard. This book was kept in the control room and edited as we went along so that any of us could, at a glance, have an idea of what was happening when and what our intentions as a team were. We had a starting Q number for each section and an allowance of 10 cues per section – sometimes we only needed one and for others we used hundreds of point Qs. This meant that all numbering was in line with the stage management show section numbering system and also kept a commonality between all three lighting desks. A screen split from my console was used to send a cuelist to all the LDs so that they could see where we were in the show; by having the same cue numbering, it didn’t matter which cuelist they saw.

Armed with a storyboard, our next few nights of programming were dedicated to putting in the bare bones of the show. The first step was creating a look for every section.

We would have only limited refining time for songs, so a good look for each song was essential before we did anything.

By day, my role was to break the rest of the show down

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Olympic Closing Ceremony

– I would take each number and import into InqScribe (my preferred tool for cueing music and writing a cuelist). This was something we used on all four shows. I would write a music breakdown for each song with timecode points and issue it to the whole team. This gave everyone an aim of what to do in any downtime or quiet five minutes.

Each song would be talked through and we would decide what we would use for each: the colour ways and whether we would follow the music and all its intricacies, or if it was a simple verse/chorus look. While waiting for the work lights to go out each night, the three of us could knock in the effects and add bells and whistles to each song.

Three more days had gone by while putting in a simple structure. Then we lost a night to video focusing!

T-5: One major lighting part of this show was the rock stage for performances by The Who, Ed Sheeran and many more.

This comprised of a huge rig of Alpha Beam 700s and Sunstrips.

This was being prepped at PRG’s main depot in Longbridge, Birmingham, and so Pryderi was dispatched for two days to programme the numbers for this stage. We would never see the rock stage again in darkness until we were live to the world.

While Pryderi was away, Andy and I refined the looks for the

main music numbers. We were battling with revised music tracks that were issued on a nightly basis – an extra chorus here or a longer intro there. The tracks would be collated by our interns and then I would re-cue the music and alert all the programmers to any changes. The homework soon built up.

T-4: During the final week our schedule became tougher as we needed to see rehearsals by day. Although weary after a few hours’ sleep, every time we did this we were always reinvigorated; the extraordinary nature of what we were seeing in a car park at the side of the A12 gave us goosebumps. The next night session was spent refining and working on notes that had come from seeing the blocking at Dagenham. In terms of levels and colours we had to rely heavily on what we had learnt from the first show. We had cameras for a lot of rehearsals on the Opening Ceremony; this time we were going in blind.

The most crucial parts were the protocol sections. Flag handovers, royalty, cauldrons and speeches: these had to be both simple and stunning. Adam would make lengthy notes but we could rely only on guesswork, point an allowance of lights at an area and hope it was in the right place and enough!

T-3: The next night was given to the team from Brazil for their Rio 2012 Handover section. They had eight minutes TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Lighting

to impress the world, and having been in Beijing doing the same, I knew how they felt: it was a big ask in a small time.

We made them feel welcome and assisted as best we could.

Patrick and Adam had worked with their team before so it felt like old friends joining our weary party.

T-2 nights and it was time for our final notes session.

Andy, Pryderi and I were given the last half of this night to tweak focuses and tidy everything up, and at 5am that was it: the show was done and in the can! This was the load-in night and at 10.30pm, an army of crew and plant took over the stadium and we had a rest night while the install happened.

The production team then had 16 hours until doors to install one of the biggest and most complex shows ever staged in the UK. We arrived at 9am ready to begin flashing out. The rock stage was almost up and the floor package was starting to be installed. From then on it was blind checking and updating

as it was a bright sunny day. All focuses were updated using our interns on the ground or Pryderi with a back-up console on the rock stage. We all worked ready for a 1pm run-through but time ticked on and there was still plenty to do. Eventually we got to a run-through at 3.30pm and elements of the show were prioritised as we didn’t have time to rehearse it all. Before we knew it, it was doors and time to be in our first Q – 110.

As darkness drew near we were ready to update focuses right up to the moment we went live to the world. In fact, in the back of shot of the build-up on BBC One you could see some of our focus session going on. This was the first and only time we got to see the set in the dark in the stadium. A 60second countdown and from there on in, we were seeing what the audience were seeing for the very first time. After working solidly for the past two weeks with essentially a blindfold on, it was removed and we could finally see what we had created.

Information ANNOUNCEMENT

This is the official announcement for the 39th STLD AGM 2013.

It will take place from 5pm on Thursday 17 January 2013 at the Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way, London SE11 4TH. See below for futher details.

Showlight 2013 is almost upon us. It takes place 18–21 May and will be held in Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic.

The acclaimed international lighting event is organised by and for lighting professionals, and the STLD will again be sponsoring 10 places for members to attend.

You will need to pay for your own flight and hotel, but the STLD will pay for your registration to the conference. In return, we ask you to report back on the range of papers and meetings for articles to be published in the magazine, and to help to represent the Society. Flights to Prague are not expensive (about £120 at the moment) and Showlight is planning to help with connections from Prague to Český Krumlov. There is a range of hotels, too, and Showlight will help you find somewhere to suit you.

The registration fee covers everything, including access to all the seminar presentations, the trade show, full participation in the visits programme, food and drink throughout the day and a place at the main Conference Dinner.

Please contact Bernie Davis to book your place.

More information can be found by visiting www.showlight.org 10

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Awards A sparkling night out: The KOI Awards 2012

Hundreds of lighting professionals donned their finest outfits and their dancing shoes for the fifth Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI), held in London on 10 September.

The awards, organised by the STLD, ALD and Clay Paky, provide public recognition for outstanding achievements in lighting design by lighting designers working on productions in a number of professional areas in the UK. At the same time, they help to forge closer ties between the world of lighting design and the lighting industry as a whole.

The STLD and the ALD regard the LD as a ‘Knight of Illumination’: a romantic and generous character, ready to offer and defend the values of integrity and professionalism with their ‘sword’ in hand (the automated light tool put at their disposal by the lighting industry). Consequently, each winner received an authentic medieval battle sword handmade in Toledo, Spain (see overleaf).

The awards were nominated and judged by a panel of professional reviewers working in the categories of touring, TV and theatre lighting design, selected and co-ordinated entirely by the STLD and ALD. These two British associations of LDs ensure that the awards go to recipients showing professionalism and integrity of lighting design each year.

Hosted by Andy Collins, this year’s KOI was held at the Battersea Evolution event and exhibition venue.

The celebrations attracted a fantastic turnout, with more than 450 lighting professionals from the worlds of TV, theatre and rock. Guests included LDs from all disciplines, production companies, trade associations and members of the press.

Following the awards, there was a short ceremony during which Pasquale Quadri, President of Clay Paky, made a donation to lighting charity Light Relief, which was formed to help LDs in times of extreme hardship, providing practical support and financial help.

The 2012 KOI Awards were chaired by Sarah RushtonRead (rock), Stuart Gain (TV) and David Benedict (theatre).

The event was generously sponsored by Osram and supported by ABTT, ET Now, L&S America, L&SI, PLASA, The Theatres Trust and Women in Stage Entertainment.

They joined a prestigious 2012 sponsorship roll call that included AED Rent, Ambersphere, Artistic Licence, Avolites, CAST Group of Companies, Chauvet, DBN, DWR, ELP, ETC, Gear Source Europe, Green Hippo, Hawthorn, HSL, MA Lighting, PRG, Rosco, Siyan and Wireless Solutions.

With A&O Lighting Technology as exclusive sponsors of the event bar and after-dinner get together (pictured inset), the KOI Awards 2012 proved to be an exciting and fun evening.

Davide Barbetta Marketing Production Manager, Clay Paky TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Awards

Mark Kenyon, winner in the Light Entertainment category

Johanna Town accepted on behalf of Roger Simonz

Davy Sherwin came first in the Arena Events section

Pasquale Quadri, left, and Light Relief’s Rick Fisher

Simon Bennison on Neil Carsun celebrates his behalf of David Finn win for Chase and Status

TELEVISION

For shows broadcast between 1 June 2011 and 30 May 2012

Drama

Preston Passion insert – Alan Beech The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff – John Sorapure Antigone 34 – Roger Simonsz And the winner is: Roger Simonsz

Light Entertainment

Strictly Come Dancing from Wembley – Mark Kenyon Red Hot Chilli Peppers Live at Koko – Tom Sutherland Not Going Out – Martin Kempton And the winner is: Mark Kenyon

Small Studio

Just a Minute – Tom Kinane

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Michael Pleuser, Vice President of Osram

Howard Harrison won for his lighting of Anna Christie

John-Paul Percox on Rob Mansfie behalf of DM Wood Small Studild won in the o category

LD Nigel Catmur won in the Events category

Gary Longfield accepted Neil Austin’s award

Masterchef – Rob Mansfield Sky Arts Book Show from Bath Literature Festival – Iain Davidson And the winner is: Rob Mansfield

Events

The National TV Awards – Mike Sutcliffe The Royal Variety Performance – Nigel Catmur Easter Eucharist – John Penny And the winner is: Nigel Catmur

ROCK

For shows staged between November 2011 and June 2012

Rock Stage

Bombay Bicycle Club – Chris (Squib) Swain Paul Weller – Dan Hill Chase and Status – Neil Carson

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Knights of Illumination

Queen with Adam Lambert – Rob Sinclair And the winner is: Neil Carson

Rock Arena

Prodigy – Andy Hurst Florence and the Machine – Christopher Bushell Snow Patrol – Davy Sherwin And the winner is: Davy Sherwin

THEATRE

For productions between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2012

Dance

Carbon Life, Royal Ballet – Lucy Carter The Metamorphosis, Linbury Studio – Guy Hoare Sweet Violets, Royal Ballet – David Finn And the winner is: David Finn

Drama

The Duchess of Malfi, The Old Vic – James Farncombe Anna Christie, Donmar Warehouse – Howard Harrison Richard II, Donmar Warehouse – David Plater And the winner is: Howard Harrison

Musicals

Company, Sheffield Crucible – Neil Austin Sweeney Todd, Chichester Festival Theatre – Mark Henderson Coram Boy, Colston Hall, Bristol – Bruno Poet And the winner is: Neil Austin

Opera

Eugene Onegin, English National Opera – Jean Kalman Norma, Opera North – Adam Silverman Suor Angelica, Royal Opera House – DM Wood And the winner is: DM Wood

Enrico Caironi Award for Lifetime Achievement In recognition of Clay Paky’s Commercial Director Enrico Caironi (1947–2011), whose inspiration formed the KOI Awards, this will now be known as the Enrico Caironi Award for Lifetime Achievement.

This award went to Bryan Leitch (pictured). Announcing his win, previous KOI winner (and Leitch protégé) LD Cate Carter said: “Bryan has been an inspiration to so many LDs. He is an incredible talent and his ability to come up with some of the most stunning concepts has never ceased to amaze me.

He has taken the time to give so many the opportunity of a career in lighting; taking them under his wing and giving them the support and advice to go out there and do it for themselves.”

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STLD visit

Clockwise from top right: Kilometres of cable; the cable workshop, where cables are made at short notice; Northern Lighting Sales Manager Kevin Fitz-Simons demonstrates the Studio Force range; the scroll room; a Studio Force unit with soft box option

A day at the races Words: Bernie Davis & Andrew Harris Photographs: Andrew Harris Visits to sponsor companies are a mainstay of the STLD calendar, writes Bernie Davis: they give the companies a chance to meet members face to face and they let members see the latest products on offer. The latest invitation of this kind came from A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd, but with a novel twist.

Thanks to company founder David

Leggett’s love of horse racing, the meeting had an added attraction: a visit to Windsor Racecourse for its last race meeting of 2012.

We met at AC-ET’s main depot in High Wycombe, where we learnt a little about the history of the company. The business began as Alpha Centauri Lighting in 1971 when David Leggett and Richard

Floyd started providing lighting for clubs and music tours. After a few years they realised there was a gap in the market selling lighting products across the range.

Renamed A.C. Lighting, and with a northern sales office in Leeds, the business grew to become an international trading company and now stocks more than 200 leading industry brands.

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STLD visit

Recently renamed A.C. Entertainment Technologies, it celebrated 40 years of trading last year.

Its enormous range of products now includes rigging, audio and video as well as lighting equipment of all kinds, catering for the TV and film market as well as concerts and live events. The company prides itself in being able to provide consumables, lamps and cables within a short turnaround to meet the demands of the entertainment industry.

AC-ET also has a projects sister company based in the High Wycombe office, which provides a design-andinstallation service.

We were then taken on a guided tour of the premises, starting with the sales office. In their cable workshop we learned that they did not keep a great deal of prepared lengths in stock as, knowing that every customer has different needs, they prefer to make cables to order. As a result, they have kilometres of cable of all types, and every connector on hand, waiting to be made into cables at short notice.

We went on to the colour cutting

room, equipped with vacuum benches to hold the colour down while an impressive range of stencils enables accurate cutting. Scroller gelstrings were being prepared while we were there.

Although not so widespread in TV, these are in constant demand by theatres.

AC-ET is a main dealer for Manfrotto and can provide all its range of stands and grip equipment, and also maintenance and spares for stands. I was surprised to see maintenance in the list of services, and not just for products bought from ACET. They explained that if your lighting desk gets a can of Coke poured into it, they will strip it down and clean it.

After the tour we were shown a small sample of the equipment AC-ET supplies, which started with the Chroma-Q range. I remember reporting in Television Lighting and Design a few years ago about the Chroma-Q Color Block: a clever piece of kit that provides a simple four-cell LED unit with

a flexible kit of parts that allows them to be arranged in a variety of shapes.

Well, the Color Block is now in its third generation, but the company has much more on offer. The Studio Force range is a family of LED products aimed at the TV industry, where LED lighting is now moving beyond being just eye candy. Yes, AC-ET does the Color Force range of RGBA products in a range of battens and blocks, but they are now joined by the Studio Force range of high specification white LED units. The Studio Force D 12 (pictured below) looked to be a well-made LED light source, about 13” x 8”, giving a very bright daylight colour temperature over a very even field. The colour rendition looked good, and a range of accessories is available, such as barn doors and egg crates. Very neat soft boxes can be fitted, too. Control can be by DMX, but a menu system allows for freestanding control, too. The range includes a compact version and also a linear version – the same LED modules making an

Lunch, LEDs and a little flutter at Windsor Racecourse With the tour out of the way, Gordon Smith and his colleagues drove us the short distance to Royal Windsor Racecourse, writes Andrew Harris. This is a figure-of-eight course just south of the River Thames and on the opposite bank from Eton College’s rowing lake that featured so prominently in the Olympics.

AC-ET had booked a suite for us, where we found drinks waiting. There was also another demonstration set up to play with against the backdrop of lunch and the racing. I stuck to the Tote counter, but a couple of our number had at least a look at the traditional bookies on the terrace below.

There were seven races at halfhour intervals, which made for a very relaxed and social occasion, with time to look around the Grandstand and Parade Ring. The Racing TV channel

was a very slick operation, with a scanner at Windsor feeding a couple of big screens showing the action as soon as it started at the far end of the course. Between races, you could follow – and bet on – the action from

other courses. Interest in the room, however, was more on lunch and the various LED goods.

Thanks to Gordon and his colleagues for their generous hospitality on a great day out.

For more information about A.C. Entertainment Technologies visit www.ac-et.com The Chroma-Q range can be found at www.chroma-q.com and the Jands Vista can be seen at www.jandsvista.com 18

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AC-ET

LED batten. To appeal to the TV market, the units have very smooth dimming and even control of greenshift.

An interesting addition to the range was the Studio Force D Phosphor (pictured left), which at first looked like the D 12 with a heavy diffuser, but in fact the front panel is a phosphor screen that glows when hit by the LEDs behind.

The result is a fairly soft and very wide light source.

All the above can also be supplied as the Studio Force V with variable colour temperature varying from 3,000K to 6,100K. We went on to look at some Jands lighting desks, starting with the Stage CL (pictured right). This is built for controlling LED units in a simple but clever way. Imagine

a venue lit with a range of LED products that need a central control.

This desk takes all the complication out of the control by simply placing one LED unit on a fader. You fade it up and it lights up in white. Knobs at the top of the fader then control hue and saturation to get the colour you want.

A simple touch screen allows you to choose pre-selected colours or even colour effects. There may be only 12 faders but you can have as many units on the same address as you want.

Different lighting states can be stored and played as a cue stack. I can’t see this desk taking over The X Factor exactly, but its price and simplicity would make it ideal for installations such as churches or clubs. Or even LDs’ bathrooms...

We moved on to the Jands Vista V2 lighting control new software available on a range of lighting desks. The aim of the Vista has always been to take the number crunching out of design and to make the control more intuitive, and the large touch screen made it easy

to grab ranges of fixtures and give them colours, positions or effects without having to think through how you would have to do it.

The timeline feature then makes it easy to decide when different attributes change – maybe moving a range of lights then changing to a colour in a particular pattern. We were given a demonstration on the new Vista L5 console (pictured above), featuring a massive built-in touch screen enabling access to the Vista’s unique features, but other desks are available, right down to the S3, which you can tuck under one arm, or even the M1, which is little more than a stand-alone playback wing. With the same software running on all the Vista platforms, it is possible to plot on the big extensive desk and then tour on a more compact version.

But enough lighting for now, it was time to move on to Royal Windsor Racecourse...

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Sponsor News Sponsors: don’t miss out on being featured here.

Email your news to sponsornews@stld.org.uk for inclusion in the next issue of TV Lighting and Design.

AC-ET AC-ET supplies LED lighting solutions to central London theatre

A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd has supplied a quantity of LED-based lighting fixtures from leading entertainment lighting manufacturers Chroma-Q™, PixelRange and GLP to the BBC’s Radio Theatre facility at Broadcasting House in central London.

The theatre is designed to stage recorded and live performances, including comedy, radio shows, live music, televised and red-button events such as concerts, plus shows broadcast across the BBC’s network.

The ‘house’ lighting rig needed to be extremely flexible to take account of the diverse number of events taking place in the venue and the need to embrace theatrical, broadcast and multimedia disciplines. It was important that the new LED units were also appropriate to light HD TV and its specific requirements.

Extensive research was carried out into all the LED lighting options and Radio Theatre Events Manager Mark Diamond and the BBC’s R&D department worked alongside AC-ET’s Paul Turner to ensure the most suitable fixtures were chosen.

Cally Bacchus resigns from AC-ET

A.C. Entertainment Technologies has announced the resignation of Cally Bacchus from AC-ET, with his departure taking effect on 18 December.

Cally will continue in his role as the company’s International Sales Director until then, allowing for a period of transition to appoint his successor.

The company remains fully committed to providing its overseas customers with access to the very latest technologies, backed up by first-class after-sales support, so it is business as usual.

AC-ET’s Managing Director Phill Capstick says: “I would like to thank Cally for the contribution he has made over the past 15 years and wish him all the best for the future.”

Well known in the industry, Cally has represented ACET at numerous international tradeshows and helped build strong, long-lasting business relationships with its customers and suppliers around the world as part of AC-ET’s 20

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

expansion programme.

Cally says: “I am proud to have been part of AC-ET for the past 15 years and have thoroughly enjoyed working with such a long-established and experienced sales team. I wish the company every success in the future and have no doubt that it will continue to offer excellent service and support to its overseas customer base.”

AC-ET appointed as SGM UK distributor

AC-ET has been appointed as a UK and Ireland distributor for Danish-based SGM Lighting’s innovative range of highly creative LED products.

In addition to AC-ET’s core customer base, the latest SGM products are particularly well suited to the architectural market serviced by the company’s special projects sister company.

AC-ET’s MD Phill Capstick and UK Sales Director Jonathan Walters were impressed by the latest generation of SGM products after seeing them at the 2012 Prolight+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt. After reviewing SGM’s range and quality, they felt that the brand would complement AC-ET’s existing distribution portfolio of LED brands.

Key SGM products that AC-ET will distribute include the XC-5 (colour) and X-5 (white) LED strobes; the LT-100 3D graphic tube and the unique Six-Pack (SP-6) pixel array batten.

Ambersphere Expansion to Ambersphere’s core team

Ambersphere Solutions is pleased to announce that Matt Cowles has joined the company, effective from 3 September.

Matt brings a wealth of industry experience as he begins his new role as Technical Sales for Ambersphere. Most recently, he has been a business development manager for Stage Electrics, having previously built his knowledge as account manager in the live events division for the same company. Prior to that he was a product manager at Martin Professional.

“We are delighted to welcome Matt into his role as Technical Sales here at Ambersphere,” says Managing Director Glyn O’Donoghue. “This is a newly created role to ensure that as our business expands, we continue to provide excellent customer care and technical support countrywide.”

“I’m pleased to be joining the Ambersphere team,” says Matt. “There isn’t a better time to be getting out on the road representing Ambersphere with the array of products that MA Lighting and Clay Paky currently have to offer.”

He adds: “I was looking for a position that would allow me to get closer to the manufacturer again, and with this role, I have two premium brands to work with, which is more than I could have asked for.”

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ARRI

Artistic Licence

ARRI Lighting Rental ready to equip lighting directors with ARRI L-Series LED fixtures

Artistic Licence Engineering launches dVnet

ARRI Lighting Rental in Uxbridge now has significant stock levels of the ARRI L7-C LED-based Fresnel lamp. The versatility, efficiency and performance of the L7-C will appeal to lighting directors working on a diverse range of production types, allowing ARRI Lighting Rental to expand into the broadcast market and build on its core business of supplying lighting packages to major feature films, TV dramas and commercials.

The L7-C is the top-of-the-range lamphead from ARRI’s L-Series, which was first launched in 2011 and is now recognised as a breakthrough in the integration of LED technology into the film and broadcast industries. L-Series fixtures reduce electricity usage by 75 per cent, permitting huge savings to be made in studio environments and greatly diminished power needs on location. Further savings are brought about by the exceptional lifespan of the LED light engine, which lasts about 200 times longer than a conventional tungsten bulb.

This efficiency, coupled with the high quality of light output for which ARRI is world renowned, makes L7-C lamps uniquely interesting to lighting directors for outside broadcasts or events, as well as the traditional situations in which a Fresnel might be used. The fixture’s precise control of colour temperature and plus/minus green provides further creative options to lighting professionals.

Also reflecting ARRI Lighting Rental’s commitment to stocking the latest and most advanced fixtures from ARRI is the company’s inventory of M-Series lights. The ARRIMAX, M18 and M40/25 lampheads all feature ARRI’s groundbreaking MAX Technology reflector design, which eliminates the need for spreader lenses and combines the advantages of a PAR with those of a Fresnel. The M-Series fixtures already on the shelf at ARRI Lighting Rental will soon be joined by the latest member of the family, the M90/60: an affordable 9K HMI with light output close to that of a 12K, but similar in size and weight to a 6K, so easier to handle and to transport.

Artistic Licence Engineering launched dVnet, its eagerly anticipated digital video-to-network converter, at LuxLive 2012. Following a preview earlier this year, the full power of dVnet was shown on stand J02, where it drove an exciting new display/lighting medium.

The latest addition to ALE’s Rack Pack range, dVnet is aimed squarely at retail and architectural applications in which a media façade or light sculpture is to be controlled by video and the complexity of a media server is not required. dVnet is all a light artist needs to convert a video creation to light. The digital video input is in HDMI format.

Configuration is simplicity itself, with less than 10 mouse clicks required to render video to a media wall. dVnet can also play back any video clip manually loaded on to its internal hard drive, or via the incorporated play list manager, which facilitates easy management of video clip content.

Output is via a gigabit network connection with protocol support for Art-Net 3, sACN and both variants of KiNet. Two versions of dVnet are available depending on the size of the project. Standard dVnet handles 20,000 pixels, while dVnet extreme is capable of controlling a 50,000 pixel array. Like its counterparts in the Rack Pack range, dVnet is housed in a 2U 19-inch rack case for easy integration into existing rack-mounted systems

Artistic Licence Engineering showcases Multichrome Tube for Bow Arts Trust

Bow Arts Trust, the East London arts educational charity, is the recipient of the first major installation of Artistic Licence Engineering’s new modular Multichrome Tube LED fixtures.

Integration company Technical Entertainment Services, which specialises in architectural LED feature lighting, was commissioned by Bow Arts Trust to refurbish its permanent installation of vertical tubes of light, which are suspended over the public walkway between its two buildings on Bow Road.

TES Technical Director Matthew Owen proposed a multipixel RGB fixture as the best solution to these requirements, which would also allow artists in residence to offer their design input to the artistic direction of the installation.

He then set about sourcing a suitable product from a range of international and UK manufacturers and discovered that Artistic Licence Engineering’s modular Multichrome Tube fittings were the perfect fit.

Multichrome Tube is a linear LED fixture, available in a variety of customised lengths and in different configurations, including single or double-sided strips and a choice of pixel pitches. This modularity offered the client the extra flexibility to alter the design as required.

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Sponsor News

Photo: Jeff Hubbard

Optimised for designerfriendly colours, no less than 16 million high-purity colours can be obtained from Multichrome Tube’s colour mixing ability, in addition to white tracking.

Owen specified 10 by 500mm and 20 by 1,000mm customised RGB LED Multichrome Tubes. Despite their standard IP67 rating, they were made even more rugged for permanent outdoor use by Artistic Licence Engineering, which provided additional waterproofing, ensuring the product’s suitability for the long-term outdoor installation at Bow. Only three Artistic Licence E2 Art-Net controllers were needed to control the 30 Multichrome Tubes. The E2 controllers are triggered by a Chamsys Replay PC outputting Art-Net. Owen programmed the desk with a series of ‘scenes’, which are automatically triggered at dusk and continue until dawn. Owen also incorporated a pulley system that can raise and lower the tubes for maintenance or to change the design pattern.

More on the Artistic Licence Engineering Multichrome Range, which includes Multichrome Flex, Multichrome Web and Multichrome Tile as well as Multichrome Tube, can be found at www.ArtisticLicenceEngineering.com. For more details on the services provided by Technical Entertainment Services, visit www.tesec.co.uk and to learn more about Bow Arts Trust, visit www.bowarts.org.

Steve adds: “At the same time, and overshadowed by the Games, we controlled a massive 800 sqm, high-res LED screen and 12 mapped HD projectors for the Miss World Finals in China. The icing on this sensational cake was to receive the recognition and respect of our peers in the industry by being awarded a PLASA Award for Innovation.”

Pictured: MD Steve Warren; Ed Pagett, Vice Chairman of PLASA’s governing body; Lead Developer Dave Green; and Avolites Technical Director JB Toby.

Avolites Pearl Expert provides powerful control for Frank Turner at Wembley

Avolites Avolites Media’s groundbreaking Sapphire Media Infinity wins innovation award at PLASA 2012

The Avolites Media Sapphire Media Infinity video control system has been awarded the PLASA Award for Innovation.

Forty-seven products were judged, ‘live’ in front of visitors to the PLASA show at Earls Court in September, as an independent panel of expert judges toured the show floor, camera crew in tow, to view presentations about each product.

“Nominees were asked to demonstrate a new style of thinking, an improvement in technical practice, an aid to safety, energy-saving or sustainability benefits, or new technology, materials or techniques,” explained one of the judges.

Designed and manufactured in the UK, Avolites Media’s Sapphire Media Infinity represents the next exciting step in media server technology, says Steve Warren, Managing Director of Avolites Media.

The Avolites Media Sapphire Media Infinity has already been put to spectacular use at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

The Ai Infinity was used to help map and control the 70,500 mini pixel screens located in the stadium seating, which together created the world’s largest video screen ever.

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Avolites’ popular Pearl Expert lighting control console provided a powerful, easy-to-use solution for a one-off, career-defining Frank Turner gig at London’s Wembley Arena.

Lighting Designer Shaun Moore adapted his smaller, music hall-inspired lighting design for the Wembley Arena show. However, this one-off gig presented a number of challenges, as Moore explains: “The show was a one-off, so it was load in at 5am and doors at 6pm. Programming was done over two days at Terminal Studios via the Avolites console using WYSIWYG. We also had a couple of hours tweaking overnight in my hotel room! Obviously I could have done with a production day, especially as the show was filmed for DVD. On the day itself we had just a few hours’

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tweaking positions and programming.”

Turner, the Winchester-based, folk/punk singer and guitarist, has been touring almost consistently since 2005.

This was the biggest concert of his life and a DVD of the show, The Road to Wembley, has just been released.

Moore specified a varied rig, and all dimming and hard power were provided by two Avolites Art 2000 T4 Racks and an Avolites Art 2000 T2 Rack. All production was supplied by Newcastle-based Nitelites Ltd. Moore will continue to design for the Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls Tour of the UK in November and December, and Nitelites will continue to supply production.

Pictured: Frank Turner plays Wembley Arena and, inset, Lighting Designer Shaun Moore at his Pearl Expert.

Clay Paky Clay Paky at PLASA 2012

Besides being one of the main PLASA sponsors, Clay Paky organised several activities at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, which played host to the historic London show for the last time.

Clay Paky set up its main stand, overlooking the busy PLASA area and Innovation Gallery in the heart of the exhibition centre, in partnership with Ambersphere Solutions, the sole distributor of Clay Paky and MA Lighting products in the UK. The stand provided an overview of all Clay Paky’s new products: the A.Ledas, the Series 800 Profile and QWO lights, and the GlowUp Strip 100 LED bars.

More than 40 new product demos took place on the various exhibition days, accompanied by an impressive light show. They were held in Clay Paky’s demo room, where a spectacular rig was set up, comparable to those used at the best live concerts. The numerous visitors from the UK and several other countries were received in a comfortable lounge to watch a light show put together by Marco Zucchinali, Clay Paky’s Lighting Designer.

As occurred at ProLight+Sound, Clay Paky TV was the ‘live’ voice from PLASA in London. Every day the crew gathered interviews with leading figures in the business and recorded regular updates at the various stands in the exhibition hall.

One of the films not to be missed is the new Clay Paky product light show, in which a large number of A.Ledas stand out. There is also an interview with Gil Densham, Chairman and CEO of the CAST Group of Companies, which received the Gold Innovation Award for its revolutionary BlackTrax.

To view the films, go to www.youtube.com/ClayPakyTV At the end of the show, the name of one of the visitors was drawn out of a hat. The lucky winner received one of the six ‘Union Jack’ Sharpys, customised with the colours of the British flag and used for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

this year. The souvenir light bears the original signature of Durham Marenghi, official lighting designer for the event.

The winner, Jacek Pancierzeński, Manager of the Polish company GIG, was not at the show at the time, but when Marenghi called him, he said he was thrilled to win ‘a piece of history’.

The announcement of the winner was recorded by the Clay Paky TV crew and can also be viewed on YouTube.

Doughty New Doughty products for small studio spaces

Doughty Engineering launched three new products at IBC 2012, two of them designed specifically for smaller studios.

Shown for the first time at IBC, Doughty’s lightweight spring Pantograph is ideal for smaller TV and photographic studios.

Available in aluminium or black anodised finish, the lightweight Pantograph comes in two sizes, 2m and 3m, with a load rating of 0–10kg, making it suitable for lighter weight luminaires.

Complementing Doughty’s Quick Trigger range of clamps, the Baby Quick Trigger clamp is intended for use on smaller truss sizes, adjustable to diameters of 25mm up to 38mm. Made from high-tensile aluminium and with a safe working load of 40kg, it captivates an M8 or M10 bolt. With TÜV approval pending, the Baby Quick Trigger clamp is available in polished aluminium or satin black.

The main feature of Doughty’s stand was the Studio Rail walk-along track kit: a neat and inexpensive solution for smaller studios and venues. Available in silver or black, and with a choice of 12 lengths from 4m to 15m, the kit enables Studio Rail walk-along track to be quickly and easily installed TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Sponsor News

by anyone, without the need for special tools. A simple plate ensures perfect alignment of the rail every time and a range of rail curves increases the product’s versatility. The Doughty Studio Rail walk-along track is maintenance free, other than regular load tests, and the kits contain all the parts required for assembly, with the exception of suspension brackets, which should be ordered separately to suit the type of installation.

Also new for IBC was a range of powder-coated steel TV Monitor brackets, which take up to 60-inch screens. Capable of being fitted with a spigot, receiver or various clamps, the brackets offer a 0–45-degree forward tilt.

All Doughty brand products are manufactured in the UK and subjected to the most rigorous testing, including, where necessary, to TÜV standards. www.doughty-engineering.co.uk

ELP Sponsor news from ELP in this issue is dominated by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The company worked with global broadcasters and ceremony organisers on a diverse range of projects. A selected few are detailed below:

Olympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies

ELP provided a platform for US lighting manufacturer Syncrolite to operate in the UK for the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, the Closing Ceremony, plus the Paralympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies. This included warehousing, offices, production and testing facilities, plus logistics management.

ELP’s Production Manager and Crew Chief Barry Denison oversaw all the operations and worked alongside technical crews to make sure everything worked properly for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

The items supplied via ELP included: 40 SXL 7k Syncrolites xenon skylights and 56 Arena Colours. The kit was installed and flown 50m into the air and was distributed over 14 paddles.

Barry worked closely with Syncrolites’ Head of Technology Olaf Pottcher on the deployment and supplied a further five crew to install the system over a 14-day load-in period.

After the Opening Ceremony, ELP crews worked an overnight split-shift pattern to carry out running maintenance on equipment and prepare everything for the Closing Ceremony while the stadium wasn’t being used by the athletes.

Olympics coverage for the BBC

The BBC’s Olympics output was divided between BBC One and BBC Three and both were anchored from primelocation studio settings overlooking the Olympic Stadium.

ELP supplied lighting and rigging services at both studios.

Lighting wise, it was predominantly a tungsten rig incorporating Source 4 profiles, 650W, 1K and 2K Fresnels, with the option of switching to an HMI rig with 1.2k and 2.5k HMIs depending on brightness and weather conditions.

ELP also supplied LED tape, which was built into the set and the studio floor. Set and studio lighting was designed by Lighting Director Gurdip Mahal and it was implemented and managed by LD Dave Gibson.

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Olympics coverage for the US’s NBC

NBC’s Olympics coverage was the most-watched TV event in US history, with close to 220m viewers.

The network, which showed a record 5,535 hours of sports and ceremonies across multiple broadcast and cable networks, said its primetime TV coverage averaged 31.1m viewers over the 17 nights of the Games.

With ELP’s help, location teams were able to ensure the right lighting equipment was available for each individual job.

ELP stocked a ‘field shop’ base in central London with MSR Fresnels, Kinoflow, Arri Pocket Pars and a wide selection of grip gear – the idea being that each day, NBC crews could cherry pick the most appropriate items depending on the assignment and follow the success of US athletes.

New York-based Lighting Design Group were the overall lighting co-ordinators and worked closely with ELP Project Manager John Singer to make sure the lighting ‘field shop’ was never short of gear.

Olympics coverage for Canada’s CTV

ELP also invested in new equipment to fit out a studio in the International Broadcast Compound for Canadian broadcaster CTV. Eighteen new Chroma-Q Studio Force LED fixtures were installed and these provided Canadian Lighting Director Adrian Goldberg with a wide range of lighting application options, including key-lighting, up-lighting, back-lighting and wash applications. These variable colour temperature fixtures provide an extremely smooth uniform wash and are capable of extreme output of up to 5,300 lumens.

Co-ordinated through John Singer, with on-site Gaffer Chris Rand, ELP also supplied other LED-based studio lighting kits for CTV at other temporary studio locations in Trafalgar Square and four other locations across central London. LED was specifically chosen for its low power consumption and low heat output as these studios were often running all day and night. ELP technicians were required on site 24 hours per day and an ELP LitePower mobile generator was on standby to provide back-up power should any problems arise.

Olympics coverage for Chinese online broadcaster and internet giant Tencent

Tencent brings news and social networking to hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. For the duration of the Games they set up a media hub and two TV studios in a disused former youth club building in Romford, Essex. With dozens of technicians based at the site, each day China’s gold medallists were driven to Romford from the Olympic venues all over London to take part in a television programme broadcast on the internet.

Co-ordinated through event production agency George P Johnson, ELP was asked to provide lighting, rigging and power services to the site in Romford. ELP’s gaffer TC Thomas led a team to fit out the disused building with a scaffold grid system, on to which they hung assorted generic, moving and LED lighting systems, including Martin MAC 2ks, 650 Arri Fresnels, 2K Arri Fresnels and 2.5K soft lights. The UK LD was Paul Cook.

ELP also provided continuous backed up power via two

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of its 110KW Lite Power Portable generators. Transport, crews and equipment were all co-ordinated from ELP HQ

by Project Manager Toni Cullip.

Other global broadcasters benefiting from ELP’s equipment and expertise during the Olympic Games were Sky Italia, with the hire of assorted Arri Fresnels, and Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera. ELP’s rigging team was asked to build a cable bridge close to ITV’s studio on the South Bank. Power and data cables that fed into the Al Jazeera studio had to cross an access road. An ELP rigging team led by Marcus Blatchford deployed a self-climbing ground support system made from Tomcat silver GP Truss.

3D video projection mapping on New York’s Maritime Hotel

Green Hippo Hippotizers at the Spider-Man premiere with Digital Insanity

Fans, celebrities and actors were all present at the premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man in London’s Leicester Square.

Digital Insanity headed up the audio-visual production of this highly anticipated film premiere. Along with the red carpet, celebrities and fans, a huge red spider hung at the front of the stage as the premiere’s main feature.

From 2pm, fans surrounded the stage and red carpet in anticipation. The stage was described as the perfect setting.

Free runners and other visual performances worked on the stage as large screens relayed rendered images of the film, video streams and parts of the trailer to the crowd, along with live video feeds of the actors as they walked down the red carpet.

Digital Insanity used Hippotizer HDs running a dual output: driving a lighthouse R7 screen and a 8mm Cobra screen using Videomapper.

As well as playback prepared GFX by Digital Insanity, they used live cameras at the premiere via HDSDI. The audience was witness to a great media performance from Digital Insanity, and by using the Hippotizer HD as the media server, it was able to combine different media that ran simultaneously with each other Another feature showcasing social integration of the fans was the live Twitter feed displayed on the large outdoor screens, employing the hash-tag feature on the Twitter website to relay messages at the premiere. #AmazingSpidermanPremier

The evening of 28 June 2012 saw a one-night art installation in the form of a 3D mapping projection. This and other events were paying tribute to and celebrating the artistic legacy of art icon Keith Haring and were sponsored by Tenga of Japan. What makes this different from other similar events in NYC is that this was a fully permitted projection and not a ‘guerrilla’ execution.

The building selected for this spectacular show was The Maritime Hotel in New York’s Meatpacking District (South Manhattan). Pearl Media Productions, a subsidiary of Pearl Media, managed and produced the entire project from concept to completion, including media content, installation and operation. Pearl Media’s real-estate division negotiated with the residential landlord of the hotel on which the projection and control area was placed, taking great pains to ensure the integrity of the event.

Equipment included four Hippotizer HDs controlled by a GrandMA console and multiple Barco FLM R20 HD projectors. PMP used Live Digital Mix to synchronise the visual and audio elements of the multi-layer display, and an animated countdown clock was displayed between show segments. The unique system integration, designed by AJ Freysteinson, VP Technology and Research, provided total system control with incredible flexibility during the show.

The four-hour show at the landmark hotel featured three-minute bursts of astounding video displays, bringing the entire hotel façade to life with vivid colour, pulsating rhythms and ebullient ’80s graffiti-based graphics referencing Haring’s distinctive style. For the projection, the content designers made full use of the hotel’s structure and even incorporated its unusual windows in the design. The event was viewed by thousands of passers-by and received some amazing feedback.

Hawthorns Knight of Illumination

Once again we were proud to be supporting the 5th Knight of Illumination Awards at Battersea Evolution. The projects team created a 22m-wide curved screen using eight 20k Christie J series projectors, blended and warped. Alex Passmore operated a grandMA2 with the latest from the Clay Paky range.

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Southampton boat show

Heading south for the Southampton boat show recently, the team installed outdoor LED walls and custom outdoor sails made to the client’s design in-house to create an outdoor sheltered space.

Megastore

One of its many summer projects saw Hawthorns running for gold when it supplied the lighting and safety infrastructure in the Megastore on the Olympic Park. With six lanes of shoppers competing in a 200m race to the tills, the store was the size of the football pitch!

Chatsworth

Hawthorns’ work within sensitive, heritage venues has continued this year with events for the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Project managers have provided complete stage solutions for the summer outdoor-concert season.

Hawthorns’ installations

Hawthorns’ servicing and installations teams had a busy summer, with installation work in Canterbury, Ascot and London, and servicing work around the East Midlands and as far afield as the Lake District, London, Essex and Kent.

Canterbury Christ Church University

Canterbury Christ Church University has been upgrading its technical facilities for the presentation of music and drama within the St Augustine’s site. Hawthorns, working closely with Charcoalblue, undertook to supply and install additional lighting, sound and video facilities within the main hall, along with additional track and drapes to allow the space to be reconfigured for different presentation styles and formats.

Equipment installed included Zero88 Chilli Dimmers, Roland Digital Mixer with digital snake and extended AMX control facilities.

Hawthorns’ servicing team

Our servicing teams have been busy undertaking Electrical Periodic, PAT and LOLER Testing, along with lighting, video and audio servicing, at many schools, colleges, universities, village halls and theatres in England and Wales.

HSL HSL says farewell to Westlife

Westlife – the world’s favourite ‘boyband’ – played two farewell concerts over two nights at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin in their very last live performances, capping a 14-year chart-topping, multimillion-record-selling career.

Lighting for this – and the six-week tour preceding the two 85,000-capacity sold-out shows at Croke Park – was supplied by leading UK lighting and visuals rental company HSL. It included nearly 200 moving lights.

The lighting design was created by Dave ‘Biccie’ Lee and operated on the tour at Croke Park by Simon Horn. Mike Oates project managed for HSL, who were working for the tour’s technical production co-ordinators Production North 26

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

under the auspices of Production Manager Karen Ringland.

As well as the hordes of loyal and dedicated fans packing into Croke Park for the final Farewell Concert, this show was beamed live to nearly 300 cinema screens around the UK and Ireland, adding another layer of Westlife enthusiasts to the experience – and upping the ante for careful and considered additional lighting. It was also recorded for a future DVD. Lee worked closely with the tour’s show producer Emma Bull, who commissioned Blink TV to come up with a series of imaginative video footage.

She had clear ideas about the overall look and visual treatments, and how the lighting needed to match in with these. The aim was to make this an indelible memory on the Westlife landscape – an ambitious task as the band’s live performances have always been meticulously slick, hugely entertaining, very visual and fun.

HSL also supplied all the lighting trussing and motors, which included ‘W’ and ‘Z’ shaped trusses to keep the design looking angular rather than straight, all of which amounted to more than 100 points in the roof.

A back wall of seven ladder vertical trusses provided additional lighting positions and added depth to the performance area, which was kept simple with a large central staircase and band risers, complete with several hydraulic lifts and traps for entrances and exits and four tracking video screens.

For Croke Park, a StageCo roof provided much-needed protection over an intermittently rainy weekend!

The touring lighting moving lights were a mix of Martin Mac 3K Profiles, MAC 2000 XB Washes, Clay Paky Sharpies, GLP Impression RZs and the new super-small and fast Robe ROBIN 100 LEDBeams. The conventionals included Atomic Strobes, Showtec Active Sunstrips, 4-lite Moles, i-Pix Satellites, Pulsar ChromaSpheres and, for atmosphere, Le Maitre Stadium hazers.

Audience lighting extras were supplied by Dublin-based Just Lite for the Croke Park shows, adding about another 100 fixtures to the kit list, including Vari*Lite 3500 Washes and Robe ColorWash 1200E ATs, which were coupled with 4-lite linear Moles and 7K Falcon Beam searchlights from HSL. The Falcon Beams were positioned on the side stage ‘portals’ framing the left and right IMAG video screens and on the stage floor, with the Falcon Beams located behind the ‘W’ stage out in the audience where the band

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performed four numbers.

For control, Horn operated using a Road Hog Full Boar console that was chosen by Lee. He worked alongside a crew of five from HSL, chiefed by Johnny Harper, with Stuart ‘Wales’ Picton on dimmers, Chris Roper, Jon Trincas and Steve Bliss.

The show was divided into four sections. Westlife romped through some of their greatest hits and also performed a diverse selection of old and modern classics in a lively performance that rocked it up, slowed it down and strutted some great dance moves.

Most importantly, it left the audience on a high note and full of positive energy, rather than suffering from the bereavement of it being the last ever Westlife show! Now they enter the history books as arguably the most successful and long-lasting boyband on record.

consumption, it’s also a real low-energy solution.

LDR is another Italian brand with flair and style, particularly strong in theatre installation and architectural environments.

The popular products at PLASA included the new Alba LED profile, a 200W-equivalent fixture with excellent tungsten emulation and dimming right down to zero per cent. Also ‘hot’ at the show from LDR was its range of follow spots and colour scrollers.

Additionally featured on the stand were assorted Cooper Control products, plus the latest LED fixtures from UK lighting manufacturer Cogent, including a new range of down-lighters with full theatrical-grade dimming.

Lightfactor

Martin Pro

Lightfactor’s busy PLASA 2012

Martin’s service keeps BT Tower’s LED screen shining bright

Leading UK professional lighting sales company Lightfactor enjoyed a busy PLASA 2012 exhibition at Earls Court in London, with lots of activity on the stand and plenty of interest in key product ranges.

Lightfactor chose the show to launch its new exclusive distribution partnership with Soundlight, German manufacturers of a whole range of neat and handy DMX tools. This generated a real buzz and attendees were impressed with the RDM and systems relay widgets in particular.

There was also serious interest in innovative Italian lighting manufacturer DTS, for whom Lightfactor showed the new Scena F (fresnel) or PC (pebble convex) LED wash light, among many others. This innovative product features a fully automated zoom, uses a 120W LED chipset and is controllable via DMX or in stand-alone mode from its onboard memory.

Sales for DTS’s Jack Spot moving lights were also confirmed and closed during the four-day exhibition. The features that people were loving about this fixture were its brightness, sharpness of the image and general versatility.

The Jack Spot is a lightweight moving head with a motorised zoom offering tight beam projection right the way through to wide washing of up to 46 degrees. It is very bright, utilising only an 189W lamp, but with about 230W of power

Pictured: Lightfactor’s Peter Coles, left, with Julian Wedemeyer and Hendrik Geisler from Soundlight.

The much-talked-about 360-degree information screen atop the BT Tower in London, made up of Martin Professional LC Plus Series™ LED panels, gets a visit from the Martin service department each month – and has done so ever since it debuted more than 1,000 days ago.

“Since its installation almost three years ago, Martin Professional have been invaluable in the smooth operation of the BT Tower display,” says Jared Ruddy, Group Marketing & Brand Manager at BT. “It’s the biggest of its kind in Europe and has become a familiar sight for Londoners.”

Used to display a variety of visual content, the 59m-long by 4.8m-high information screen is visible across the city.

A key visual landmark in London’s busy summer of sport this year, the screen has endured harsh weather conditions since its installation in October 2009.

Jared says: “We counted down from 1,000 days in the lead up to the start of the London 2012 Games, and during the events themselves we celebrated every GB medal victory, reported key moments and flashed up the public’s messages of support from social media channels.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without our service agreement with Martin Professional and their round-the-clock expert assistance. Their support has enabled us to fulfil our strategic objectives with ease and confidence, maximising the possibilities of the screen and mitigating crucial brand risk.”

Martin’s UK service department swaps out six panels each month on a preventative maintenance schedule that, TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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coupled with general service and technical support, has kept the display as captivating as ever.

Nearly 500 MAC Luminaires light Rick Hansen Celebration 25

LC Series™ 2140 LED video panels provided by Midnite Hour Productions, which allowed Electric Aura Projects to quickly and cost effectively build a 80ft by 30ft back wall.

The LC panels were spaced with an approximately onemetre gap vertically and horizontally, with a bottom row of Martin EvenLED LED panels between them. The gaps between the panels were filled with MAC 2000 Profiles and MAC Auras so that the entire background was filled with lights and video.

LD Lee Rose turns to MAC Aura™ for 2012 Jerry Lewis MDA telethon

Twenty-five years to the day that Rick Hansen and his ‘Man in Motion World Tour’ returned to Vancouver, a journey in which he circled the world in his wheelchair to raise awareness and money for spinal cord injuries, the Canadian Paralympian held a special anniversary show to inspire a new generation of activists.

Lighting Designer Robert Sondergaard of Electric Aura Projects was called on to light the show and did so in style, using a large MAC rig of 191 MAC Aura™, 158 MAC 101™, 50 MAC 2000 Profile™, 10 MAC 2000 Wash™, 15 MAC III Performance™ and eight MAC III Profile™ luminaires, all supplied by Christie Lites.

An aura of looks – Held at the Pacific Coliseum in

Vancouver and televised on 24 June on CTV, ‘Rick Hansen Celebration 25’ recognised everyday heroes and featured performances by award-winning Canadian artists.

“For Sarah McLachlan we built a look around her with 30 MAC Auras in a warm glow. It was great to have the look of a bunch of warm bulbs behind her but without having a bunch of light on the stage,” says Robert, noting that this was the first time Electric Aura Projects had used the ‘aura’ aspect of the fixture separate from the beam.

For Marianas Trench, Robert used all 191 MAC Auras in an aura chase with LED strips as an underlying base to the song, while the beam portion of the Aura fixtures hit with the music.

101s pack a punch – Robert also had an abundance of

Martin’s super-small MAC 101 LED washes at his disposal, which were hung off of the railings of the upper bowl to back light the audience and provide aerial beams for the reverse camera shot.

Elsewhere in the rig were MAC III Profiles used as truss followspots. Custom-built boxes provided by In Frame gave the operators local dim and iris control, while Lighting Director Jason McKinnon could colour balance the fixtures remotely.

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TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Labor Day Telethon is a timehonoured television tradition in the US. The 2012 edition, renamed MDA Show of Strength, featured a new format, with LD Lee Rose of Design Partners turning to the Martin MAC Aura as a key element of the lighting design.

This year, new producers revamped the benefit with a three-hour taped show that featured contemporary talent such as Alanis Morissette, Hot Chelle Rae, All American Rejects, will.i.am and more. The show aired on 2 September on the MDA ‘Love Network’ of stations across the US. Rose has employed the MAC Aura in his designs since its launch in 2011. He mounted the Auras in groups of five, placed vertically in six different locations around the stage to fill in the space above and between large LED screens (production design

by Joe Stewart). He used an additional 15 Auras, five each along the tops of the large screens upstage.

The Aura is also a superior colour mixing fixture with a broad range of shades available from two independent colour systems. Rose says he also turned to the Auras because of the homogenous colour of their beam and for the backlight illumination effect.

The lighting supplier for MDA Show of Strength was PRG, with the Auras sub-rented from 4Wall Entertainment.

Philips Philips Selecon sponsors Stage Lighting Master Class, South Africa

Philips Selecon sponsored this year’s Stage Lighting Master Class (SLMC) event in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Grant Bales-Smith, Sales Manager for Strand Selecon Europe, joined event host and international Lighting Designer Declan Randall and South African Lighting Designer Mannie Manim, with renowned New York-based Lighting Designer Richard Pilbrow completing the expert panel.

The two-day event took place on 27 and 28 September in Johannesburg, and 2 and 3 October in Cape Town,

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and celebrated the art and craft of stage lighting.

The SLMC, which was first held in 2001 and then again in 2004 and 2007, returned this year with a number of interesting and informative seminar sessions, as Randall explains: “This year the event focused on new lighting technologies, including LED and energy-efficient lighting design.”

At the same time Selecon showcased the latest additions to its growing range of LED luminaires: the PLFRESNEL-1 (pictured on previous page), PLPROFILE-1 and the PLCYC-1, all introduced to the market this year.

Philips Vari-Lite provides the luminaire for all seasons at Royal Opera House Muscat

VARI-LITE luminaires are the fixture of choice for the knowledgeable lighting team at the Royal Opera House Muscat.

The Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman, which is one of the Middle East’s most prestigious arts venues, has made a point of stocking a variety of VARI-LITE luminaires since it opened three years ago. These include VL3500 Wash and Spot, plus VL1100 TS and AS luminaires.

The Royal Opera House Muscat is a spectacular building, housing a number of venues, each of which embrace an arsenal of state-of-the-art entertainment technology and equipment. However, this opulent façade sometimes belies some challenging and harsh conditions.

“Oman is primarily a desert country, and this can be challenging for a number of reasons,” explains Head of Lighting Donald Cox, who previously worked at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. “The main issue is that there’s a lot of sand and dust in the air, and we therefore need lighting fixtures that are robust, easy to clean and reliable.

The Royal Opera House Muscat represents the pinnacle of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said’s cultural vision for Oman. Cox’s admiration for his working environment is clear: “It’s more of a palace than an opera house,” he says.

“When you walk around the front of house and you see the decoration, you can’t imagine building something like this in this century anywhere else – it’s a jewel.”

The venue attracts companies from all over the globe – last season the programme included full-scale operas such as Carmen and Turandot, as well as performances by operatic greats Jessye Norman and Roberto Alagna. During the opening season, Carmen was lit by the largest VARI-LITE rig yet. Last season the venue hosted 34 separate companies; this season it will welcome 52 in nine months.

Pictured: Donald Cox, far left, and his lighting team.

PLASA PLASA 2012 enjoys a fitting end to an era

PLASA 2012 saw a successful final chapter of the show’s history at Earls Court, with high-quality visitor attendance, a hugely popular Professional Development Programme and a vibrant out-of-hours social schedule – a fitting end to an era before the show begins anew at ExCel London in 2013.

Although the show attracted fewer visitors than last year, following a quiet – and gloriously sunny – Sunday, numbers picked up for Monday and Tuesday, and after an unusually busy final day, the overall visitor attendance reached 11, 500 (subject to ABC audit). Despite anecdotal reports of reduced international turnout, the overseas attendance was in fact a robust 25 per cent of the total footfall, compared with 26 per cent in 2011. The overall response from exhibitors was vintage PLASA: excellentquality visitors and good levels of business, plus a strong sense of the buzz returning to the marketplace.

It was also clear that the seminars, presentations and debates taking place in the purpose-built theatres in Earls Court 2 were a resounding success with exhibitors and visitors alike. Registration for seminars showed more than 100 per cent increase on last year. In all, more than one third of attendees saw one or more of the sessions.

From the first sessions on Sunday, visitors took full advantage of those on offer. On a baking hot afternoon, The Backstage Academy presented to a full house in Theatre D, while LED Theatrical Luminaires: Are We There Yet? had to be relocated to the larger Theatre A to accommodate the audience. The crowds that arrived to see some of the sessions that sold out before PLASA had begun were described as ‘simply overwhelming’.

The presentations that celebrated the industry’s involvement in this summer’s extravaganza of events proved, not surprisingly, to be the highlights of the programme, with more than 550 people seeing the sessions on the Olympic Ceremonies presented by Technical Director Piers Shepperd.

“The PLASA 2012 organisers would like to thank all the contributors for their invaluable input,” says Show Manager Sophie Atkinson. “Through their effort and commitment, the Professional Development Programme has become an integral and unmissable part of the PLASA experience and promises to go from strength to strength at our new home in 2013.”

Once again, Earls Court Conference Centre played host to the PLASA Rigging Conference, where delegates gathered from all corners of the globe to listen to industry experts, share good practice and debate the future structure of rigging on an international level. The legendary ‘Disney Rigger’ Roy Bickel opened the conference with a thoroughly engaging, entertaining and informative speech about his influence on the development of modern rigging over the last 50 years, which was enthusiastically received by the packed audience. The conference, a near sell-out event, was attended by 156 delegates from around the world.

Out on the exhibitor floor there was a vibrant buzz.

Over half of this year’s exhibitors were displaying worldwide product launches, and with 47 entries in the Awards for TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Innovation, sponsored this year by AED Rent and Lighting&Sound International, there was a strong emphasis on ground-breaking technology. The coveted Gold Award went to Cast Software for its BlackTrax 6D Tracking System: an Ethernet-based software and hardware solution that tracks objects or people in a defined 3D space and delivers the dynamic positional data in realtime to other entertainment systems such 3D audio, moving lights, robotic cameras and media technologies.

A strong international flavour was, as always, proof of PLASA’s global reputation as one of the most important trade shows of the calendar. Speaking on the final afternoon of the show, Nexo’s Sales Director Denis Baudier said the show had been ‘very good’ for the company, with a particularly strong international attendance.

The decision to relocate eastward to ExCeL London for 2013 was naturally a hot topic of conversation on the show floor. ExCeL and its facilities have formed part of the London 2012 Olympics’ success and PLASA is eager to exploit all that the new venue has to offer for the benefit of its members.

“ExCeL is a cutting-edge, purpose-built exhibition venue with the infrastructure to attract international markets,” says PLASA CEO Matthew Griffiths. “Its world-class facilities are the perfect match for PLASA’s planned investment in content and growth, and an exciting prospect for the entertainment technology markets worldwide.”

Members who have already experienced what ExCeL has to offer concur. Andrew Richardson from Adam Hall Ltd adds: “I’ve attended ExCeL for many exhibitions and it’s set up in a much better way to handle big exhibitions. A venue with an airport within walking distance has to be a good thing; PLASA is an international show.”

ExCeL London provides a huge, campus-based experience for visitors, only five minutes’ drive from London City Airport, and is well served by the London Docklands Railway that proved such a success at the Olympics this year.

It is 30 minutes to the West End via the Jubilee line, and the recently-opened cable car links to the O2 Arena. PLASA 2013 promises to be bigger, fresher and the beginning of a whole new chapter for PLASA and its members.

The PLASA Show is owned by the industry and we are proud to report that a whopping 65 per cent of the floor space for PLASA 2013 has already been reserved: a massive endorsement of the only entertainment technology event anywhere to reinvest its revenue back into the industry it serves. We look forward to seeing you all at ExCeL London from 6–9 October 2013.

Richard Martin Lighting Big Fat Quiz

After too much food, drink and – in the nicest possible way – time at home with all of the extended family, it’s great when, during the festive period, you can switch on the TV and all join in with a programme, which is why the Big Fat Quiz of the Year has been so successful since it was first aired back in 2004.

The Channel 4 show, hosted by comedian Jimmy Carr, 30

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

sees a panel of A-list celebrities put to the test to see who can remember more about the year. The show’s style is very similar to that of a pub quiz.

In a change to the normal format, this year Jimmy will be hosting three new quizzes about the previous decades: the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Regular Lighting Designer Chris Kempton is back in the hot seat. Richard Martin Lighting (RML) provide the vast array of moving lights, which include Mac 500’s, VL1000TS, 900mm Chroma Strips, Pixellines, Pixel Par 90’s, LED Birdies and Chroma Set kits. However, the ‘main mover’ is the VL2000 Wash, of which they are 22.

The bright and colourful set complements not only Jonathon Ross’s always rather jazzy suits but also the general light-hearted feel of the show.

Lucky Sexy Winners

For years, Shooting Stars had been a firm favourite for many, with a cult following and catchy slogans and characters that everyone knew, so it came as a huge shock to everyone when it was cut from the BBC last year. Thankfully, dynamic duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer were not to be away from our screens for too long.

This summer Channel 4 launched Channel 4’s Funny Fortnight: a two-week run of new shows featuring some wellknown faces and exciting new content. Channel 4 has always been at the forefront of British comedy and has been a platform for so many of our favourite acts.

As part of this, Pett Productions, a television company owned by Vic and Bob and Lisa Clark, brought you Lucky Sexy Winners: a comedy quiz gameshow hosted by the men themselves. Martin Kempton designed the lighting show, which was supported by Richard Martin Lighting (RML).

Meet the Parents

Many of us have a tale to tell about a nightmare family member or a mother-in-law from hell. Whatever your horror story, though, you would be unfortunate to have a more disastrous first encounter with your in-laws than the contestants of this new show.

Picture the scene... your new girlfriend invites you to her family home for dinner. “Great,” you think. “A nice opportunity. She must really like me. I’m sure it will be a really lovely evening. I’d better be on my best behaviour.”

Alex Zane presents the new reality comedy show where, each episode, a poor unsuspecting guy has to try to last the whole night at his girlfriend’s parents’ house. What he doesn’t know is that he is being recorded by 30 hidden cameras and that all of the family members are actors with very colourful characters! Thankfully, there are some fantastic prizes to win if he can just stay in the house.

As if the boyfriend hasn’t been through enough, he is then forced to watch and re-live the best (or, rather, worst) bits of footage with Alex in the studio – where he talks us through how he was feeling at the time and what was going through his mind.

Martin Kempton designs the lighting show, which includes Mac 500’s, Mac 600’s, Mac TW1’s and Pixel Par 90’s, supplied by Richard Martin Lighting (RML).

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Meet the Parents is filmed for Objective Productions.

It was broadcast on E4 in September and October.

Don’t Sit in the Front Row

We all know someone who thinks they are a comedian, who always has a line or a smart comment. Well, Sky Atlantic’s Don’t Sit in the Front Row, hosted by the sarcastically brilliant Jack Dee, is the chance for those such people to put their money where their mouth is and take on the comic panel.

The panel is given props or topics to probe the lives of the ‘funny’ members of the public, and the latter have to use their quick wit and sharp tongue to outdo each other and escape elimination from the next round. The last surviving comic candidate wins the Golden Chair prize.

Chris Kempton designs the lighting show, which is supported by Richard Martin Lighting (RML). The extensive and rather striking rig comprises of Alpha Spot 575, Alpha Wash 700, VL1000TS, Alpha Wash 1200, Sunstrips, Sharpys and one of our more recent purchases: the ROBIN 600 LEDWash.

Arranged in three concentric rings, these LEDs offer unique possibilities for creating stunning colour and pattern audience blinding effects, as well as for providing comprehensive and perfectly even wash coverage. This system sets the LEDWash 600 ahead of any other LED wash light products, making it a truly multi-purpose unit, equipped also with an extremely versatile 15–60-degree motorised zoom, powerful fast strobing and pre-programmed pulse strobe effects.

You Cannot Be Serious!

This summer was one of the best for sport and so it was only right that a new show should delve into its funniest, quirkiest and silliest moments.

You Cannot Be Serious!, a comedy show hosted by Alistair McGowan, reviewed clips from the last seven days of televised sport to deliver Saturday night TV fun. Alistair did what he does best and the show was packed full of sketches and impressions.

Martin Kempton designed the lighting show, which aired on Saturday nights at 7.30pm on ITV and was supported by Richard Martin Lighting (RML).

His chosen lighting spec included Stage Zoom 1200, Mac TW1, Mac 600, VL2000 Wash, VL1000TS, Chroma Banks and Chroma Floods. Martin also used LED 12 Lights, which were hung around the set and helped create an American sports stadium feel.

Robe Olympic Torch is a winner for Light Relief at PLASA

The Olympic Torch donated by Josef Valchar, CEO of Czech moving light manufacturer Robe, was auctioned at the PLASA trade exhibition at Earls Court in London and secured by leading European AV rental company, AED Rent, for £6,200. The proceeds went to entertainment technology industry charity, Light Relief.

The auction was held directly after PLASA’s 2012 Awards for Innovation – one of which was won by Robe’s ground-breaking ROBIN DLF Wash LED fresnel moving light

– and followed some animated bidding, all co-ordinated by professional auctioneer Jonathan Humbert, brought in

by Robe for the occasion.

The torch, which was collected by AED Rent’s Glenn Roggeman, was carried on the Olympic Torch Relay ahead of London 2012 and will now complete the final leg of its journey from London to AED Rent’s HQ in Willebroek, Belgium.

The auction was inspired by Robe’s ‘Working with Winners’ initiative, which ran over the summer to celebrate the brand’s 10th anniversary and best ever year of trading.

Robe MMX Spots have Blond moment on Musiek Trivia TV show

Leading South African technical production company Blond Productions supplied Robe ROBIN MMX Spots and 600E Beam moving lights to a new games show, Musiek Trivia, recorded at ZSE Studios in Johannesburg.

They were asked to come up with a visual concept for the show by presenter Johan Stemmet, having worked with him on several series of the popular music quiz Noot vir Noot for SABC. Musiek Trivia features two contestants at close quarters in the studio facing each other off, Weakest Link-style, on the subject of music trivia from the 1950s to the present.

It was vital to have some visual wow factors for the show. Blond Productions’ Christiaan Ballot and Peter Rieck combined creative forces to produce a fabulously streamlined set and lighting design that involved maximising the small studio TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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redesigned website, which went live on the World Wide Web on 2 October 2012.

The new website presents a contemporary look, complete with new navigational tools. It features enhanced resources in a user-friendly format and gives greater emphasis to Robert Juliat’s prestigious range of lighting products. Detailed descriptions of the product ranges are included, along with new product pictures and a revamped menu system to provide better functionality.

In addition, a newly enhanced ‘Contacts’ section affords visitors the ability to find their nearest dealer quickly and easily.

Rosco area with scenic LED set elements and clever lighting. Overall, this gave the depth and appearance of being a much larger space, simultaneously opening up some interesting looks and angles for the cameras.

Prominent are six ‘totems’ vertical truss pillars, with the six ROBIN 600E Beams mounted near the top pointing downwards into the contestant area, together with 12 MMXs, six on the trusses and six dotted around the floor shooting beams up into the celling behind the contestants. The light weight of the fixtures was a great asset in this situation.

Centurion-based Blond Productions was one of the first South African companies to invest in Robe’s new MMX Spot and in the last six months these have been out constantly on numerous projects, including Big Brother Africa Stargame.

Blond has been using Robe products for many years with great success on its varied range of shows and events, which include corporate presentations, TV productions and live events of all types.

The first series of Musiek Trivia is currently being broadcast on Kyknet, DSTV.

Robert Juliat Claus Spreyer joins Robert Juliat as Sales Director

It is with great pleasure that Robert Juliat announces the arrival of Claus Spreyer as its new Sales Director.

Claus comes to the company with an abundance of experience and knowledge from many years in the industry.

During this time, he was with Lightpower/MA Lighting, Germany, where he was responsible for all partner relations.

Then, two years ago, he joined A&O, the Germany-based leading manufacturer of Sky Tracers, in the position of Executive Vice President.

As Sales Director at Robert Juliat, Claus will participate in raising the brand to an even higher level and extending its technology leadership position through unique innovations.

Robert Juliat launches new website

Robert Juliat is pleased to announce the launch of its

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TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

Rosco’s contributions to Light Relief hit $28,076

Several years ago, Rosco innovated the concept of ‘a colour that keeps on giving’ and Rick Fisher created Supergel 313, Light Relief Yellow. Rosco committed to make a donation to Light Relief from the income generated by the sales of the colour. This year’s cheque presented by Mark Engel, Rosco’s CEO, brought Rosco’s contribution to Light Relief to $28,076 (about £17,700).

Engel said: “It is one of the most fulfilling moments of the show for me and for Rosco. As you know, we work hard to offer real solutions and tools for designers through our products, and working with you to develop this colour that continues year after year to provide much-needed, tangible assistance to the community, truly embodies the spirit of Rosco. This year, I am so pleased to present Rosco’s contribution of $3,076 to Light Relief, bringing the current tally to over $28,000.”

Pictured: Paul de Ville, Senior Sales Manager Rosco UK; Matthew Griffiths, CEO Plasa; and Mark Engel, CEO Rosco.

Rosco’s Miro Cubes™

Rosco has formed a joint-venture partnership with The Black Tank – an advanced engineering group located north of Boston, MA – to design, develop and distribute LED lighting fixtures to the entertainment and architecture markets.

STLD Autumn 2012:TL 85 Spring 2005 26/11/2012 22:47 Page 33

Compiled by Emma Thorpe – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

The immediate result of this partnership was seen at the opening of the IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam and at the PLASA Show in London where Rosco debuted Miro Cube™, its new line of wash lights based on Black Tank’s successful Brick Blaster fixtures.

Three luminaires – Miro Cube™ 4C, Miro Cube™ WNC and Miro Cube™ UV, as well as a range of innovative mounting accessories, are targeted at lighting professionals in live entertainment, film and television, museums and architecture, and theme parks.

Rosco will bring these and future products to market around the world, managing and expanding the sales, marketing and distribution efforts, while The Black Tank will focus on the innovative design and engineering advances that are at the heart of these products.

Rosco helps global broadcasters capture their Olympic VIEW

London’s Olympic Stadium became the jewel of London during this year’s Olympic Games and every broadcaster wanted to have the stadium, or other elements of the Olympic Park, behind their anchors while they recorded their coverage of the 30th Olympiad. Studio space around the stadium was limited, so broadcasters began looking for alternative solutions. The BBC, for instance, leased the roof and 22nd floor of a local office building and Al Jazeera built a studio on top of a 24-storey apartment building because ‘they liked the view’.

After going out of their way to make sure the imagery behind their anchors was perfect, broadcasters from around the globe needed to make sure the windows of their studio weren’t blown out by the brightness of the exterior light.

Some studios, such as Telemundo, turned to simple products such as Rosco N.6 Roscolex Acrylic Panels.

Many other studios installed Rosco VIEW: a product that was engineered to control the exposure in windows using a two-part system. Part one is a rigid Rosco VIEW Panel installed in the window and part two is a corresponding Rosco VIEW Camera Filter inserted into the camera. Rotating the camera filter causes it to cross-polarize with the panel in the window, which gives studios instantaneous control over the brightness seen in the window – even remotely.

The best example of this was in Norway’s NRK Broadcast Studio (pictured), which was built on top of scaffolding rising over four storeys high. NRK installed 13 Rosco VIEW panels into its scaffold-top studio and had three cameras outfitted with Rosco VIEW Camera Filters. It sent a skeleton crew to operate the studio, opting to control most of the lighting, sound and, yes, even the Rosco VIEW from the studio in Norway. The Rosco VIEW GUI (Graphic User Interface) allows the control room to network with the Rosco VIEW Camera Filter Rotators and control the brightness of the windows in its studio from more than 1,000 miles away.

One of the most remarkable achievements by broadcasters at the Olympics was the Olympic Broadcast

Services TV Tower: a series of 10 studios manufactured out of sea freight containers. The OBS TV Tower is comprised of 104 40ft sea containers: 18 sea containers at ground level rising nine sea containers high, with the 10 broadcast studios positioned on the top two ‘floors’.

Each studio inside the OBS Tower is two containers wide and comes with windows that look out on to London’s Olympic Park. However, each of the incoming broadcasters leasing those studios were left to their own devices as to how they would address the overpowering brightness coming through the windows in order for their viewers to see the Olympic-scape in the background. Some studios opted for good ol’ fashioned gel, some chose N.6 Roscolex Panels, but four of the 10 studios chose Rosco VIEW. Just as the Olympics give athletes a chance to show the world their abilities, they also give television professionals a chance to create innovative solutions to issues of window and light control. For the 2012 Olympics, most of the gold medals in this area appear to have been won by Rosco for its Rosco VIEW.

TMB Colour Sound decorates Reading Festival with IMS LED Marquee Lighting

This year’s Reading Festival in the UK had some additional colour courtesy of Colour Sound Experiment Ltd of London.

Two weeks prior to the event, the organisers decided to add lighting decoration to the general audience area. They called on Colour Sound, whose design solution added 1,500m and 1,500 lamps of TMB’s IMS colour-changing festoon strings.

The IMS™ (Intelligent Marquee Systems) rig was strung from an array of six-metre-high poles, suspended over the audience between the rear entrance and the main stage, arranged like spokes of a cartwheel. The individually DMXcontrolled RGB IMS lamps were reminiscent of normal light bulbs hanging over the audience, but with each lamp acting as a low-resolution colour-changing ‘pixel’ for a dazzling display of video and graphics content. The system’s 12 IMS Universe Drives™ were controlled with ArtNet using a Chamsys console.

IMS is available in two versions: the Portable Touring range for indoor and temporary outdoor applications, and the Architectural range for permanent outdoor installations.

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Sponsor News

Both IMS ranges are available with RGB, warm-white and cool-white A-type bulbs. ‘Vampire-tap’ IDT™ sockets allow fast and flexible lamp spacing on regular two-conductor wire, which carries both signal and low-voltage power. The proprietary IMS Universe Drive integrates DMX data and power for up to 170 bulbs (one DMX Universe). Using the Vampire Tap sockets, systems can be custom built and reconfigured with different lengths and lamp spacings for each specific application.

TMB ProPlex® network helps make Olympic magic

Billions of people worldwide watched the London 2012 Olympic Games’ Opening and Closing Ceremonies, where Producer Danny Boyle masterfully deployed mystical elements of the gods – light, colour and fire – in a celebration of British culture and history, depicted using a huge rig featuring all the latest in entertainment technology from around the world.

The prodigious system of LEDs, lasers, lighting, projection, audio, motion control and pyrotechnics was flawlessly controlled and synchronised over a stadium-wide network using more than 8km of fibre optic cable. A significant element of the network was a system of ProPlex GBS Gigabit Switches and Fibre Cable from TMB. TMB’s ProPlex GBS tour-grade Gigabit Ethernet Switches and Fibre Distribution systems represent the state of the art in reliable networking for high-volume, multicast control and data distribution in the portable entertainment and staging environment.

Rugged and reconfigurable, ProPlex GBS Ethernet Switches are available in Managed and Unmanaged versions, and both RackMount and PortableMount models. All models incorporate advanced thermal and shock protection. RackMount models feature modular, reconfigurable panels – ie, connectors can be added, removed and swapped front to back.

ProPlex Fibre ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Tactical’ Cables are the toughest and most dependable fibre cables available. ProPlex GBS and ProPlex Fibre are part of the comprehensive ProPlex Devices range of fibre/copper signal management systems, all of which feature Neutrik® data and power connectors.

White Light Chariots of Fire: Live on stage for Olympic summer

White Light supplied the lighting for a new stage adaptation of the classic British film, Chariots of Fire.

Perfectly timed for London’s Olympic summer, the play (pictured) tells the story of a much earlier Olympic Games.

Described as ‘one of the great treats of the summer’ by The Sunday Times, the show opened at London’s Hampstead Theatre before transferring to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End. It is adapted from Colin Welland’s original screenplay by writer Mike Bartlett, features Vangelis’ iconic original music from the film, is directed by Edward Hall with designs by Miriam Buether and has lighting by Olivier- and Tony Award-winning Lighting Designer Rick Fisher.

To supply the lighting for the show, Fisher turned to his regular collaborator White Light, which supplies his awardwinning design for Billy Elliot in London and has regularly 34

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

supplied the touring rigs for his designs for both Swan Lake and An Inspector Calls.

Fisher specified, and White Light supplied, a lighting rig that included a mixture of tungsten and discharge moving lights: Clay Paky Alpha Wash Halo washlights and Vari-Lite VL1000TS spotlights, plus VL3500Q Spots and one Martin MacIII Spot, as well as ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, Par Cans, Cantata PCs, Birdies, Atomic Strobes and Rainbow colour scrollers.

In contrast to the technology of the moving lights, Fisher’s rig also includes an exposed ring of Par lamps that delineate the show’s racing tracks. All of the lighting, plus Atmosphere haze machines, are controlled from an ETC Ion lighting console.

In addition to supplying the show itself, White Light also supplied external lighting to the Gielgud Theatre for a performance by Vangelis of his Chariots of Fire theme tune as the Olympic Torch passed the theatre. White Light used Core Lighting battery-powered wireless uplighters: a system that could be quickly and easily set up even as crowds thronged past the building!

Chariots of Fire is enjoying an open-ended run at the Gielgud Theatre in London. Further information about the show can be found at www.chariotsoffireonstage.com

STLD Autumn 2012:TL 85 Spring 2005 26/11/2012 22:47 Page 35

Society Committee Chairman Stuart Gain 07774 161 996

chairman@stld.org.uk

Treasurer Mike Le Fevre

Secretary Richard Bowles

07956 305 662

07973 152 682

Magazine Editor, Sponsor News + Assistant Sponsor Liaison

Emma Thorpe 07850 709 210

richardbowles@stld.org.uk

treasurer@stld.org.uk

Sponsor Liaison + Membership

Sponsors Liaison Bernie Davis

Robert Horne 07762 562 434

07860 662 736

sponsors@stld.org.uk

members@stld.org.uk

Publicity Andrew Harris

Iain Davidson 07811 256 283

07973 745 583

editor@stld.org.uk

Exhibitions Paul Middleton 07720 446 921

paulmiddleton@stld.org.uk

Advertising Sales John King 07860 759 294

publicity@stld.org.uk

iaindavidson@stld.org.uk

Diary Lee Allen

Website Ian Hillson

07711 088 964

johnking@stld.org.uk

Rick Dines

07780 707 169

Picture courtesy of Chris Capstick

leeallen@stld.org.uk

Mark Fowler 07920 274 769

markfowler@stld.org.uk

ianhillson@stld.org.uk

John O’Brien 07717 170 288

johnobrien@stld.org.uk

rickdines@stld.org.uk

Jonathan Taylor

07774 698 847

jonathantaylor@stld.org.uk TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Society Sponsors A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd (Gordon Smith) Centauri House, Hillbottom Road, Sands Industrial Estate, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP12 4HQ Tel: 01494 446 000 ~ Fax: 01494 461 024 ~ E-Mail: gordon.smith@ac-et.com ~ Web: www.aclighting.com

Ambersphere Solutions Ltd now incorporating MA Lighting (Glyn O’Donoghue) Unit 3 Alliance Court, Alliance Road, Park Royal, London W3 0RB Tel: 020 8992 6369 ~ E-Mail: glyn@amberspere.co.uk ~ Web: www.ambersphere.co.uk

Anna Valley (Part of Shooting Partners group) (Mark Holdway, Doug Hammond) Unit J12 Brooklands Close, Windmill Road, Sunbury-On-Thames, Middlesex TW16 7DX Tel: 020 8941 4500 ~ Fax: +44(0)1932 761 591 ~ Web: www.annavalley.co.uk

Architainment Lighting Ltd (Nic Tolkein) Unit 6 Premacto Business Estate, Queensmead Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP10 9XA Tel: 01494 471 340 ~ Fax: 01494 442 627 ~ E-Mail: nic@architainment.co.uk

ARRI (GB) Ltd (Andy Barnett, Siobhan Daly, Martin Carnell) 2 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 1LX Tel: 01895 457 000 ~ Fax: 01895 457 001 ~ E-Mail: sales@arri-gb.com ~ Web: www.arri.com

ARRI Lighting Rental Ltd (Tommy Moran, Mike O’Hara) 2 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 1LX ~ Tel: 01895 457 200 ~ Fax: 01895 457 201 Manchester 0161 736 8034 (Jimmy Reeves) ~ E-Mail: mohara@arrirental.com ~ Web: www.arri.com

Artistic Licence (UK) Ltd (Wayne Howell, Simon Hobday, Louise L’Homme) 24 Forward Drive, Christchurch Industrial Estate, Harrow, Middlesex HA3 8NT Tel: 020 8863 4515 ~ Fax: 020 8426 0551 ~ E-Mail: sales@artisticlicence.com ~ Web: www.artisticlicence.com

Aurora Lighting Hire Ltd (Nick Edwards) Unit 4, Bristol Road, Metropolitan Estate, Greenford UB6 8UW Tel: 020 8813 2777 ~ Mobile: 07710 261 838 ~ E-Mail: nick.edwards@auroratv.co.uk ~ Web: www.auroratv.co.uk

Avolites (Phil Blue) 184 Park Avenue, Park Royal, London NW10 7XL Tel: 020 8965 8522 ~ Fax: 020 8965 0290 ~ E-Mail: steve@avolites.com ~ Web: www.avolites.com

Barbizon Europe Ltd (Tom McGrath) Unit 5 Saracen Industrial Area, Mark Road, Hemel Hempsted, Hertfordshire HP2 7BJ ~ Tel: 01442 260 600 ~ Fax: 01442 261 611 E-Mail: tmcgrath@barbizon.com ~ Web: www.barbizon.com

BBC Studios and Post Production Ltd (Danny Popkin) Room 001, The Hub, BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, London W12 7RJ Tel: 020 8576 7666~ Fax: 020 8965 8806 ~ E-Mail: danny.popkin@bbc.co.uk ~ Web: www.bbcresources.co.uk

BBC Training and Development (Tim Wallbank) Wood Norton, Evesham, Worcestershire WR11 4YB www.bbctraining.com

Broadcast Video Forum/Emap (Charlotte Bowskill) Emap Media,Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ

Chris James & Co. Ltd (Barry Frankling) 43 Colville Road, Acton, London W3 8BL Tel: 020 8896 1772 ~ Fax: 020 8896 1773 ~ E-Mail: info@chrisjamesfilter.com ~ Web: www.chrisjamesfilter.com

Cirro Lite (Europe) Ltd (John Coppen, David Morphy, Frieder Hockheim) 3 Barrett’s Green Road, London NW10 7AE Tel: 020 8955 6700 ~ Fax: 020 8961 9343 ~ E-Mail: mail@cirrolite.com ~ Web: www.cirrolite.com

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TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Please mention Television Lighting and Design when contacting sponsors

Clay Paky S p A (Davide Barbetta) via Pastrengo 3/B, 24068 Seriate (BG), Italy Tel: +39 335 72.333.75 ~ Fax: +39 035.30.18.76 ~E-Mail: davide.barbetta@claypaky.it ~ Web: www.claypaky.it

Doughty Engineering Ltd (Julian Chiverton, Mervyn Lister, Stephen Wright) Crow Arch Lane, Ringwood, Hampshire BH24 1NZ ~ Tel: 01425 478 961 ~ Fax: 01425 474 481 E-Mail: sales@doughty-engineering.co.uk ~ Web: www.doughty-engineering.co.uk

ELP (Ronan Willson, Tony Slee, John Singer, Darren Fletcher) 15 North Gate, Alconbury Airfield, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE28 4WX Tel: 01480 443 800 ~ Fax: 01480 443 888 ~ E-Mail: info@elp.tv ~ Web: www.elp.tv Elstree Office 020 8324 2100 Manchester Office 0161 300 2922

ETC Europe Ltd (Mark White, Jeremy Roberts) Unit 26-28, Victoria Industrial Estate, Victoria Road, London W3 6UU Tel: 020 8896 1000 ~ Fax: 020 8896 2000 ~ E-Mail: mwhite@etceurope.com ~ Web: www.etcconnect.com

Film & TV Services Ltd (Julie Fegan, Eddie Fegan) Unit 3, Matrix Park, Coronation Road, Park Royal, London NW10 7PH Tel: 020 8961 0090 ~ Fax: 020 8961 8635 ~ E-Mail: mail@ftvs.co.uk ~ Web: www.ftvs.co.uk

Finelight Ltd (Simon Perrott) 708B, Tudor Industrial Estate, Abbey Road, Park Royal, London NW10 7UY Tel: 020 8453 0049 ~ Mobile: 07968 581 440 ~ E-Mail: simon@finelight.co.uk ~ Web: www.finelight.co.uk

Flashlight Ltd (Andy Dodd, Rob Williamson) Unit A3, Axis Point, Hill Top Road, Heywood, Greater Manchester OL10 2RQ Tel: 01706 625 866 ~ Fax: 01706 620 756 ~ E-Mail: sales@flash-light.org.uk ~ Web: www.flash-light.org.uk

Fountain Studios (Mariana Spater) The Fountain studios, 128 Wembley Park Drive, Wembley HA9 8HP Tel: 020 8900 5800 ~ E-Mail: Mariana.spater@ftv.co.uk ~ Web: www.ftv.co.uk

Gekko Technology (Ian Muir) Units 3–4, Cotton Drive, Dalehouse Lane, Kenilworth CV8 2UE Tel: +44 (0) 844 800 5326 ~ E-Mail: ian@gekkotechnology.com ~ Web: www.gekkotechnology.com

Green Hippo (Samantha Bailey) Unit 307 Parma House, Clarendon Road, Wood Green N22 6UL Tel: +44 (0)203 301 4561 ~ E-Mail: sam@green-hippo.com ~ Web: www.green-hippo.com

Havells-Sylvania Ltd (Ian Major) Havells-Sylvania Ltd, Avis Way, Newhaven BN9 0ED E-Mail: ian.major@havells-sylvania.com ~ Web: www.havells-sylvania.com

Hawthorn Lighting (Dave Slater, May Lee) Head Office 01664 821111 - London Office 020 8955 6900 info@hawthorns.uk.com - www.hawthorns.uk.com

HSL Group Ltd (Simon Stuart, Mike Oates, Graham Ramsdale, Sean McGlone) Unit O, Ribble Business Park, Challenge Way, Blackburn, Lancashire BB1 5RB Tel: 01254 698 808 ~ Fax: 01254 698 835 ~ E-Mail: simon@hslproductions.com ~ Web: www.hslproductions.com

James Thomas Engineering Ltd (Paul Young) Navigation Complex, Navigation Road, Digilis Trading Estate, Worcestershire WR5 3DE Tel: 01905 363 600~ Fax: 01905 363 601 ~ E-Mail: pauly@jamesthomas.co.uk ~ Web: www.jamesthomas.co.uk

Key Light Hire Ltd (Alex Hambi) Unit 24, Sovereign Park, Coronation Road, Park Royal NW10 7QP Tel: 020 8963 9931 ~ Fax: 020 8961 236 ~ Mobile: 07949 686 802 ~ E-Mail: alex@keylight.tv ~ Web: www.keylight.tv

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Society Sponsors Lights Camera Action (Nick Shapley) Unit 30, 8 Taunton Road, The Metropolitan Centre, Greenford, Middlesex UB6 8UQ Tel: 020 8833 7600 ~ Fax: 020 8575 8219 ~ Web: www.lcauk.com

Lee Filters Ltd (Eddie Ruffell, Paul Topliss, Ralph Young) Central Way, Walworth Industrial Estate, Andover, Hampshire SP10 5AN Tel: 01264 366 245 ~ Fax: 01264 355 058 ~ E-Mail: ecruffell@leefilters.com ~ Web: www.leefilters.com

Lightfactor Sales Ltd (Peter Coles) 20 Greenhill Crescent, Watford Business Park, Watford, Hertfordshire WD18 8JA Tel: 01923 698 080 ~ Fax: 01923 698 081 ~ E-Mail: info@lightfactor.co.uk ~ Web: www.lightfactor.co.uk

Lighting Logic Ltd (Mick Cocker, Matt Miles) The Hopkilns Building, Goblands Farm Business Centre, Cemetery Lane, Hadlow, Kent T11 0LT Tel: 0845 260 0540 ~ Fax: 0845 260 0541 ~ E-Mail: mick@lightinglogic.co.uk ~ Web: www.lightinglogic.co.uk

LSI Projects (Russell Dunsire, Nick Mobsby) 15, Woking Business Park, Albert Drive, Woking, Surrey GU21 5JY Tel: 01483 764 646 ~ Fax: 01483 769 955 ~ E-Mail: nickM@lsiprojects.com ~ Web: www.lsiprojects.com

Martin Professional Plc ( Mike Walker) Martin Professional PLC, 7.G.2, The Leathermarket, 11–13 Weston Street, London SE1 3ER Tel: 020 3207 2975 E-Mail: michael.walker@martin.dk ~ Web: www.martinpro.co.uk

MEMS Power Generation (Mark Diffey) Beechings Way, Gillingham, Kent ME8 6PS Tel: 08452 230 400 ~ Fax: 01634 263666 ~ E-Mail: sales@mems.com~ Web: www.mems.com

MGC Lighting Group (James Greig) 1 Sovereign Centre, Farthing Road, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 5AP Tel: 01473 466 300 ~ Fax: 01473 240 081 E-Mail: uksales@mgc-lighting.com~ Web: www.mgc-lighting.com

OSRAM Ltd (Terri Pearson) OSRAM House, Waterside Drive, Langley, Berkshire SL3 6EZ Tel: 01753 484 275 ~ Fax: 01753 484 165 ~ E-Mail: displayoptic@osram.co.uk ~ Web: www.osram.com

Panalux Limited (Ed Pagett, Simon Roose) Unit 21, The Metropolitan Centre, Derby Road, Greenford, London UB6 8UJ Tel: 020 8832 4800 ~ Fax: 020 8832 4811 ~ E-Mail: info@panalux.biz ~ Web: www.panalux.biz

Philips Entertainment BV. (Mike Goldberg) Marssteden 152, Enschede 7547 TD, the Netherlands Tel: +44 (0)7974 752646

Philips Lighting UK Ltd (Sharon Banting) Philips Centre, Guildford Business Park, Guildford, Surrey GU2 8XH Tel: 07774 122 735 ~ Fax: 01296 670 956 E-Mail: sharon.banting@philips.com ~ Web: www.lighting.philips.com

Photon Beard Ltd (Peter Daffarn, Mike Perry, Simon Larn) Unit K3, Cherry Court Way, Stanbridge Road, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire LU7 8UH Tel: 01525 850 911 ~ Fax: 01525 850 922 ~ E-Mail: info@photonbeard.com ~ Web: www.photonbeard.com

Pinewood Group (Simon Honey – Head of Studio Ops, Peter Lawes – Production Lighting Manager, Paul Darbyshire – Operations Director) Pinewood Road, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire SL0 0NH Tel: 01753 785 200 ~ Fax: 01753 656 103 E-Mail: simon.honey@pinewoodshepperton.com ~ Web: www.pinewoodshepperton.com

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Please mention Television Lighting and Design when contacting sponsors

PLASA (Ruth Rossington, Norah Phillips) The Professional Lighting and Sound Association is a trade association representing companies and individuals who work in the TV, film, entertainment, installation and leisure industries. Its aim is to develop and promote all aspects of the industry on a worldwide basis, acting in the common interests of its membership.

Redoubt House, 1 Edward Street, Eastbourne, Sussex BN23 8AS Tel: 01323 524 120 ~ Fax: 01323 524 121 ~ E-Mail: ruth@plasa.org ~ Web: www.plasa.org

Production Resource Group (Mick Healey,Kelly Cornfield, Martin Locket) The Hoover Building, Western Avenue, Perivale UB6 8DW The Cofton Centre, Groveley Lane, Longbridge, Birmingham B31 4PT Tel: 0845 470 6400 ~ Fax: 0845 470 6401 ~ E-Mail: prglighting@prg.com ~ Web: www.prglighting.co.uk

Projected Image UK Ltd (Jim Douglas) Unit 17, Hoults Estate, Walker Road, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne NE6 2HL. Tel: 0191 265 9832 ~ Fax: 0191 265 8742 ~ E-Mail: gobo@projectedimage.com ~ Web: www.projectedimage.com

Pulsar Light Of Cambridge Ltd (Andy Graves, Paul Mardon, Snowy Johnson) 3 Coldham’s Business Park, Norman Way, Cambridge CB1 3LH Tel: 01223 403 500 ~ Fax: 01223 403 501 ~ E-Mail: andy@pulsarlight.com ~ Web: www.pulsarlight.com

Richard Martin Lighting Ltd (Richard Martin, Steve Wells, Amy Helps) Unit 24, Sovereign Park, Coronation Road, Park Royal NW10 7QP Tel: 020 8965 3209 Fax: 020 8965 5562 ~ E-Mail: info@richardmartinlighting.co.uk ~ Web: www.richardmartinlighting.co.uk RML Admin: Lantern House, Old Town, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire GL56 0LW

Robe UK Ltd (Ashley Lewis, Mick Hannaford, Steve Eastham) 3 Spinney View, Stone Circle Road, Round Spinney Industrial Estate, Northampton NN3 8RQ Tel: 01604 741 000 ~ Fax: 01604 741 041 ~ E-Mail: info@robeuk.com ~ Web: www.robeuk.com

Roscolab Ltd (Denise Piguet) Blanchard Works, Kangley Bridge Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5AQ Tel: 020 8659 2300 ~ Fax: 020 8659 3153 ~ E-Mail: marketing@rosco-europe.com~ Web: www.rosco.com

Schnick-Schnack-Systems GmbH (Thomas Werr) Mathias-Bruggen-Strasse 79, 50829, Germany E-Mail: thomas.werr@schnickschnacksystems.com ~ Web: english.schnickschnacksystems.com

Sony UK Ltd (Daniel Robb) The Heights, Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 0XW Tel: 01932 816 368 ~ Fax: 01932 817 014 ~ Neil: 07774 142 724 ~ E-Mail: Jane.Green@eu.sony.com ~ Web: sonybiz.net/uk

Specialz Ltd (Dave Smith) Unit 2, Kingston Industrial Estate, 81-86 Glover Street, Birmingham B9 4EN Tel: 0121 766 7100 & 7110 ~ Fax: 0121 766 7113 ~ E-Mail: info@specialz.co.uk ~ Web: www.specialz.co.uk

Stage Electrics Ltd (Matt Cowles, Adrian Searle) Third Way, Avonmouth, Bristol BS11 9YL ~ Tel: 0117 938 4000 ~ Tel Chris: 07836 248660 ~ Tel Richard: 07836 249 627 Fax: 0117 916 2828 ~ E-Mail: sales@stage-electrics.co.uk ~ Web: www.stage-electrics.co.uk

The Hospital Club Studios (Samantha Dunlop) 4 Endell Street, London WC2H 9HQ Tel: 020 7170 9112 ~ Fax: 020 7170 9102 ~ E-Mail: samd@thehospitalclub.com ~ Web: www.thehospital.co.uk

The London Studios (Dave Stevens) Upper Ground, London SE1 9LT Tel: 020 7157 5555 ~ Fax: 020 7157 5757 ~ E-Mail: dave.stevens@londonstudios.co.uk ~ Web: www.londonstudios.co.uk

TMB (Paul Hartley, Bill Anderson) 21 Armstrong Way, Southall UB2 4SD Tel: 020 8574 9700 ~ Fax: 020 8574 9701 ~ E-Mail: tmb-info@tmb.com ~ Web: www.tmb.com

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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Please mention Television Lighting and Design when contacting sponsors

TSL Teknique Systems Ltd PO Box 3587, Glasgow G73 9DX Tel: 07860 290 637 ~ Web: www.tekniquesystems.com

VectorWorks (Martyn Horne) Computers Unlimited, The Technology Park, Colindeep Lane, London NW9 6BX Tel: 020 8200 8282 ~ Fax: 020 8358 9479 ~ E-Mail: 3ddesign@unlimited.com ~ Web: www.vectorworks.uk.com

White Light Ltd (Bryan Raven, John Simpson, Jason Larcombe) 20 Merton Industrial Park, Jubilee Way, London SW19 3WL Tel: 020 8254 4800 ~ Fax: 020 8254 4801 ~ E-Mail: info@WhiteLight.Ltd.uk ~ Web: www.WhiteLight.Ltd.uk HireTel: 020 8254 4820 ~ Hire Fax: 020 8254 4821 ~ Sales Tel: 020 8254 4840 ~ Sales Fax: 020 8254 4841

XL Video Ltd (Hugh Davies-Webb) 2 Eastman Way, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7DU Tel: 01442 849 400 ~ Fax: 01442 849 401 ~ E-Mail: info@xlvideo.tv ~ Web: www.xlvideo.com

XTBA (Chris Cook, Fiona Fehilly, Simon Peers) 35 Fernleigh Road, London N21 3AN Tel: 020 8882 0100 ~ Fax: 020 8882 9326 ~ E-Mail: dmx@xtba.demon.co.uk ~ Web: www.xtba.demon.co.uk

SPONSORS DIRECTORY

Zero 88 Lighting Ltd (Ken Bereen) Head Office: Usk House, Llantarnam Park, Cwmbran, Gwent NP44 3HD Tel: 01633 838 088 ~ Fax: 01633 867 880 ~ E-Mail: sales@zero88.com ~ Web: www.zero88.com

The STLD interactive Sponsors Directory has been available for sponsors’ use for over a year now. It is proving a very useful tool for the STLD and, we hope, for those of our sponsors who now use it. Its main advantages are that it enables the STLD to display up-to-date and accurate information about your company on its website.

In doing so, it also helps us update our records and ensure that we have accurate mailing and invoicing details.

STLD sponsor companies can make use of this facility by contacting Bernie Davis at sponsors@stld.org.uk with the name and email address of the person who will become the company’s ‘sponsor user’. They will be registered on our secure database and will then be able to modify their company’s information within the sponsors directory.

Please note that the directory can now enable companies to be searched for by category and area.

Bernie Davis – STLD Sponsor Liaison

New members The Society would like to welcome the following new members: Dominic Hyndman Piers Cox Stephen Scott Jeffrey Woodbridge David Carter George Kyriades and Bruce Wardorf We also welcome Exeter College and new sponsor member Aurora Lighting Hire Ltd.

Index of advertisers ARRI Clay Paky Doughty 40

11 12 15

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

ELP ETC Lee Filters

IBC 19 IFC

Martin Plasa

BC 16

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TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

41

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42

TV Lighting and Design | Autumn/Winter 2012

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