Set & Light: Summer 2014 (Issue 112) by STLD_Magazine

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Issue 112: Summer 2014 www.stld.org.uk

Set & Light from the Society of Television Lighting and Design

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Tungsten to Daylight CTB

Tungsten to Fluorescent LEE Fluorescent Green

Daylight to Tungsten CTO

Fluorescent Correction

LED to Tungsten Digital LED CTO

LEE Minus Green

Diffusion Media Diffusion Grid Cloth Tough Spun Flexi Frost

Think LEE Conversion • Correction • Diffusion www.leefilters.com

Neutral Density ND

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Editorial

Want to be part of our anniversary celebrations? Here’s how...

hope the summer is going well for you. As I keep mentioning, it is our 40th anniversary and the good number of you that came to our 40th event at The Shard will agree that it was a brilliant afternoon and evening had by all. We have had some great visits recently, including New Broadcasting House (page 5) and Teddington Studios (page 20). You can also read our profile on sponsor Doughty (page 12) and a view of The One Show by one of our members (page 24). Sponsor news stories include LD Paul Pyant’s win at the Olivier Awards, which comes from White Light (page 49). The 40th anniversary visit to The Shard will be reported on in our Winter issue, which will contain several pages of stories about events that occurred in 1974. I appeal to all members to send in your memories of and projects from 1974, and to those younger ones, stories of what you have been doing this year. The next issue of the magazine will be out in November 2014. The deadline for sponsor news is Friday 24 October and the deadline for advertising artwork will be Friday 17 October at the very latest. We send out all invitations to our events by email now, so if you haven’t received any in the last couple of months, please contact us and give us your up-to-date email address so that we can make sure you are on our list. So, all I can say now is enjoy this issue and get writing!

Emma Thorpe Editor

Contents 4

Information: A request from the Editor

Opinion: Stand and deliver

STLD visit: New Broadcasting House

In memoriam: George Ferguson

Information: PLASA benefits

A view from across the pond

Profile: Doughty Engineering

Sponsor news

Event: The Trotter Paterson Lecture

Society sponsors

STLD visit: Teddington Studios

Index of advertisers

Lighting: The One Show

Set & Light is the journal of the Society of Television Lighting and Design and is published three times a year. ISSN 2055-1185 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: Paul Middleton E-mail: adverts@stld.org.uk Cover photo by: Peter Sumpter

Printed by: Gemini Brighton

Deadlines for the next issue: Editorial: 24 October 2014 Advertising: 17 October 2014 Advertising is accepted only from sponsor members of the Society © Society of Television Lighting and Design 2014

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Information

Put pen to paper and promote yourself It’s fabulous to receive members’ letters and articles about their experiences and projects in the field, especially in distant lands, writes Editor Emma Thorpe. I welcome any news from our members about present projects as it shows young and up-andcoming LDs what you are doing and what can be achieved in this line of work. I would love to have a regular feature in each issue, but I rely on people to send in articles. If you would like to contribute, the deadlines for the next three magazines are: 25 October for the winter 2014 issue; 24 January for the spring 2015 issue; and 16 June for the summer 2015 issue. I look forward to receiving as many articles as possible. It is a widely-read magazine and most of you are freelancers, so this is a great tool to help promote you, too. Free marketing is a no-brainer!

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STLD visit

New Broadcasting House

Old Broadcasting House, left, and New Broadcasting House

Auntie’s new home Words: Bernie Davis Photographs: John O’Brien, Chris Davis, Guy Saich & the BBC The biggest ever renovation to the BBC’s Broadcasting House in London’s West End enabled BBC News to relocate from Television Centre after the latter was given early retirement. If you have seen the outside of the new façade next to the more familiar BH, you will know how very big it looks, but like the Tardis found at the entrance, it is even larger on the inside. On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the first BBC Television News broadcast, the STLD’s Robert Horne, who is also part of the lighting team at Broadcasting House, invited members and guests to look around the new facility now it is up and running. We first had a presentation by Guy Saich (pictured right) who has written A History of Broadcasting House (as well as A History of Television Centre) and somehow managed to cram 86 years of history into 20 minutes. Set & Light | Summer 2014

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STLD visit

Pictured, left column: Foley House, top, and, the Top Hat design. Pictured, centre column: work in progress, top, and the completed building. Pictured, right column: Eric Gill’s Ariel and Prospero, top, and the concealed portrait

The iconic building opened in 1932 in a London that looked very different to today. On the site of Foley House, demolished in 1928 for the building project by All Souls Church in Langham Place, the famous ‘brow of a ship’ building was constructed using methods borrowed from the skyscraper boom in New York, with steel frames clad with stone (the New Yorker Hotel bears more than a passing resemblance to the façade of the old Broadcasting House). This wasn’t the first design, though. A previous plan known as the Top Hat was rejected in favour of the familiar building. The famous Ariel and Prospero statue over the main door, designed by Eric Gill, was fitted a little while later, and after his death, a paper was found saying that behind the statue there was an image that would only be discovered when the building was pulled down. During the recent renovations, Guy managed to look behind with the help of a mirror and a camera and found a hidden gem of a carving. We’re still not sure what it is – apart from a face – but at least now it has been seen. Guy talked us through the war years and had some fascinating pictures of bomb damage from a Doodlebug that fell nearby. We also saw a picture of some steps that lead down to nowhere, attributed to a secret route used by Winston Churchill to access the Tube line in some covert way. All apocryphal, it seems; the steps were made to lead 6

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to a proposed future extension that was never built. As part of the effort to stay on the air during the war, four studios were built secure enough to withstand a gas attack and they even had their own well. Fortunately, none of this was ever tested. The latest extension introduces a whole new style to the building, while still preserving the original, much-loved look, and to make best use of the space, the building goes down three floors as well as up seven. In fact, it goes down so far it is within three metres of the Bakerloo Line, which runs along below Portland Place. This was an important factor in the studio design as noise from the trains can clearly be heard in the corridors. As the studio floors are at the lowest level, each studio is mounted on springs with dampers to acoustically separate them from the rest of the building. Studio B is the largest TV studio in the world to be constructed in this way. We then had a presentation from Mick Cocker of Lighting Logic, which won the contract to supply all the lighting and hoists for the studio complex. Anyone who has dealt with the BBC will not be surprised to learn that the tendering process proved to be the most complex they had undertaken, with the tendering document reaching revision

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New Broadcasting House

Pictured, clockwise from above: the atrium and newsroom; the lifts tune in to different BBC radio channels; Matt Miles of Lighting Logic; electro-mechanical indent; Studio B under construction

14 before the end. At this point, Lighting Logic thought they would hear no more, only to get a call one day to say they had won the contract. There were a few adjustments to make, such as the need to supply LED lighting rather than tungsten, but as Mick pointed out, this gave them a steep learning curve in new technology and also gained them a great knowledge base in this area. Matt Miles, also of Lighting Logic, took over and gave us a brief summary of what the BBC now had at its new headquarters: 6,000 staff running nine networks, three 24hour TV channels, 26 foreign-language services, all providing for an audience of 240 million people worldwide. Lighting Logic would be responsible for the lighting, power, hoists and control systems over eight floors of this new building. Working to BD Broadcast, the project systems integrator company, they then spent two years almost living on site getting the system up and running, though not without a few challenges along the way. As well as being spread over eight floors, the control galleries were two floors above their studio floors. There would be five studios, one of which needed to be flexible, the others were for more dedicated purposes. Studio A is 1,850 sq ft, Studio B 3,150 sq ft, and studios C to E all about 1,500 sq ft. Lighting Logic was requested to supply LED lighting as part of the BBC’s green compliance, and also to save on both

power and air conditioning. They had to provide ‘redundancy and resilience’. Redundancy meant they had to allow for cable breakdown for studios transmitting 24 hours a day by routing fibres through different routes through the building. Resilience meant that any studio had to be able to be controlled from any gallery. They even had to develop their own hoists for scenery and lighting. The lighting control had to include house lighting and automation, and it all had to have a seamless back-up. The dedicated studios use a fixed grid arrangement for lighting suspension, but for Studio B – the flexible one – they developed their own self-climbing 1m-wide hoists – all 92 of them. Each hoist comes with fixed power, dimmed power, data in the forms of Ethernet and DMX all routed back to a patch room, sound and video, and even eye bolts for scenery suspension. Each has a rating of 160kg and can be operated from a central position or a remote position. They also have a cup switch like a pole operated light cup that allows for pole operated height adjustment of each hoist. Although it wasn’t part of the plan, the hoists are likely to become a commercial product in the future. Lighting control is from a Congo and back-up system in each studio, all networked as previously described. Studio B has the full Congo and the others all have Congo Juniors. Studio B also has a Congo Junior in a wall box for remote Set & Light | Summer 2014

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STLD visit

Stuart Gain talks about lighting The One Show.

An ETC Congo junior on The One Show

control, and there is also a Junior on a trolley for moving to any studio as needed. Together with a fader wing, the backup can run the show if necessary and it tracks all the desk operations so it can take over seamlessly. This was not achieved without issues, but with ETC’s technical support all is now working properly. It was now time for a tour of the studios, and first stop: The One Show. This programme used to come from BBC White City but had to find a new home as the BBC moved out. The studio is now a room just to the right of the main reception to New BH, with windows overlooking the concourse outside. The lighting designer is Dave Evans, but Stuart Gain is a regular guest LD and he was there to talk us through the studio. As with the previous studio, there is a sofa end – the usual place with presenters and guests chatting –and what they refer to as the ‘blue’ end, which can be different things in different shows – sometimes a band, sometimes a walk-in or demo area, very often just a place for the regular invited audience or posse. The LED lighting allows for different colour schemes at different times of year and, of course, the occasional effects. Unlike the last studio, this one is on the ground floor, so people can walk past the windows and be seen, but early fears for unwelcome guest appearances through the window proved unfounded, and thanks to the outside set, the public are kept just far enough away not to be a problem, while still giving the idea of activity. 8

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No expensive voltage-controlled glass in the windows to cope with the different light levels through the seasons here. Instead they just fit 0.6ND from about April to August, and the light levels in the room are adjusted to cope. However, rather than the old method of frames or trying to hide PVC tape at the edges, they have used the new Rosco Window Grip selfadhesive filter. The area outside does not get direct sunlight, so it is not as bad as it might have been at another location. The main key lighting is from ARRI Lustr L7s, which have proved a great success, and when the level is adjusted to cope with the weather, the colour temperature does not change. The set is lit by a host of LED products, and there is a set of Martin Exterior 410 wash lights to light the buildings opposite when needed, too. (For a full analysis of The One

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New Broadcasting House

The LED-equipped Studio D

Robert Horne explains the VR system.

Show’s lighting, turn to Peter Phillipson’s article on p24.) The studio has proved popular and gets used for more than just The One Show, too, with regular visits from Sunday Live, Film 2014 and even Rogue Traders. We then went back in to the main building where you can overlook the main news floor, with the very familiar news studio set-up we have all seen, and also the weather area. All cameras were robotic pan and tilt as well as tracking. We went down to –3 floor and looked into Studio D, which is familiar to viewers of the London News opt-out. At first glance you might think this was a tungsten studio from the look of the grid, but all the De Sisti pole-operated units are LED sources. A nice touch is the use of some Lite Panels built into the desk to provide a little cosmetic up-light fill. Next stop was the Virtual Reality studio. Most people must have seen this sort of operation before, and the green walls and curious camera structures like cheap sci-fi alien head-gear were present, as you would expect. Infrared lighting and infrared cameras process the images reflected from the camera arrays and, together with information from the zoom demands processing equipment, calculates the appropriate backing for the camera shot. Again, all the lighting was energy-saving. Our last stop on the tour was Studio B, the largest of the complex, and to our surprise, 80 per cent of the lighting was tungsten. On one side is set up a De Sisti Fresnel on a stand to compare the colour, and to match to tungsten on camera

A camera with robotic locator array

Infrared illumination and infrared cameras in the Virtual Reality studio

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STLD visit

New Broadcasting House

Studio B grid with tungsten lighting and ventilation ducts

Jamie Osborne demonstrates the telescopic mount.

Studio B’s production area

The open-plan gallery in Studio B

Wall-E in action

they had added quarter CTO, even moving lights, including a few Sharpies. As though the LED is classed as tungsten Jamie explained, production might tell you equivalent. The lighting team has they are bringing in a band only at the last worked hard on the scenic LED to get minute – it is just how News works. good red from them – essential as BBC Jamie said he had seen how other News’ brand colours are red and white departments had headed towards down– and has used half CTO, ND and sizing, with news presenters doing their diffusion to get the desired effect. own sound and even their own camera. An interesting lighting unit I had not His philosophy is to keep chasing seen before was affectionately known as production to find out what they are Wall-E, for obvious reasons. These LED doing and offer lighting suggestions to help units sit on rechargeable batteries and deliver it. He finds they often aren’t aware have wireless DMX fitted, making them of what lighting can offer and he tries hard a very easy and flexible addition for to increase awareness. He said he felt that dressing any short-notice location. The sometimes lighting in News got cut off batteries last for about 14 hours, so all from the rest of the lighting community, day in practical terms. and there was nothing more frustrating Jamie Osborne, Lighting Craft Leader, than seeing News bring in an LD for a Steel banded self-climbing hoists fitted with explained they had to fight hard to have a special project that could easily have been DeSisti 2ks tungsten rig as they could not get the light met in-house. Well, they certainly have levels required over the distances they the tools for the job now, and we wish had to work over in sufficient quality using them every success in the future. LED. There might be a time when this is not the case, but at the moment they have won the battle to keep tungsten in this one The STLD would like to thank Robert Horne and Jamie Osborne for studio. Even using LED sources as backlights to tungsten keys hosting the meeting; Mick Cocker and Matt Miles of Lighting Logic for proved problematic, which is why so much has ended up as their presentation and for helping to provide the lunch; and Guy Saich tungsten lighting. for his fascinating insight into the history of Broadcasting House. There is quite a healthy rig in the studio, too, even some For more about Lighting Logic visit www.lightinglogic.co.uk 10

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Information

PLASA benefits

Making the most of PLASA benefits STLD members have access to a wide range of benefits and services provided in partnership with PLASA. Some services are offered free of charge, while others are at specially negotiated rates. All PLASA service providers are thoroughly checked to ensure the companies provide a great service. Don’t forget to mention PLASA when you call or email, and if there is a service you would like to see that we don’t currently offer, get in touch with Norah Phillips at PLASA on 01323 524128 or email norah.phillips@plasa.org. n Free Business Support Helpline – includes commercial legal, employment, health & safety and intellectual property advice. Call 0844 561 8133 and quote scheme number: 36398. n Free Credit Reports – detailed financial information, including credit ratings, on any UK company. Call the PLASA office on 01323 524120 to request a report. n VAT Reclaim – PLASA has negotiated a highly favourable rate for those working overseas and wishing to reclaim their VAT. This can include accommodation, meals, car hire, fuel and many other types of expenditure. Call Darren on +353 1 458 7460 or email dbyrne@globaltaxreclaim.com. The fee is only 15 per cent of any

successful claim. n Debt Collection – full debt-recovery service on a no collection-no fee basis, ensuring your time and money isn’t wasted. Debts recovered range from a few hundred to many thousands of pounds. Call the PLASA office on 01323 524120 for advice and more information. n Design and Print – competitively priced design and print (including business cards, letter heading and

brochures), online design, websites and production services. Call the PLASA office on 01323 524120 for an informal chat about your requirements. n Industry Insurance – PLASA works in partnership with a leading provider to offer members tailored insurance solutions and transparent costs. Simon Miller of Yutree would be pleased to advise on the best insurance options. He can be reached on 01638 675993 or email simon.miller@yutree.com. n Free Technical and Health & Safety Support – call the PLASA office on 01323 524120 for advice and support. n Transfer money internationally at great exchange rates – register at www.ukforex.co.uk/info/plasa or call 0207 614 4195.

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Profile

Clamps for Martin Professional

All the metal waste is recycled.

Julian, left, shows Bernie the laser etching machine.

Set & Light | Summer 2014

Laser etching machine

Stands waiting to be shipped

Doughty Engineering staff at work mold casting

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Doughty Engineering

The powder-coating transport mechanism

Steady progress of a forward-thinking firm Words & photos: Bernie Davis Doughty Engineering has hosted a few STLD meetings in the past, which have proved very popular – the last about three years ago. Unfortunately, I have never had the chance to go on any of them, so when Julian Chiverton invited me to see a new addition to his plant, I thought, why not? The calmness of the adjacent New Forest seems to have had an effect on the Ringwood industrial park where Doughty Engineering has been based for 40 years now. For a unit turning out so many products for use worldwide, the factory seemed to have an almost relaxed air on the day I visited.

Julian’s father worked for Russell Doughty, who formed the original company, making boat trailers for Sainsbury’s, among other things. It was a typical local small engineering company that would make anything for anyone. Then in 1987, AJS Lighting (former STLD sponsor) asked it to make some suspension brackets for lights and speakers. It subsequently placed an order for 500 hook clamps, so getting them cheaper than its regular sources. Doughty looked to expand its customer base for these products and, by 1989, had joined PLASA and taken a stand at its exhibition. It quickly

expanded its market in the lighting industry and, in response to a German request, it developed the famous halfcoupler barrel clamp (now known as the Doughty clamp). This was developed to clamp on to smart aluminium truss without gouging grooves into it, and its clever design quickly made it an industry standard. While walking round the factory, one of the products I saw being completed was a large number of barrel clamps made to go on Martin Professional fixtures. Julian explained that Doughty made many products such as this for other manufacturers. Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Profile

Doughty Engineering

The Doughty timeline 1970

Doughty Engineering formed, manufacturing trailers ranging from small camping and boat trailers to 20-tonne commercial truck trailers for companies such as Sainsbury’s. The name comes from the original owner, Russell Doughty.

1987

AJS, which is on the same industrial estate, request suspension brackets for lighting and sound equipment. There follows an order for 500 hook clamps.

A row of post drills still in use; and, inset, laser-etched clamps

Later, I also saw some truss hinges made for Prolyte. Doughty’s winch stands have been a big seller for many years, although Julian told me sales were a little down now compared to a few years back. The reason seems to be not that they are less popular than they were, more that all the old ones are still working! I was impressed with the way most of the manufacture was achieved on site, with a clever computerised stockcontrol system enabling the 65-strong workforce to keep suitable stock levels of such a wide range of lighting support and grip equipment. At any one time, Doughty usually has about £1.5m of products waiting to go out. Its range of products is enormous, from lighting hoists to staging, from shackles to pantographs, and from grip equipment to lecterns. If you have seen its display at lighting exhibitions then you will know it is packed full of all the hardware needed for lighting, and you can be sure you were looking at only a small sample of the 1,700 products it now makes. The company has slowly grown and expanded to the 32,000 sq ft that it is today, and when another building on the same industrial estate became 14

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1987 Doughty sends a sample of the hook clamp to Stage Electrics, Lighting Technology and AC Lighting et al, with a 50 per cent take-up for orders. 1987

A request for a truss lift for smaller mobile performance venues without hanging points leads to the development of a full range of equipment for the TV/film industry.

1989

available recently, Doughty decided to buy it and install a powder-coating plant. This dry-powder method of painting uses heat to cure the powder and results in a hard, durable finish. Up to now, this was one of the few processes that had to be bought in, but thanks to this new addition, Doughty is already treating about 4,000 products per day, and Julian thought that it might well be able to improve on this with the use of pre-loading racks to keep the plant constantly working. Changing colour is not easy, so it is likely that Doughty will keep doing all its own black coating, and will buy in on the occasions when other colours are necessary. This steady progress and forwardthinking has to be the secret of Doughty’s success, and long may it continue. For more information about Doughty products, visit www.doughty.com

First stand at PLASA, followed by SIB and ProLight+Sound, takes Doughty products abroad (in 2013 the export market accounts for 60 per cent of production). Aluminium half coupler, now known as the Doughty clamp, developed for German market.

1990 Development of Easydeck, a modular performance system comprising 1m frames and deck panels, which are clipped together without the need for tools. 2001

Development of the Trigger clamp range, enabling one person to hang moving lights or luminaires with ease.

2002 2003

Open US office.

Begin to develop new products to fit the various and non-standard sizes of tube used in the States.

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CUT. SHAPE. FOCUS. TUNE. ARRI presents two additions to the popular L-Series of LED Fresnels: the L7-TT is a tuneable tungsten model that is 20% brighter than the L7-C, while the active cooling option for all models reduces size and weight for location shoots, portable kits, events and studios. ARRI L-SERIES. TRULY CINEMATIC.

www.arri.com/qr/stld/l-series

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Event

Vision impossible! Peter Phillipson introduces the background to a groundbreaking lecture on vision that the STLD attended in February. The Society of Light and Lighting (SLL), established in 1909, arranges several lighting lectures and events throughout the year, often with three or four speakers talking about a latest trend in lighting. But every two years, there is a formal lecture given by just one speaker in the traditional academic style and many of these are based on ‘white paper’ peer-reviewed papers or expert experience. When I first went to one, 20 years ago, I did not think I would run them one day, and I was honoured to be asked. I try to invite the STLD, ALD and students to these events if they are of relevance. I have always seen lighting as one thing, but unfortunately, the lighting industry is still fragmented into quite distinct parts. The lecture is named after two of the pioneers of the IES – the former name of the SLL – from the 1920s, and in 1949 it was announced in Nature that the Trotter Paterson Lecture would be run biannually. Its inaugural lecture was in 1951 and previous speakers have included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir Lawrence Bragg. This year’s lecture took place at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. Fittingly, it was the first venue in London to be built with electric lighting.

Pictured: Colin Blakemore FRS FMedSci is professor of neuroscience and philosophy in the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He is a former chief executive of the British Medical Research Council. He helped establish the concept that the brain is ‘plastic’ and adaptive, allowing changes in organisation.

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The Trotter Paterson Lecture

Two past speakers at the Trotter Paterson Lectures joined Colin Blakemore at the end of this year’s lecture: Prof John Barbur, second from left, spoke about vision in 2010, particularly about the pupil of the eye, and our own Bernie Davis, second from right, spoke in 2003 about the lighting of large televised events. They are pictured with Dr Kevin Kelly, left, then President of the SLL; Colin Blakemore, centre; and Peter Phillipson, right, who introduced Prof Blakemore and is charge of the Trotter Paterson Lecture.

More than meets the eye Words: Francis Pearce Photographs: John O’Brien Francis Pearce summarises the recent SLL Trotter Paterson Lecture delivered by Professor Colin Blakemore. This is a revised article, which originally appeared in ‘The Lighting Journal’, published by The Institution of Light Professional ILP in April 2014. There is more to vision than meets the eye. Very little of what is happening before our eyes actually reaches our brains, but what does is translated into a subjective and mainly imagined view of the world. Furthermore, what we think we ‘see’ is semantic, not visual in nature, and it is computed from tiny fragments of information not whole, flowing images. That was the gist of this year’s SLL Trotter Paterson Lecture titled ‘Vision Impossible’, delivered by leading neuroscientist Professor Colin Blakemore, Director of the Institute of Philosophy’s Centre for the Study of the Senses, which pioneers collaborative sensory research by philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists. As far as vision is concerned, ‘the conventional goal of scientists and philosophers is to understand how our continuous, apparently veridical experience of the world is generated from the retinal image’: their task ‘is to account for the miraculous transformation of that, which converts so little into so much’.

“There is a contradiction between what we know goes on in our head and the wonderful seamless view of the world that we have,” says Blakemore. While we experience the world subjectively like a detailed, real-time video stream, in reality our visual experience is ‘invented’, created from tiny, disjointed packets of data. “Visual experience is discretely and sparely informed by data from our eyes. Shifts of gaze occurring about three times a second deliver data dumps to the brain, with most of the information content concerned with the portion of the image falling on the central fovea of the eye. During each snapshot, the brain gathers, encodes and stores only a tiny amount of information.” Vision allows us to infer what the outside world is like from the image on the retina of the eye, but its optics present a series of problems. For example, you can never derive with certainty the true shape of an object in 3D space because the image is two-dimensional; there is no way of disambiguating from the image alone. In the 17th century, Rene Descartes was among the first to observe the retinal image directly and to understand the optics correctly, based on an experiment with an ox’s eye from the abattoir. He imagined that the formation of the image was an essential part of the process of understanding the world, and while the detail of his idea was absurd, the principle dominates current thinking. Descartes’ Dioptrics describes the parts of the eye, including the pupil, the interior ‘humours’ that refract light on to the retina inverting the image, and the optic nerve, which, in his terms, transmits impressions of external objects to the mind or soul located in the brain. “Imagine his reaction to seeing a dead part of the body capturing and Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Event

Pictured: A single rod in the eye can detect light lower than 10 photons.

internalising a view of the world,” says Blakemore. Through experiment, we know that the fovea, at the centre of the macula region of the retina, is responsible for sharp central vision. The retina contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones, and in the 1990s, Trevor Lamb and Edward Pugh were able to demonstrate that individual rods are capable of creating a signal when they absorb a single photon. But half the nerve fibres in the optic nerve carry information from the fovea, and the quality of the information coming from peripheral vision drops off sharply with distance. Out of the whole picture that we think we see, the high-resolution region of our vision is only equivalent to about the width of a thumbnail at arm’s length. This is what we use to ‘sample’ the world about three times a second, our eyes moving involuntarily by as little as half a degree and as much as 50 degrees each time. Not only is our vision filtered, it is moving the whole time. We piece together our view of the world from narrow snapshots. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) is helping to map the brain and track activity by contrasting blood flow in its different regions as we perform tasks such as looking at a stationary set of dots and a set that is moving. About a third of the human brain is involved with processing vision. There are more than 35 visual areas, each specialising in 18

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analysing an aspect of visual stimulus such as colour, movement and object recognition. But while we know that ‘information comes into the primary visual areas, how it is distributed doesn’t explain how we see,’ says Blakemore. “There is a gulf of understanding between the nerve cells responding to things in the image and the owner of those nerve cells having visual experience. We just don’t understand that process.” Hermann von Helmholtz, regarded as the first to study visual perception, concluded that the visual information received by the eye is so poor that our view of the world can only be inferred. “The brain is essentially a computational instrument,” says Blakemore. “One question you can start to ask is how sophisticated the computation is. An important computation that Helmholz recognised is that in order to have a stable view of the visual world, you need to know whether movements that happen on the retina are due to movement in things in the world or movements of you.” A phenomenon known as change blindness, in which a change in a visual stimulus goes unnoticed by the observer, shows that ‘the appearance of something distracting can apparently mask or conceal high-contrast changes in the rest of the image’, but there is something else happening as well: “We are extremely bad at detecting changes of scenes,” says Blakemore. Many psychologists and physiologists think we must be recording our eye movements and piecing views together, but to do this, we would have to remember the visual past. In computational terms, this is a nightmare and it is wrong, says Blakemore. “We lose everything from the past except what we are attending to, which is 40 or 50 bits of information out of the megabytes of stuff we are absorbing... When you see a room you are constructing hypotheses about the world that are not being visually sustained, but sustained by some kind of semantic memory.” Blakemore maintains that ‘vision is not just a passive “feed-forward” computation’. “Our visual experiences are informed by our understanding of the nature of the world, which is derived in part from evolution – successive genetic changes that build the visual system and retain knowledge about what to expect about the world – but also through personal experience: what we learn about the world.” Observable phenomena include the ‘binding problem’. This is where what we ‘see’ is a composite of elements glued together by a set of assumptions, not the visual data. An example is known as the Thatcher Illusion (because it is demonstrated using a photograph of Margaret Thatcher). Take two identical pictures of a smiling face; cut out and invert the eyes and mouth on one image, and the viewer will still perceive both faces to be visually ‘correct’. We also assume light comes from above, and so a picture of a footprint in dust can appear to be raised if the image is upside down. Blakemore concludes that ‘vision is cognitatively informed’. Another example is the way that photographs that have been doctored to narrow the depth of field look phoney to observers. This can ‘only depend on our experience of the world and, in particular, photographs,’ he says, and it is an example of ‘learnt experience impinging directly on what we see’.

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The Trotter Paterson Lecture

In this demonstration, all the dots keep changing colour randomly, except the centre one, and these changes are perceptible. But when the entire set of dots rotates about the centre while still changing colour, we do not see the changes.

The miraculous transformation of so little into so much While planning the lecture I asked Colin Blackmore for a explanation of his choice title, writes Peter Phillipson. This was his explanation: “We experience the world subjectively like a detailed, seamless, real-time video stream. In reality, visual experience is discretely and sparsely informed by data from our eyes. Shifts of gaze, occurring about three times each second, deliver data-dumps to the brain. During each snapshot, the brain gathers, encodes and stores only a tiny amount of information, probably corresponding to the content of visual attention. The task of scientists and philosophers is to account for the miraculous transformation that converts so little into so much. And if conscious awareness is largely invented, why do we need to be conscious of anything?” He went on to show that we tend not to notice changes in colour of an object in our general field of vision while the object is moving. It is as if there is a hierarchy in the order that we perceive things: movement being more important than changes of colour. The eye only focuses on a tiny portion of our general field of vision. It is our brain that creates the joined-up constancy that we are used to and, in the process of filling in

the gaps, it can fooled. It can be influenced by experience and can ignore secondary objects that are not the main focus of our gaze. For example, it is possible to focus on an array of coloured shapes such as squares, circles and triangles. If we notice just one moving, we often fail to notice the other shapes altering their colour or shape, as our attention was on the moving one. This is part of how the brain filters out the enormous quantity of data it receives from our senses. It has to, else we would not be able to function without an overview of what seems to be important to notice. This, in turn, can be influenced by what interests us individually, and it can lead to a range of interpretations from a group who experienced the same event. There is a tendency, too, to see what is familiar. It is possible to make faces out of clouds or ‘see’ patterns in the Moon’s surface such as footsteps. These are fashioned only by the shadows that were actually present and our imagination. The conclusions that we must therefore glean from this very small resume of his lecture are that there is essentially no visual past, and most of what we see is cognitively informed, and probably dependent on personal experience.

Professor Blackmore’s lecture included imbedded videos, which illustrated ways that eyesight depends on dynamic input from the world. It would be difficult to describe them here without spoiling them. However, a full-length recording of the lecture has been made, initially only for paying members of the SLL, but I believe I might be granted permission for it to be streamed in a manner that would be open to others, including the STLD. If successful, I will post a link on the STLD website and in a future edition of this magazine. Set & Light | Summer 2014

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STLD visit

Not Going Out uses a monople rig.

The entrance at Teddington Studios

Members enjoyed a barbecue at The Anglers.

Teddington lock

Martin Kempton and Ian Hillson

Backstage showing Kino Flos and Night FX

The downstage floor has been painted white as a source of soft light.

Set & Light | Summer 2014

There were many experts in Martin’s audience!

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Teddington Studios

STLD’s farewell to Teddington Studios Words: Andrew Dixon Photographs: John O’Brien & Thames TV The sun was warm, the river flowed past and we were enjoying a balmy evening in Teddington’s The Anglers pub. But first we had a farewell to make at Teddington Studios. The STLD’s Martin Kempton entertained 50 members and guests of the society in a most interesting and instructive evening on the set of Not Going Out in Studio One. Martin became a Lighting Director at the BBC in 1990, having started in TV as a cameraman. He had spent his spare time lighting theatre shows, mainly around Maidenhead, and had helped to design the theatre in the Norden Farm Arts Centre. His CV reads like a dream to anyone contemplating entering the profession, listing over 70 show titles covering comedy, music, entertainment, drama and OBs. He has also contributed to the history of TV with a website at www.tvstudiohistory. co.uk. His talk to us covered two subjects: the history of the studios and his approach to lighting the set of Not Going Out.

Teddington Studios

At the end of the 19th century, a wealthy stockbroker, Henry Chinnery, invited a rain-soaked film crew into his capacious greenhouse to complete their shoot (pictured right, top). That brought filming to the site. Later, in 1916, Master Films built a 60ft by 40ft stage on the present site of Studio Two, only to endure it burning down several times. Talkies came along in 1929, and in 1931, Teddington Film Studios were leased to Warner Brothers. Errol Flynn, Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison were frequent visitors. After a brief interlude in production at the beginning of the war, the studios reopened, only to be demolished in a spectacular way by a V1 bomb on 5 July 1944, which killed three people (pictured right, bottom) Teddington was rebuilt, eventually providing three studios, and by 1948, there were even grander plans to fill an empty space with a forth studio, which, if it had been built, would have competed with the present large Fountain Studios. However, it was not to be: due to the post-war crisis in the film industry, Warner Brothers moved to Elstree and the Hawker Aircraft Co used the studios as storage space. After the formation of the ITV system, ABC television, broadcasting in the Midlands and the North at weekends, realised it needed a London base. (Here, Martin couldn’t resist a reference to the BBC’s recent decision to base its TV production in Salford!) ABC bought Teddington in 1958. After a year of broadcasting live editions of Armchair Theatre, the purchase of the first RCA tape recorder allowed ABC to prerecord whole (as live) programmes. It opened the technical block, including Studio One, in 1963, probably recording The Avengers as its first show. Hughie Green would have followed soon after with Opportunity Knocks. In 1968, with the big franchise reshuffle, ABC was forced

to combine with Rediffusion and formed Thames Television, based at Teddington. Shows including many well-known dramas, light entertainment and sitcoms poured out of the studios, including The Morecambe & Wise Show, This is Your Life, Edward & Mrs. Simpson, Rock Follies and George & Mildred. In 1993 the franchises were reallocated and the London weekday programming was given over to Carlton. Thames stayed at Teddington as an independent production company but was later bought by Pearson. Little technical investment was made by several other owners, but still headline shows were made: Man Behaving Badly; Birds of a Feather; Bremner, Bird and Fortune; and Not Going Out that we see here today. The lease is presently owned by Pinewood, which will cease making productions in the studios in December 2014 when the lease terminates. The present owners, Haymarket, intend to redevelop the site for housing.

Not Going Out

Martin first attended to the old BBC/ITV studio debate over lighting bars fitted with dual-source lamps versus lamps on monopoles running on railways. He’s lived with both and Set & Light | Summer 2014

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STLD visit

Teddington Studios

Martin shows his audience different lighting positions and, right, demonstrates bouncing 2K on to the white strip on the downstage floor.

concludes that the panto system in Studio One is the most convenient he has worked with yet. He considers that the close spacing of the runners in this particular studio provides the best system for placing a lamp just where he wants it. Martin reminded us that in the great days of fast-turnaround TV production, sitcoms were lit in a way that was quick to set and provided high-key pictures, often overfilled and certainly using hard upstage keys. He commended Duncan Brown – who lit Hi-de-Hi!, Are You Being Served? and ’Allo ’Allo! – as the LD who did most to bring in soft keylighting to sitcoms and dramas. Martin said the use of soft light came first on films and later to TV. Howard King pioneered the use of soft light in dramas, whereas John Green (I, Claudius), John Treays and Denis Channon (Shakespeare series) excelled at using hard light. The move away from multi-camera dramas to a singlecamera technique made the use of soft keys far easier. The original intention for Not Going Out (now in its seventh series) was to give the whole show an American sitcom look, and Martin’s contribution is key (sorry!) to that end. The set and costumes use muted colours. He was to avoid the continuous high-key Friends look, where day and night look much the same, and decided to take a more dramatic approach. Martin lights his sitcoms by firstly lighting the environment, so that it looks like it would in reality, and then he adds lights for the actors if necessary. That can involve a lot of lights. He loves to use Kino Flos through windows and uses as much colour variation as he can to enhance the

atmosphere of his shows. He really appreciates the Hobbit egg crates on the once open-fronted Berkey Northlights. These having been copied by Clive Gulliver – ‘Hobbit’ – from the Berkey softlights in BBC TV Centre. Martin uses all sorts of lamps and reflectors, which he may well have discovered in his theatre lighting, but maybe they were just lying about in the studio lighting store?! He even gets the downstage floor painted white as a source of softlight that will not reflect in the three large upstage windows. As we know, this is always a challenge when using large sources downstage. He has to work around large ceilinged areas on two sets. One has slots available for the odd sneaky lamp to get through if needed and the other – the bar – is all lit with pracs, with the action taking place downstage away from the ceiling. We were then treated to some examples of recordings from the show and to some different lighting conditions on the set before us – a useful but brave thing to do with so many experts in your audience! We then made our way back to The Anglers from whence we came. Our thanks go to Martin and to all from Thames who helped him in the studio: Richard Waiting (Technical Supervisor), Tony Keene & Will (Cameras), Vlad the Impaler (don’t ask – Sound), Howard Denyer (VT) and Julia Smith (Console), and also to John O’Brien and Ian Hillson, who between them arranged the whole evening on behalf of the Society. No doubt John has his own stories of life at Thames TV at Teddington, too!

We want your memories from 1974 It is our 40th anniversary and I will not let you forget it, writes Editor Emma Thorpe. We have decided to save costs, which we can use on visits instead, and incorporate our 40th anniversary celebration magazine into our winter issue. I would still love to receive articles from LDs who were working in 1974. There must be some great stories about groundbreaking design and technology, working with pilot programmes that became household 22

Set & Light | Summer 2014

phenomenon. Please don’t be shy: stories from the heart make the best reading. You don’t have to be a wordsmith; as long as the technical information is correct, the story will capture memories and enthuse the up-and-coming LDs into trying new things themselves. Please email any letters, articles, stories and pictures to editor@stld.org.uk and I will include them in this special winter/40th anniversary edition of the magazine. The deadline for submissions is 29 October.

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www.knight-of-illumination.com

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STLD_112 pp1-31:TL 85 Spring 2005 23/07/2014 21:11 Page 24

Lighting

Copyright ELP Pictured top left: The previous studio at White City. The outside view is dominated by a large tree and two buildings left and right. The window boxes allowed for panels of ND film to attenuate the daylight. Bottom left: LD Stuart Gain and ELP’s project manager Chris Rand at the White City studio just after the ARRI LC-7 was first tried out. Top right: A view of the new studio, camera left of the window, where demonstrations, and performances are televised in front of video screen incorporating internal LED lighting. Bottom right: Another view of the current One Show studio from a low angle showing the grid, some of the key lights and the camera crew before transmission.

A window on The One Show Words: Peter Phillipson Photographs: Tim Warner The One Show is one of those flagship news-orientated magazine programme that busy people may catch from time to time. But there is real know-how when it comes to its lighting. It transmitted its final show from its previous studio in White City just before Christmas, and then moved to its new home at New Broadcasting House a few days later. It is the third studio to house the show, the first being in Birmingham for a brief period. The common thread, from a lighting point of view, is that all three had a prominent window featured behind the main presenters. The effect that this has had on the entire approach to the lighting cannot be overemphasised. Unlike other programmes where a lighting director sets up the main studio lighting at the beginning of the series and then leaves each show to be run by a desk operator and a 24

Set & Light | Summer 2014

gaffer, The One Show always has a lighting director – who also operates the desk – and a gaffer(s). In this way, events within the show that fall outside of the interviews taking place on the couch can be lit by experienced LDs. Dave Evans set up both studios and he and Stuart Gain are the resident LDs, covering all but a couple of programmes between them. This allows them to light other TV shows as well. The White City studio was a converted office space located near the now-closed TV Centre. Its window faced approximately southeast, meaning that by the time the show went out in the early evening, the amount of daylight was diminished enough to make it manageable. The window box frames lent themselves to the addition of a removable, narrow frame mechanism housing neutral density film, which

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The One Show

The view from the outside showing the One sign half inside and half outside the window and plugged up to the northern power and data outlet position. To the left are two of the Martin 410 panels to light the opposite the studio.

was placed over the windows for five months of the year up until August. The 0.6 ND film cut down the intensity of all the visible wavelengths of light equally so that the sky and outside buildings were not tinted in anyway. The attenuation of daylight due to the film was therefore two stops. “The main lighting was on at 100 per cent in the summer and at 40 per cent in the winter,” explains Stuart. The old studio was kitted out initially with De Sisti 250W MSRs as the main key lights, but ARRI L7C LED Poleoperated fresnels, which were trialled in the January before the move and are also the main workhorse in the new studio, replaced these. These units provide a RGBW (three colours, plus white) output with the white tunable between 2,800K to 10,000K. Dave has set them to 5,600K for all of the key lights in both studios. “The accuracy is spot on with the temperatures that you select, we have found,” he says. He continues: “In the new studio, the levels for everything depend on the lighting of the sandstone café opposite, as seen through the window. I want the detail of the wall to be visible but the gain of cameras, inside, to be normally set at 3dB gain at f2.8.” In the spring and summer months, the lighting of the walls of the café, which are part of Broadcasting House, are day-lit and augmented with six or eight Martin-410 led panels, or lit

solely by them during the dark nights later in the year. This reduces the contrast of the background. The portable Martin410 panels consume only 140W each when at full and it is hard to believe just how wide an area they can cover. The panels are put out each day by the crew, along with the external portion of the featured One sign. The architectural control of the external canopy lights above the window itself can be overridden by the LD during broadcasts and isolated. The canopy is then up-lit from the pavement by a row of removable Chroma Floods and a second row is used in the darker evenings to lift the pavement level slightly, too. In the White City studio, the nighttime scene outside the studio had been lit with arrays of ARRI 1.2kW and 2.5kW alone, on stands and manned at all times by a member of the lighting crew. These HMIs are still used for televising the extra outside activities in W1. In the studio, there is no use of frost or any diffuser on the internal lighting as it would just flare up, reflecting in the glass window. All the keying is hard-focused, cutting off any spurious reflections – from the window and elsewhere – out of the camera’s field of view by using long throws. Indeed, the only diffuser I saw was a well-positioned portable Chimera used to light the guest Mary Berry, who was judging a cooking event outside on the pavement. But these are used sparingly as their Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Lighting

Dave Evans at the lighting desk

The neat data distribution area

Martin 410 140W LED panels – only six are required to light the entire façade opposite.

The Outside Arena, which is used as an outside quasi-OB extension to the studio. The light level on the café to the right is key to the entire studio lighting and camera settings. The architectural lighting (downlights) mounted on The One Show and Radio 1 building can be easily isolated by overriding the main architectural lighting control during the show itself.

Set & Light | Summer 2014

projected windage area is so large that without several sandbags holding them down, they can blow over on windy days. All of the seated positions, on the famous sofa, are both keyed and filled by the LC7s and some are doubled up, allowing a quick solution to reset a level should that critical unit fail for some reason. An extra one is rigged to cater for a full sofa of guests, which occurs from time to time, and it can be ridden in on a fader. The result can be seen in the photo opposite (pictured bottom left), which is a screen grab taken from a studio camera directly, showing the balance between the daylight hitting the café, the artificial lighting on the same wall, the external portions of the One Sign (that might be as high as three times as bright outside compared with the internal portions of the same sign due to the ND film), the rows of ground mounted up-lights (both inside and out), the internal lighting to the illuminated boxes between the sofa, and the window and the levels on the faces of the presenters. Although it looks very similar each day, it is achieved by compensating for the effect of the sun both seasonally and day-to-day by setting the ND film (typically 0.3 to achieve 3dB at f2.8 for spring and summer months) and external window lighting levels accordingly. Unlike the White City Studio, the sun never reaches a relative position with the window to preclude transmission thanks to the original Broadcasting House Building blocking the direct sunlight. Consequently, the studio can be used at any time during the day if required. This was one of the principal criteria when choosing the new studio location of The One Show. There are five SONY 300 cameras used each day, with a sixth present on the one-hour version of the show. The lighting settings are well within the camera’s limits. The aperture is capable of being adjusted by five to six stops. If it were ever required, it would be possible to ‘knee’ the camera set-up. This is the clipping of the maximum gain of the electronics: a means of compressing the information in the highlights that would otherwise be burnt out in relation to the exposure. “This would be done only if there were no other way of doing it,” says Dave. The studio lighting infrastructure is incredibly tidy and neat and was designed and set up with much pride and care. For example, the one-storey-high, low grid in the new studio is Unistrutt, soffit mounted in continuous rows 13 inches apart, from which all the studio lanterns hang. The ARRI LC-7 has pole-op attachments and the cups are easily accessible. There are four universes of DMX that terminate neatly in a data area sectioned off in southwest corner of the studio. The lighting plot shows how these are distributed. The other main lighting is the extensive use of Pulsar Chroma Floods and Battens in a variety of beam widths. There is extensive use of the Ilumo Spotlight from Lumonic: a device manufactured in Manchester. These collectively provide the colour washes on the entire set. The set was made by various companies, including SCENA, and incorporates panels back lit by LEDs by Shock Systems. The lighting installation was designed by Dave and the system integration of the entire broadcast facility carried out by Dave Addy’s team at DEGA Broadcast Systems, with the lighting part installed by Nick Mobsby’s team at LSI Woking. Ownership of the lighting at White City was by ELP on a long-hire agreement but in the new studio practically the entire rig is owned by the BBC. The desk is an ETC Congo

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The One Show

Ninety LED Ilumo Spots are used

Pulsar Chroma Battens mounted to the Unistrutt grid

This studio camera grab shows the balanced lighting through the window. It is referenced from the wall of the café opposite. Copyright Dave Evans

Sitting in the key-light

Junior, chosen purely to match those used in other BBC current affairs studios. It is interesting that when in TV Centre, the BBC owned the vast majority of it studio lights. Then, bit by bit, it sold them off as it was too costly to look after them, hiring in everything needed until there were only a few 10Ks left. But now, with some of the high-end fixed LED spotlights having little need of maintenance (to date), studio ownership is making a comeback in all but those extra one-off activities. The studio, both before and after the move, has been used for another show, Film 2014, presented by Claudia Winkleman. In White City there was much use of tungsten to give it a cosy late-night feel. The main rig was left with two sets of lights for the two shows, with some doubling up. Now, there are still two sets of key lights, none of them using tungsten, but the keys can be set to 3,200K. There are no dimmers in the studio: it is all hard power with DMX data streams. A typical load is no more than 20A per phase – compare this with a similar show of 10 years ago. I am a great fan of tungsten and support the Save Tungsten Campaign, especially for some exhibits in museums and live productions or events where perfect fades and perfect colour rendition are needed in niche situations, but The One Show isn’t one of those and it has embraced LEDs properly. There are many tours of visitors who pop across from viewing the £1bn New Broadcasting House development. These take place almost any time when the studio is not on

Outside hard power and data points to both the south side (top picture) and the north side (pictured with Andrew Stacey). The outlets can be concealed by an architectural detail.

air. There are playback states that can be evoked by those looking after a visiting party to show the studio in a scene typical of what would be expected using the back-up system. The lighting crew is made up using a flexible arrangement of people, with the main long-standing gaffer being Andrew Stacey. On some editions he works alone with the LD; on busy shows there can be three or four extra people that might either crew or deputise for him, including Saul Harris, Gareth ‘Crockers’ Crockford and Bruce Wardorf. The new studio has introduced some rather difficult logistics for a floor manager to cope with that have nothing to do with lighting. To explain, the entire production office, makeup, wardrobe, green room, VT, camera racking and the production suite were all the same floor before the move. But with the new location, while the studio is at ground level, all the rest is in the basement. “It can be difficult to bring guests on and off,” explains one production assistant. The props, camera and lighting crews are the only people to ‘live’ in the studio itself. However, it does mean that it is rather quieter behind the camera than before. The move of the studio and how the lighting has been planned and run is an exemplary example of what you expect of the BBC. A shortened version of this article first appeared in ‘Lighting and Sound International’ in July 2014. Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Opinion

Stand and deliver The following article first appeared in ‘Lighting’ magazine in May 2014. It is reprinted here courtesy of Editor Ben Cronin. If you attended Light + Building, you saw enough product to make your brain bleed out of your ears, writes Iain Ruxton, of Speirs+Major, but what of the stands you trawled around? From the huge, slick builds of Hall 3 to the marketstall madness in Hall 10, stands vary in scale, style and finesse. Is it just me who thinks precious few do a decent job of demonstrating products? First epic fail is the stand showing 100 products, right next to each other. All switched on. It’s impossible to tell what any of them actually do. It’s like the lighting aisle in a DIY store, but more expensive and with less tassles. Showing a light’s performance by shining it at a distant black ceiling doesn’t help. Don’t you know anything at all about light? The opposite approach, which baffles me, is the stand whose generous area houses three very generic products and one miserable man. I can only assume some sort of money laundering is taking place. I’m not going near... I’m scared. Then there’s the stand that only makes sense if you get a personal tour. You might have something very clever, but if a knowledgeable punter can’t understand it without a personal explanation, you’ve lost 90 per cent of the passing trade. Which reminds me: with very few exceptions, no one wants stand tours. ‘It’ll only take half an hour’ is the usual phrase to justify this. Well, if I were to spend that on each stand, I’d manage 18 stands a day, maximum. I could spend all week getting around one large hall. Anyone who gives in to a tour does so out of weak-willed politeness and resents every moment after the first five minutes. Few companies have enough to say. And why are in-ground uplights mounted in walls and downlights mounted in tables? How is that supposed to show how they perform their intended task? If you sold interior finishes, would you carpet the walls, wallpaper the ceiling and artex the floor? Some exhibitors clearly decided sheer lumens were their unique selling point, and they’d prove it by shining their biggest, brightest light horizontally into everyone’s faces. That might not be the best tactic – not many people like lighting that hurts. And please don’t try to wow people with demos of other technology. You can control your desk lamp via a webpage with an iPhone? Aside from this being pointless, you didn’t invent the internet, the interactive webpage or the iPhone. Show us what you’ve actually done yourselves. Some companies, of course, get it right, or close to right, but I am amazed by how many make a mess of the biggest trade show in the industry. So, manufacturers, I know you might not want to listen to a lowly specifier like me, but for Light + Building 2016, why not stop and think about how to show what your products actually do, instead of spending a fortune to showcase chunks of metal and plastic? And visitors? Maybe try my strategy: walk to a stand and ask them to ‘show me your three best things’. If they’re all good, give them a fourth. You’ll see the good stuff, won’t miss much and you’ll make it round the show. 28

Set & Light | Summer 2014

In memoriam

I would like to pay a tribute to my great friend and mentor George Ferguson. George was a much-loved, well-renowned and greatly respected Lighting Director based at the BBC in Glasgow. I met him in 1987 when I joined the corporation and he took me under his wing almost from the beginning. I soon realised that he was one of a kind, not just for his abilities, expertise and natural flair, but also for his refreshing approach to the job, and obvious love of his craft and the people he worked with. George subsequently made a great many things possible for me and taught me a great deal – and not just about lighting, it has to be said. Prior to his career in the BBC, George was in the Royal Marines, in 45 Commando. His son, Ewan, remembers hearing many stories about his time there, but this one in particular stands out: “Every member of a marine unit was equipped to fight, but they all had their specialities and Dad’s was in communications as a signalman. Dad served for many months in Malta and then in the Egyptian desert beside the Suez Canal on the lead-up to the Suez crisis in 1956. “In those days they used heavyduty batteries to power the campbased radio transmitters, and they would go through quite a lot of them. There was an Egyptian man who made a simple living at the camp from cleaning and washing and Dad would sometimes quietly allow this man to take some of the old batteries away and sell them to supplement his little pay. Understandably, the man was very grateful. “One day, Dad returned to his tent to find his 9mm Browning pistol had vanished. Miles from anywhere, it should have been safe, but there were other locals who had freedom of the camp. Now, losing your firearm in the military is a serious offence and Dad would have been in real trouble if he had had to report its loss, so after the usual checks, he asked the Egyptian man to whom he had given the batteries if there was

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George Ferguson

A man of courage, integrity and determination any way for it to be found. After an anxious day’s wait, the following evening he returned, and wrapped up in a dirty old rag was Dad’s pistol. No questions asked.” George served in the marines for two years during his National Service, but the adventures and the stories have lasted a lifetime and represent so much of what he was all about – namely, courage, integrity and determination against the odds. He always worked to be the best at what he did. Pat McShannon remembers George as a TM when they first met at the BBC in 1973: “He was great to work for. He always explained exactly what he required for the many different projects he worked on across all genres. He won various awards and was well respected and held in high esteem by his colleagues. “George was usually very meticulous when drawing up his lighting plans, but could also give you them on the back of a fag packet. I remember the day he was none too pleased when he unfurled his lighting plot and saw that a young Ewan had got ahold of it and had used his colouring pencils on it! He actually won an award for the lighting on that particular episode of The Secret Garden.” One of my favourite memories of working with George was when we recorded Edwyn Collins performing his song ‘50 Shades of Blue’. This was back in the days before moving lights had taken off and we were using a manual Celco desk. I had carefully worked out a lighting routine that encompassed as many different blues as we had available in the rig. However, George being George, he always liked to add his contribution to the operation of the desk, especially on a music number, and he dutifully reached across in the middle of the song and faded up a group of PAR cans that were sporting a rather fetching shade of #111 pink. George worked on a wide variety

Pictured: George Ferguson, 31 July 1932 to 3 September 2013

of programmes and nothing really fazed him. Originally from the camera department in London, he always knew that lighting was his main interest. In 1975 he lit several episodes of the BAFTA-nominated series The Secret Garden, and in 1990 he worked on The Early Life of Beatrix Potter, starring a young Helena Bonham Carter. Following his retirement in the early Nineties, he was still in demand and returned to the studio in Glasgow to light the children’s drama Mr Wymi, as well as continuing in the outside world with his own company 2LD. Of course, there were many other sides to George – husband, dad, grandfather, father-in-law, friend, Rotarian and charity worker. He loved being surrounded by family and friends. It has to be said, he was very much a ‘people person’ and, as most of us will testify, he loved a good chat. George battled a rare skin cancer for many years but he was always in good spirits. I had the great pleasure of meeting up with George and his

lovely wife, Stella, in Keswick in the Lake District in the summer of 2012, when we spent a great afternoon catching up and reminiscing. Between hospital visits and treatments he just got on with life as best he could and continued to attend Rotary meetings and events, went to his Speakers Club and recorded articles for the blind. A few months before he died he announced that he and Stella were off on holiday to Egypt. He fought right to the end, and although extremely ill, he would talk about his family, milestones in their lives and trips they had gone on, and he often managed to make everyone smile with some of his memories. George finally lost his battle in September 2013. Thanks George for all the many happy memories, a lot of laughs and some great television, too. Adrian Turpin With contributions from Ewan Ferguson and Pat McShannon Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Lighting

Television lighting: The standard eye Words: Bill Klages The standard eye and other inconsistencies

Just when we were feeling comfortable with the CIE photopic response curve of 1924, we discover that this standard has been completely incorrect for nearly 90 years! Before you enter into a state of complete despair and consider another career, we will try to determine what effect this error will have on the entertainment lighting industry. What changes will you need to make in your current operating method to accommodate this significant revelation?

Eye cells

First, we have to present some of the basic concepts of vision and the perception of colour. You may have heard this before but, for completeness, a review is necessary. The eye is composed of four types of photoreceptor cells, cells that respond to electromagnetic radiation over a very specific range of wavelengths – the visible spectrum. The first are rod cells, which are not colour sensitive and respond at very low light levels (think ‘night vision’). This type of vision is called scotopic. We need go no further with this as the light levels we are concerned with are much greater than for this type of vision. The second group of cells are the cone cells and these operate throughout the broad range of general vision. This type of vision is called photopic. There are three types of cone cells and each responds to a specific group of wavelengths that are roughly red, blue and green. Because of this fact, only three numerical components corresponding to these three receptors are necessary to describe the colours that we see. In other words, we were blessed with a tristimulus colour capability before Newton’s great colour theory. During photopic vision, the eye is also capable of adapting to a wide range of illuminance levels – light levels that go from moonlight to sunlight. An amazing device.

Painting

Colour systems are idealised as being composed of two sets of information. First, we have the luminance information, which is related to the eye’s perception and sensitivity to brightness only (think of it as a monochrome signal). We then paint this signal with the colour information to restore the basic colour image. It is the way that television’s colour signal is generated. It happened this way as a result of a curious, but convenient, set of circumstances.

The early days

When commercial television started, the camera contained only a single sensor: an electron tube with a photo-electric surface sensitive to radiant energy. As fate would have it, the sensitivity of this device to the spectrum was not the same as that of the eye. It did not respond to the visible spectrum in the same manner as an eye. A great deal of experimentation 30

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was done to approximate the eye’s spectral response. For example, a common early imaging device was extremely sensitive to the infrared portion of the spectrum. Filters were placed in the camera to limit not only the infrared region but the ultraviolet end of the spectrum as well. To complete this task, test groups of people were assembled and asked to evaluate pick-up devices with various spectral responses as well as different transfer functions (‘gamma’) and to judge them as to their ability to produce ‘perfect reproduction’. They viewed the real scene and then the scene viewed on the display device of the time: the cathode ray tube. The early image orthicon camera was the result. Of course, without the colour information – only ‘luminance’ – it could hardly be ‘perfect reproduction’. In addition, because of the impossible task of obtaining a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio, the end result was heavily compromised to mask this defect. When television went to colour, one of the early issues was that all existing black-and-white sets needed to be able to receive and view the new colour signal. As a result, the portion of the new colour signal that the older sets would respond to was proportionate to the luminance property of the image. Meanwhile, the colour information was separate, waiting to be painted on this signal when viewed on a colour television set.

Returning to 1924

Let us return to 1924. The CIE or Commission Internationale de L’éclairage was established in 1913 as the international authority on light, illumination, colour and colour spaces. In 1924, it defined the standard photopic observer and published the famous curve that shows the standard eye’s response to the wavelengths of the visible spectrum. The manner in which the ‘colour’ information was removed so that the test subjects were only comparing the luminosity of individual narrow bands of wavelengths to the luminosity of the wavelength of 555 nanometers (the green wavelength where the eye is most sensitive) is quite interesting, and perhaps, was the direct cause of the dilemma of today.

Today

What has happened in further studies over the years is that, as testing techniques were refined and the sample has increased, the standard observer has been redefined. What the scientists realised was that the sensitivity of the ‘standard’ eye in the blue end of the spectrum was actually quite a bit more sensitive than as had been determined in 1924. In the illustration, the blue area represents the differences that resulted from this later research. Just so you know, the most current group of researchers chose a group of 40 subjects aged 18 to 48, including five females. I’m not sure how this compares with the group of 1924. For illustration, if we compare the two results at the

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A view from across the pond

wavelength of 450 nanometers (a deep blue), we see that even if the response of the eye at this wavelength is low relative to the sensitivity maximum value at 555nm, the ratio of the new to old value at 450nm is easily two times – a significant departure.

So what?

As more and more sources with discontinuous spectrum were used – fluorescents and, now, LEDs – lighting people were aware and confused by the fact that blues appeared much brighter to the eye than their light meters indicated. Light meters are monochromatic devices whose sensitivity is based upon (you guessed it) the Luminosity Function! To rectify this part of the dilemma is quite simple but encumbered with an impractical reality. In order to correct this inadequacy, every incident light meter in existence will have to be thrown away and a new, more accurate meter purchased (after some redesign, of course). Attempting to alter the sensitivity of the meter to match the new, corrected CIE curve would probably invite the development

of a new, but very questionable cottage industry.

We’re okay in TV land

From a very rigorous viewpoint, we should also change the algorithms that are applied in camera circuitry to obtain the luminance signal. But these formulae have not been appreciably altered since the beginnings of colour TV. They would have to be tested with groups similar to the 40 subjects under controlled laboratory conditions to detect the departure from the ideal. I think we can safely say that the luminance signal of a camera is close enough for ‘perfect reproduction’. We need only plan for a new, improved light meter. Bill would like to extend an invitation to all the lighting people out there to email your thoughts to him at billklages@roadrunner.com EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this article was written, the discovery of a fourth cone has been found in a few individuals (Tetrachromats). Visit https://research.ncl.ac.uk/tetrachromacy/faqs/ to read more about it. Set & Light | Summer 2014

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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 Set & Light.

AC-ET AC-ET appoints Ian Muir as TV & Film Development Manager

A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd are pleased to announce that well-known industry figure Ian Muir has been appointed as TV & Film Development Manager for the company’s UK and International Sales territories. Ian brings a wealth of TV and film lighting industry experience to the new role from his previous position at Gekko, where he worked for over six years as Business Development Manager for the LED lighting brand. Prior to this, Ian held various sales roles involving managing relationships with customers and suppliers in the UK, Europe and the USA. Based in AC-ET’s High Wycombe head office, Ian will work alongside the sales, marketing and purchasing departments to develop and implement the company’s business plan for the TV and film market, to exploit their growing presence and customer base in this sector. Ian will also be responsible for helping to raise customer awareness of AC-ET’s UK-exclusive TV and film lighting brands – including Mole-Richardson, Chroma-Q®, Jands, Spotlight and Prolights – as well as promoting Manfrotto and Avenger, Arri, Daylight Grip & Textiles, and other brands for whom the company is a dealer. Complementing these brands, AC-ET’s Cable, Lamp and Gel Express services are primed for fast turnaround of custom-specified TV and film consumables. Popular lines include tungsten and discharge lamps from Sylvania, Osram, GE Lighting and Philips; specialised and custom cable assemblies such as Powerlock, BAC, Socapex and Head to Ballast extension cables; colour effect and correction lighting filters from Procolor, Lee Filters, Rosco and Gam; as well as all other essential consumables.

AC-ET launches exclusive new Prolights range of value lighting solutions

A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd are delighted to have been appointed as the exclusive UK dealer for the Prolights brand. The range of lighting, video and effects products was recently officially unveiled at PLASA Focus, Leeds, receiving a great deal of interest and an overwhelmingly positive response from a wide range of visitors to the show. The Prolights range offers designers innovative technology solutions that deliver reliable, creative tools at a price that all productions can afford. By taking advantage of high-efficiency production methods, products deliver the ideal balance between quality and value to professionals looking to maximise the return on their investment. Featuring exceptional build quality, performance and reliability, each product is manufactured using carefully chosen components and materials, and undergoes rigorous quality-control procedures to deliver reliability and satisfaction time and time again. The impressive lighting range features over 200 highperformance product lines from a wide selection of LEDs, including Pars, battens, moving lights, matrices, Fresnels, Profiles and effects, to Platinum 2R, 5R and 15R beam lights. In addition to being appointed the exclusive UK dealer for Prolights, AC-ET will be offering the range in selected European and international territories – please contact the company for information on availability.

AMBERSPHERE Ambersphere and Robert Juliat find the X Factor

The production values on The X Factor Live Tour certainly maintain the look and feel of the TV show. Video plays a large part in this, with two IMAG screens stage left and right reminding the audience of the journey the performers have completed prior to each act’s performance. On the stage itself, part of the video wall is used as a sliding reveal for the artists’ entrances, while the TV dynamic is continued in the design of the stairs, the independent stage thrust and the higloss flooring. Add to that a lighting rig that begins with 59 32

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

Clay Paky Sharpys just for starters and it is clear that for a followspot to cut through and make its mark, it would have to be something powerful, very bright and with a clarity of focus to work with the camera work effectively. Step forward, the Robert Juliat Lancelot: a 4,000W discharge unit that is fast becoming accepted as the longthrow followspot of choice for large live events and concerts. Now part of the family of manufacturers that are exclusively distributed and serviced by Ambersphere Solutions, Robert Juliat are much more than the company best known for architecture and theatre lighting. The quality of build and features that characterise Robert Juliat units are fast becoming as sought after in the touring market as they are in the more traditional theatre sector. Lighting Director Jonathan Rouse explained that the light level on the performer was paramount because The X Factor Live is all about the artists who have earned their place on the tour. The audience feel they know them as individuals, and part of The X Factor Live experience is seeing their favourites in the flesh.

ANNA VALLEY Sky Creative hires Anna Valley for Game of Thrones Season 4 premiere.

Anna Valley was chosen by Sky Creative to provide a full audio visual solution, including projection mapping of The Guildhall, for the Game of Thrones Season 4 premiere, which aired on Sky Atlantic on 7 April. Stars from the TV show took to the red carpet, including Sophie Turner, Iain Glen and Liam Cunningham. The event was attended by over 400 guests,including fans and those involved in the making of the show. It was organised by Sky Creative and included a screening in the Grand Hall, as well as an after-party in the venue’s crypt. Anna Valley provided four Panasonic PT-DZ21KE projectors and the AI Media Server to map the front of The Guildhall and playback content as the VIPs arrived. Alongside the projection mapping, Anna Valley provided a D&B Line array system, which was used to provide an atmospheric soundtrack to the projection mapping. Inside the Grand Hall was a 32ft projection screen to play back the premiere using two Christie 18k J Series Projectors. Anna Valley also provided audio via another line array system and full stage and scenic lighting. In the Crypt for the after-party, Anna Valley provided a pumping D&B PA system and dramatic lighting for the room.

The BBC joins event agencies to talk future technology at Anna Valley showcase

Event professionals from the BBC and agencies including Innovision and Grass Roots have discussed future technology at Anna Valley’s Open Day showcase. The Open Day, which took place 2–3 April at Anna Valley’s new West London office, was set up to showcase the AV rental company’s LED, projection mapping, RFID, cameras, 4K and digital media offerings. BBC News’s Lead News Director, Barton McFarlane, who works on BBC events as well as television shows including Newsnight, said that the organisation was looking into using projection mapping and 3D technology. He praised Anna Valley’s new AV4 LED technology, citing its use both in studio and at BBC events. Looking to the future, guests discussed AI technology and Google Glass.

The Link

Produced by STV at the BBC studios in Glasgow, The Link is a new quiz for BBC One daytimes in which three teams battle it out to spot the link between a growing number of clues. The quicker they can spot the link, the more chance they have of walking away with thousands of pounds. Production Designer Chris Webster chose Anna Valley’s LED displays for the show. The specification includes a central screen in Toshiba 6mm, podiums with AV4 4mm and floor walkways in Duo 12 12mm LED.

Good Morning Britain

We worked with ITV Production and Graphics to provide and install a range of set display technology for the new breakfast show for ITV, which is presented by Susanna Reid, Ben Shephard, Charlotte Hawkins and Sean Fletcher. These included an LED ‘Ticker’ with image processing, plus various sizes of set dressing monitors and signal distribution

Live Euro television debate

On 2 April, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, traded blows in their second live debate over whether Britain should stay in the EU. Transmitted live on BBC Two from the BBC Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House, this fascinating debate featured a large curved Toshiba 6mm LED screen from Anna Valley. Designer Chris Webster transformed the Radio Theatre stage with the Anna Valley screen as a bright and dynamic cyclorama. The lighting direction for the debate is by Mark Kenyon

ARRI The ARRI Rental Group strengthens its team with appointment of Dana Ross The ARRI Rental Group is pleased to announce that Dana Ross has been appointed to the role of International Marketing Executive.

Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Sponsor news

Reporting to the group’s CEO Martin Cayzer, Ross will represent the company in Los Angeles, managing and further developing relationships within the industry to continue the growth of the business and brand. Previously Director of Creative Relations with Technicolor, Ross is a film-industry veteran with more than 35 years of experience. He started out at CFI Motion Picture Laboratory, first as a projectionist and later as a color-timer and laboratory contact, joining Technicolor in 2001 after 23 years at CFI. During his time at CFI, Ross also developed a passion for stills photography, and in particular, a love for working with an 11x14 large-format plate camera. This passion, combined with many years working closely with directors of photography, has seen him take studio portraits of numerous cinematographers.

ARRI unveils L5 LED Fresnel

ARRI is pleased to announce the newest member of the LSeries: the compact and lightweight L5. The L-Series started with the L7: an LED Fresnel with the same light qualities as a traditional tungsten Fresnel but with the added features of full CCT tuneability and colour selection. The L5 now extends this successful line of products in a smaller, moreportable form. The L5 is approximately 45 per cent brighter than a 300W tungsten Fresnel, but only consumes 115W. When compared to the L7, the L5 is half the weight and size. In addition, the L5 maintains all the popular features of its larger sibling, including tuneability from 2,800K–10,000K; green/magenta correction; hue selection; saturation control; and on-board DMX for communication with third-party control products. New features available on the L5 include a PowerCON power connector and an on-board battery input that permits industry-standard batteries to power the L5 without any sacrifice in terms of features or light output. The resulting increase in portability opens up whole new application areas, giving productions with the L5 the tremendous freedom to move and work fast. The L5 comes in three versions: the L5-C (colour), L5TT (tungsten tuneable) and L5-DT (daylight tuneable). While the L5-C is the most versatile in regard to colour tuneability, the L5-TT and L5-DT are 25 per cent brighter than the L5-C and still offer a limited CCT tuning range. The L5 addition to the L-Series perfectly complements the L7, allowing for more mobile lighting and a wider range of power classes for television studios. Its compact size and low weight allow the L5 to be rigged in tight places and hung from low ceilings. The L5 is also ideal for cramped location shoots and interview setups. Low heat allows safer and more comfortable shooting conditions. This versatility and superb 34

Set & Light | Summer 2014

light quality make the L5 a highly anticipated addition to the award-winning L-Series family.

AURORA Aurora Lighting Hire stock update

Aurora Lighting Hire Ltd have extended their eve- increasing inventory to include the MAC Viper Performance, RUSH MH 3 Beam and MAC Quantum Wash. The MAC Viper is a full-feature framing fixture that delivers an output and performance never before seen in a fixture this size or one using so little power. Unlike other fixtures in this class, the MAC Viper Performance does not forgo an iris or animation wheel – they are both included along with a framing system and rotating gobos. The RUSH MH 3 Beam is a powerful beam moving head that blasts an intense and narrow long-throw beam for spectacular mid-air looks and effects. It houses a fixed gobo wheel and colour wheel with a multitude of effects possible from a dimmer, strobe effect, eight-facet prism and focus. And the Quantum features tight beams, beautiful wash fields, a market-leading colour palette and uniform mixing that combines to accommodate the most demanding applications, offering brightness and perfection. Combining an impressive 750W of RGBW LED power with Martin’s market-leading optical system ensures that the 1:6 zoom on the MAC Quantum Wash operates with maximum output and superior performance.

Sport Relief

Aurora are proud to have been the main supplier of lighting equipment and crew to all three of the main arenas for the BBC’s Sport Relief. Friday 21 March saw millions of viewers tune in to BBC One and BBC Two to enjoy an evening of fun, comedy, entertainment and sport live from the Copper Box Arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, hosted by David Walliams, Gary Lineker and Davina McCall. For Aurora, the main focus was to transform the arena from a sporting venue into a large-scale TV broadcast studio. Effectively, along with their production partners, they were challenged to transform the Copper Box into ‘TC1’ (the BBC’s now-defunct flagship studio and former host of Sport Relief).

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In-demand TV Lighting Director Gurdip Mahal was tasked with designing and overseeing lighting across all three of the live arenas. Gurdip was creatively supported by his team of console operators, including Russ Grubiak, Ian Reith and Martyn Rourke. The Copper Box had a substantial moving-light rig consisting of Martin Vipers, Martin Stagebars, Clay Paky Sharpys, VL2000 Washes and Super NovaFlowers. They also supplied all the tungsten lighting, dimming and an extensive mains distribution package, which included powering the outside broadcast facilities. During the week, they utilised the venue’s power and switched to twin-set generators for the rehearsal and broadcast day. For the velodrome and aquatics arenas, they tied in to the in-house field-of-play lighting systems and added to these rigs with ARRI HMI fixtures. Gurdip specified a large number of Martin MAC Aura LED Washes. Thanks to the amazing generosity of the British public, the current Sport Relief total stands at £53,370,743 and that money will change countless lives forever, both at home in the UK and across the world.

Performance have used an Avolites Sapphire Touch and Tiger Touch II to stage a concert as part of a specialist module on lighting design for live music. The students opted to take ‘The Concert Lighting Project’, which was offered in addition to their theatre lighting design courses by Rose Bruford Programme Director and Lighting Designer Hansjorg Schmidt. Avolites’ Head of Training Amy Schofield visited the college to demonstrate the Sapphire Touch and Tiger Touch II consoles, with specific lighting design for live music tuition from LD Dave ‘Bickie’ Lee, who has worked with high-profile pop acts including One Direction and Westlife. The students were tasked with creating a lighting design for a concert at Rose Bruford’s 150-capacity theatre, working together on lighting design and programming, and taking it in turns to control using the Avolites consoles on the night. The collaboration was part of Avolites’ ongoing relationship with schools and colleges, and echoes its commitment to training and support.

London Light merge with Aurora

On 19 May Avolites announced a restructuring of the board of directors, with Managing Director Richard Salzedo stepping back into the role of Director, and Steve Warren ascending to the role of Avolites Group MD. Founder shareholders Steve Warren, Richard Salzedo and Financial Director Meena Varatharajan purchased Avolites from previous owners Carlton TV in 1991. Since then, Richard has worked for Avolites as Research Engineer and R&D Director, overseeing hugely successful projects such as the Sapphire and industry-changing Avolites Pearl console before moving on to become Managing Director. He now hands the reigns of control to Steve, who started with Avolites in 1984 and in his 30 years with the company has been employed as Electrical Wireman, Test Engineer, Service Engineer, Technical Sales and, ultimately, Sales Director. Steve’s passion for integrating video with lighting control has driven the formation of Avolites Media Ltd and the purchase of the technology within the Ai servers. The capabilities of these have been showcased at the London 2012 Olympics, powering the world’s largest video screen, and again for the volumetric ‘LED Forest’ at the recent Sochi Winter Olympics.

Aurora has secured a deal with London Light Production Services Ltd: a UK-based theatre, corporate and special events lighting company. London Light’s rental business has merged fully under the Aurora umbrella with immediate effect. The coming together will benefit existing customers of both parties, with a new increased inventory pool. This integration, combined with substantial equipment investment, reflects the forward momentum at Aurora.

Aurora expand team

Aurora are pleased to welcome Graham Baskeyfield in the role of a Financial Consultant. Graham, through his company F in FD, will be supporting Nick Edwards and his team with the continued development and growth at the company. Primarily, Graham will be responsible for heading up Aurora’s in-house finance procedures, as well as taking on other special projects.

AVOLITES

Avolites – The next chapter!

Avolites Ltd appoint Fairlight BV as their exclusive distributor in the Netherlands

Avolites Ltd and Avolites Media Ltd have appointed Fairlight as their sole distributor for the Netherlands as of 1 May in their exciting new agreement. Their relationship with Fairlight goes back well over 20 years and the foundations they have built allow them to hit the ground running. Avolites have arranged dates for seminars, workshops and a comprehensive marketing campaign to expose the Titan and Ai platforms to the Dutch market.

Avolites supports the next generation of LDs at Rose Bruford College

Students at London’s Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Sponsor news

CLAY PAKY Clay Paky Sharpys beat the British weather for Celebrity Big Brother 2014

CHROMA-Q Chroma-Q Studio Force LEDs light multinational bank’s European HQ auditorium

The European headquarters of a leading multinational bank located at the heart of London’s Canary Wharf financial district has upgraded its video conference auditorium lighting to a cutting-edge LED system featuring Chroma-Q® Studio Force V 12™ premium performance fixtures. The building’s state-of-the-art technical facilities include a video conference auditorium featuring an HD broadcastquality studio environment and production suite. The facility is used regularly for the bank’s worldwide inter-branch presentations, as well as international conferences bringing together industry leaders, financial sponsors and investors to explore market and sector trends. When the bank was planning to install a new video wall at the front of the auditorium, it required a suitable lighting system that would not only provide good illumination of the stage area, but which was low maintenance, camera-friendly and would not create glare on the large video wall directly in front of the fixtures. After extensive testing ‘on camera’ in front of HD broadcast cameras to check for any issues with flickering or colour rendition, the bank’s technical team was impressed by the performance of the Chroma-Q Studio Force V 12 variable white LED fixtures. The extensive Chroma-Q Studio Force LED lighting range is designed to deliver the highest levels of performance from a lighting instrument for today’s most demanding TV, film, broadcast and studio applications. The bank’s auditorium lighting installation features a row of Studio Force V 12 fixtures fitted with the optional lightbank kit, to provide a softlight above the stage area that is not too bright for the audience or the person speaking, and does not reflect on to the video wall behind the stage. In addition, a second row of the fixtures is fitted with the optional diffuser box attachment, to provide a floodlight source that has been set to the perfect light level and beam angle via barn doors on the front of the units. 36

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This year, popular British TV series Celebrity Big Brother evicted each voted-out participant along a ‘catwalk of shame’ under the piercing, bright spotlight of the Clay Paky Sharpy. Prolific award-winning Lighting Designer Gurdip Mahal was tasked with providing a standout lighting design for the show, which was watched by more than three million viewers across the UK. Mahal opted for the high-impact effect of the Clay Paky Sharpy in order to deliver a strong rock concert-style atmosphere. Mahal used 32 Clay Paky Sharpys encased in watertight Clay Paky ‘IGLOO’ domes and positioned them in various locations outside and on top of the Big Brother house. One of the key challenges for Mahal was the weather. The show was filmed for six weeks over the UK winter so it was crucial that the Sharpys were kept dry. Mahal and Lighting Director Martyn Rourke worked with show gaffer James Tinsley to find the best option and elected to use Clay Paky polycarbonate IGLOO domes. Each dome is fitted with an automatic cooling and heating system and is designed to ensure that the projection remains flawless without any loss of light or any kind of image distortion.

Eurovision’s LD is ‘blown away’ by the power of Clay Paky

TV lighting designer extraordinaire Kasper Lange was ‘blown away’ by the power of the Clay Paky fixtures used in his highly efficacious lighting design for TV event of the year, Eurovision. Denmark-based Lange worked with Eurovision’s Creative Director Per Zachariassen to create a huge, structural lighting design that complemented the show’s titanic ‘diamond’ stage. Lange crafted a clean, architectural-lighting look that allowed the angular stage to ‘open and close’, creating a dynamic mix of open and intimate lighting looks. A crucial part of a much larger lighting rig, Lange specified 178 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330 fixtures to frame the set’s giant 110m by 30m LED back wall. The powerful punch of the Sharpy Wash added further definition to the wall, while reflecting the sharp lines of light that ran throughout the Eurovision set. In addition to the Sharpy Wash 330, Lange specified 32 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500s as part of the huge lighting package supplied by a collaboration of Danish hire outfit

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

Pictured: Eurovision LD Kasper Lange specified 178 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330 fixtures to frame the set’s LED back wall. Copyright: Ralph Larmann

LiteCom and global production house PRG. The Alpha Beam 1500 belongs to the special category of fully automated ACL fixtures. In addition to its high luminous efficiency (185,000 lux at 10m) the fixture also holds a powerful effects engine for shaping and animating the beam for intense long-distance and mid-air effects such as those seen in Lange’s Eurovision design. Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 thanks to Conchita Wurst with the song ‘Rise Like a Phoenix’, and now will organise the next edition of this great musical event.

The Clay Paky B-Eye goes for gold at Sochi Paralympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

World-renowned Lighting Designer Durham Marenghi has used a selection of Clay Paky products, including the new A.leda B-Eye K10 and Sharpy Washes, to deliver a truly spectacular lighting design for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of Sochi’s 2014 Winter Paralympics. With a stadium audience of over 40,000, plus tens of millions of viewers tuning in worldwide, the Winter Olympics have been a much-anticipated event. Marenghi used a lighting rig originally specified by Lighting Designer Al Gurdon for the Winter Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies to create a spectacular new design for the Paralympics Ceremonies.

The Sochi Paralympic Opening Ceremony was billed as a vibrant and captivating event focusing on the power of spirit and featured everything from live performances to Oscarwinner Aleksandr Petrov’s beautiful animation of the Firebird – a creature found in Russian fairytales. The show’s lighting was big, bold and bright in order to complement the enormity of the event and reflect the overcoming of barriers. The B-Eye K10 is one of the latest additions to Clay Paky’s LED-based moving light range A.leda. The awardwinning effects light offers both wash and beam effects, with individual LED control for each of the lights’ parameters. The B-Eye K10 has 19 individual LED light sources and features an unmatched optical system with a remarkable zoom range of 4–60 degrees.

The Knight of Illumination Awards announces launch of ‘KOI South Africa’

The Europe-based Knight of Illumination Awards, which celebrate outstanding achievements in lighting design, are expanding internationally with the launch of ‘KOI South Africa’ in 2015. Organisers Pio Nahum and Davide Barbetta from Clay Paky, Jennie and Durham Marenghi, and The Fifth Estate’s Sarah Rushton-Read announced that work is already in progress for next year’s debut South Africa KOI Awards, which will run alongside the trade event Mediatech in Johannesburg. Mediatech is scheduled for 15–17 July 2015 and the southern hemisphere event will run in addition to the existing London awards. The announcement comes hot on the heels of the launch of the European KOI Awards 2014, which will take place this autumn in the UK. Durham, an award-winning lighting designer in his own right and co-ordinator for the Knight of Illumination Awards, said: “The lighting industry increasingly receives huge support from companies across South Africa. We are keen to celebrate great lighting design wherever in the world that it is happening and we’re looking forward to working closely Set & Light | Summer 2014

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with our friends and colleagues in the region to create a KOI South Africa we can all be proud of.” Sarah, who serves as Chairman of the Concert Touring and Events category in the UK, adds: “Having visited South Africa on numerous occasions over the past few years, I’ve been inspired by the passion that exists there not only for lighting design, but for the industry as a whole. This makes it the ideal place to launch the sister event to the KOI Awards and I am delighted to be involved.” Details of the location, categories and date for the 2015 event will be revealed later in the year.

DOUGHTY Doughty Engineering receives Engineering Product of the Year accolade at ABTT

Doughty Engineering has been awarded the ABTT 2014 Theatre Award for Engineering Product of the Year, following the introduction of its new range of Drop Arms, T Bars and H Frames at this year’s show. The range of complementary modular products was showcased on the Doughty stand and has been designed to allow designers to quickly create robust and professional lighting or scenic structures of varying drops and shapes. The modular system is designed to provide a safe, flexible rigging method for suspending luminaires from a truss of fixed tubes and barrels, the wide range of configurations opening up the possibility for highly innovative lighting design.

Doughty Engineering operates within the NHS

Lighting Designer Philip Lyons is always on the lookout for new products that are well designed and premium engineered so when he was appointed to update the medical illustration departments – which provide images for use in treating patients, teaching and for publication – of two major hospitals in Bristol and London, he had no hesitation in specifying a full range of studio equipment from Doughty Engineering to help him fulfil his brief. Both St Thomas’ Hospital in London and North Bristol Hospital have existing departments that were outdated and needed to be brought up to health and safety standards. Relocation to new premises offered the opportunity to design photographic and video studios to meet the clients’ needs, both now and in the years ahead, to future-proof the investment. Lyons certainly rates Doughty’s ability to respond to a challenge: when a new piece of equipment was needed, Doughty quickly fabricated a prototype. There are constant design challenges for lighting designers, so it’s vital they have a partner who is able to treat such challenges as all-in-a-day’s work. If we can do this for our customers, then it’s a winwin situation for everyone.

ELP ELP supplied an enormous amount of lighting kit to US broadcaster NBC for the Sochi Winter Olympics, which took place during February. Three container loads left the 38

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UK laden with over 600 fixtures, including Fresnels, Kino Flo, Source 4s and PAR cans. “The amount of Socapex and rigging equipment we shipped was incredible,” said Project Manager John Singer. When it arrived at its destination, the equipment was handled by Lighting Design Group, which administered its deployment across multiple studios and sites. No sooner had the Winter Games ended, ELP were looking forward to servicing the BBC studio at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. LD Dave Gibson specified a studio equipment list from ELP that included 20 of ELP’s Source 4 LED fixtures. These gave Dave easy control over colour balancing within the Copacabana beach media compound. ELP also supplied an assortment of Fresnels, AVO ART dimmer racks and a Congo Junior control desk. Dave was also directing operations for the Normandy Beaches with ELP as part of the 70th D-Day Anniversary commemorations. A studio was set up, with the infamous beaches as the backdrop. ELP supplied all of the power for the media compound with their 110kW twinset generator and a 110kW Litepower generator. Barry Denison was ELP’s gaffer on site, with a four-man team to cover three studio locations. LD Rob Bradley travelled to France with the crew while Dave focused on design and planning back in Blighty. ELP’s involvement with The One Show continues as the production takes its daily magazine format on the road to be part of specials events and festivals around the country. Locations such as Glastonbury, Hay-on-Wye and the Isle of White played host to special outside broadcasts of the show. LD Dave Evans specified an assortment of ARRI fresnels, handheld lighting kits, Pixel Pars, Pixel Lines and Chromastrips. These were controlled via an ELP Road Hog Desk. An ELP generator travelled to some locations to provide site power. BBC News unveiled a new virtual-reality European Elections studio. Based at its Elstree site, within Studio D, the corporation transformed the space with a new virtual-reality tracking system to enable Jeremy Vine to engage BBC viewers with his inimitable analysis of the full election experience. The studio comprised a multi-camera set-up of 12 cameras, five of which were virtual-reality capable. ELP supplied Space Lights, LED lighting, and about 50 MR16 silver long-nose ‘Bridies’. ELP also supplied a 4m circular truss for the centre of the studio floor. The British Soap Awards have come round again at Hackney Empire to celebrate this successful TV genre. Stars from EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, among others, got the red-carpet treatment with the help of lighting by LD Nigel Catmur and kit supplied by ELP. Moving lights were out in force, with ELP supplying Sharpys, VL 1000 TSDs, Martin MAC 700 Wash and MAC TW1. LED fixtures included Thomas Pixel Pars and MAC

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Auras. Over 50 trusty long-nose PAR cans made an appearance, with three Robert Juliet 2.5K follow spots.

ETC ETC Ion® takes over Billy Elliot London: Original production moves to new ETC control system

The original production of the hit musical Billy Elliot, still at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre almost a decade after making its debut there, has moved the show’s lighting to a new control system based around ETC’s popular Ion® control console. The new desk has replaced a Strand desk that ran the show since it opened, continuing the trend of long-running shows updating their control systems to ETC products to ensure continued trouble-free performance night after night. “Our previous desk served us well,” said the show’s Lighting Designer, Rick Fisher, who won a Tony® Award for his work on the show on Broadway and a Helpmann Award for the production in Australia, “but with the show continuing to enjoy success in London, and with new productions planned elsewhere, it seemed to make sense to move the show onto a newer platform that was receiving ongoing support from its manufacturer. We knew the Ion was more than capable of running the show since it had already been used on our American tours, and we knew our supplier, White Light, had Ions available, so it just became the obvious choice.” The challenge of the changeover was that the show’s busy rehearsal schedule meant there would be little stage time and no lighting-specific dress rehearsal for the new system. After careful checking, and a few proving sessions on an empty stage, its first full performance would be in front of a paying audience. The task of transferring Associate Lighting Designer/Programmer Vic Smerdon’s work to the new system was therefore handed to programmer Rob Halliday, who combined his familiarity with both control platforms to ensure the changeover went smoothly and that each moment of the show’s precise lighting was accurately recreated. The show now runs from an ETC Ion console, plus a fader wing and a touchscreen, with an RPU (Remote Processor Unit) rack-mounted as backup. Two ETC Net3 Gateways convert the Streaming ACN data back to DMX for distribution to the show’s rig of Source Four® fixtures, Source Four Revolution® automated fixtures, generic PAR cans and colour scrollers, among others. The show crew now has an iPod touch running ETC’s iRFR software – supporting the Light Relief lighting charity – to allow them to control the rig from on stage. ETC assisted with the handover by providing an Eos Ti control desk for use at the production desk during the proving sessions. Directed by Stephen Daldry and choreographed by Peter Darlin – both reprising their roles from the film from which the musical was adapted – Billy Elliot was written by the film’s author, Lee Hall, with the music composed by Elton John. The show was designed by Ian MacNeil, with costumes designed by Nicky Gillibrand, lighting by Rick Fisher, sound by Paul Arditti, musical supervision and orchestrations by Martin Koch, and associate direction by Julian Webber. The London production opened in May 2005 and the show has subsequently been seen

in Australia, New York, Canada, on tour around the US and in Brazil. Rehearsals have just started for the next production, due to open in Holland later this year. The show now joins many other West End productions running on Eos® family control systems, including The Bodyguard: The Musical, The Book of Mormon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Les Misérables, Once, The Woman in Black, Spamalot and War Horse, plus the repertoires of the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House and English National Opera.

ETC Eos Ti starts a trend on the West End

ETC’s Eos Titanium (Ti) lighting control system has been taking over the programming duties on a growing number of London’s top shows, with more lighting professionals choosing the power and flexibility that the desk offers. Vicky Brennan programmed the lighting for Stephen Ward: The Musical at the Aldwych Theatre on a Ti desk. The show’s set was incredibly complicated and required custom circular lighting trusses for the lighting fixtures. That created a challenge for the lighting team, who had to devise a plan to number the rig so that the lighting designer, programmer, production electricians and show crew could all understand it. Ti’s Magic Sheets function was the answer. Ti’s multi-touch screens meant that Vicky could pinch and pull the plan to focus in on the useful areas to ascertain the relevant channel information. The set design included several curtains used like gauze throughout the show, sometimes serving as a wall and other times as a window. As the curtains were moved along tracks for different scenes, Lighting Designer Peter Mumford wanted to follow their paths with PAR can lighting, which meant a complex formula of timing, speed and direction. Here, Magic Sheets became a useful tool, as they could keep track of changes to the lights in real time without needing to consistently plunge the stage into darkness. The Magic Sheets also simplified the transition of the show from Brennan’s team to the Aldwych Theatre’s house crew. While Stephen Ward was on in the West End, it was run off an ETC Eos® console with a backup Ion® desk, and the lighting staff were able to use the Magic Sheets for troubleshooting, without having to rely on a paper plan, as they would have in the past. Stephen Ward’s lighting rig included moving lights, LEDs and conventional fixtures rented from ETC dealer PRG. Some of the fixtures were new to some staff, but Ti’s troubleshooting allowed the in-house staff to quickly identify and fix issues. Ti’s ability to control such a complex lighting design proved indispensable on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Set and Costume Designer Peter McKintosh designed a printed backdrop that was lit from behind by a wall of LED panels. Lighting Designer Howard Harrison wanted to use the screen not just as a backlit cloth, but to experiment with colour and texture as the show progressed.

GREEN HIPPO New exclusive Hippotizer distributor signed

In March, Green Hippo welcomed Luzeiro to their distribution Set & Light | Summer 2014

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network as exclusive Hippotizer distributors for Portugal. Founded in 1981 and signed by Technical Manager Sarah Cox, Luziero is involved in the theatre, dance and TV market and works with partners in sound, video and cinema to fulfil their needs. Over the years, Luzeiro has aimed to be one step ahead of its client’s needs, working with prestigious brands. Their range of products has continued to grow, from lighting fixtures to dimmers, consoles, cabling, rigging, curtains and scenic cloths, as well as dance floors, truss, scenic paints, sound, video, screens and effects, and extending to professional makeup and more. Luzeiro works closely with the architects and project managers, helping them to choose the best solutions and so avoid the frequent mistakes and discrepancies that happen when projecting an idea without full knowledge of the equipment and solutions. Luzeiro can also advise, sell, install, repair and maintain, keeping its clients near in order to help them grow and fulfil their needs.

the indie rockers for the last five years, during which time they have steadily gained a solid live fan base and a cult following. It’s the first time that Oliver – whose other clients currently include Plan B, Chvrches and Five Seconds of Summer – has worked on a full production tour with HSL as a supplier. Oliver discussed various visual concepts ahead of the tour with Tour Manager Mike Finn and the band’s documentary videographer Tom Welsh. The band wanted a ‘video look’ to the stage, and as Oliver wanted to make a bit of a statement with this, they decided to go for a high-impact upstage screen, choosing a 40ft wide by 15ft high Martin LC 20 surface. The screen was hung in a slight curve to give additional depth. The video content that ran throughout most of the set was created by Oliver and Welsh. It’s an interesting mix of re-edited and reworked documentary footage from the band’s extensive archive, together with new material produced for the tour. All this was programmed into two Green Hippo Hippotizer ‘stage’ media servers, which were timecode controlled and fired via Oliver’s grandMA2 light console.

Hippotizer GrassHoppers find new home at Phlippo in Belgium

HSL has The X Factor Live!

With a 50-year history in the industry, Phlippo has become one of the biggest competitors in the Benelux area for equipment hire and full production support. Phlippo provides both dry rental of all its equipment, as well as full production support for everything from musical productions, TV shows and dance events, to touring productions, festivals and corporate events. Phlippo consists of two companies: a rental branch, Phlippo Rental, which deals with rental activities, and Phlippo Productions, which works on all the production support. Offering a wide variety of equipment, including moving lights and control desks (Clay Paky, Vari*Lite, Martin, Robe, Highend Systems), video (2000sqm of LED screens) and sound (Digico , L’acoustics, Martin Audio), Phlippo has, after careful consideration, decided to add Hippotizer to its product range. Having recently purchased two Hippotizer GrassHopper media servers, Phlippo chose to use these units immediately at the prestigious Jim TV Awards on 26–27 May. Jim TV is a high-profile Belgian music channel that hosts an annual award show, known as ‘The Jimmies’, which is broadcast live on national TV. Phlippo supplied all the video, light and sound equipment for this event, including its two new Green Hippo GrassHoppers. The GrassHoppers were used to feed content to four 16mm LED screens and one 10mm screen. One machine was used as the ‘live’ machine, while the other GrassHopper was running parallel as a backup and the set-up was being controlled externally with an MA2-Light desk.

HSL A date with You Me At Six

HSL supplied lighting and LED screen to the UK leg of the new You Me At Six ‘Cavalier Youth’ tour. The tour featured an inventive lighting design by Louis Oliver, who has worked with 40

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Blackburn UK lighting and visuals rental specialist HSL had a busy spring season supplying numerous tours, including The X Factor Live UK arena tour, which ran for seven weeks, allowing fans of the popular TV series to see a selection of the 2013 series finalists, including the winner, Sam Bailey, perform live. Lighting for the show – which is produced by Syco Music, with technical production co-ordinated by Production North – was designed by Peter Barnes. Lighting Director and operator on the road is Jonathan Rouse, and all the lighting equipment and its necessary trussing and rigging is supplied by HSL. Barnes and Rouse programmed the show – which features an impressive array of 34 different musical numbers – during production rehearsals at LS Live in Wakefield. Their challenge was to keep it visually exciting throughout and give each song a different look and feel – a result that has been achieved with some considerable style using a dynamic mix of fixtures, meticulous programming and perfect timing. Barnes and Rouse worked closely with the tour’s Creative Director Beth Honan, who choreographed the show, which features 12 dancers. Honan also commissioned the video content, which adds several layers of depth to the picture as lighting and video work harmoniously together.

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Iain Whitehead from Production North was also involved in the technical evolution and stage set design, which features stairs, lifts and trap doors, a thrust and a B stage – all elements which help keep up the pace and spectacle!

HSL provides The Link

HSL supplied 30 Clay Paky Sharpies and 30 Jarag lighting fixtures to Lighting Designer Tom Kinane for the new BBC One quiz show series of The Link. The first 25 episodes of the show was recorded in Studio A at BBC Scotland in Glasgow and produced by STV Productions. Presented by Mark Williams (of Harry Potter fame) and directed by Julian Smith, the show sees three teams race against time to find the link between questions and, in the process, their daring, strategy and teamwork is rewarded. Kinane has lit a diversity of quiz shows in his career, and for this one, his creative starting point was Chris Webster’s set design, which had a heavy LED presence. This partly influenced his choice of lighting fixtures, and the Jarags in particular were picked to provide a super-bright tungsten source that would contrast with the LEDs. Kinane’s team included Moving Light Operator Max Conwell, who programmed on his own ChamSys console. Richard Jarvis Lighting provided the lighting technicians, including Chief Tech Daniel Kinane. The Crew Chief was John Adamson, and the generic and white lights were operated by Richard Jarrett, both from BBC Scotland’s in-house lighting crew.

and hands-on experience. ICER was officially opened in May by King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. The Jands Vista S1 is connected to a touch-screen computer and partnered with a 1,024-channel DMX dongle to control a rig of 48 Chroma-Q® Inspire™ premium performance LED house lights, which wash a diverse and vibrant colour palette across areas of the space, transforming the atmosphere and mood every few metres. Despite its compact size, the S1’s feature-set includes five playbacks comprising of faders and flash buttons, a complete programming section with three encoder wheels, a rotary master fader and two LCD displays. In addition to the colour washes, the S1 controls lighting for the multimedia shows, which demonstrate new products such as 3D printing and robot and solar-powered car research. The S1 includes two DMX outputs to connect to lights and dimmers, a timecode input so shows can be synced up to other devices, and a midi input that accepts midi show control and midi timecode. The Light Connection’s partner, ‘Hendriksen bv’ from Terborg, installed the Jands Vista S1 at ICER. Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include The Smiler rollercoaster launch at Alton Towers in the UK, international concert tours by Peter Gabriel and Bloc Party, and the Raymond Gubbay ‘Christmas Spectacular’ at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

JANDS

HARMAN’s Martin Professional

Jands Vista S1 controls immersive lighting for new museum educational initiative

HARMAN’s Martin Professional announces winner of annual Young Lighting Designer contest

Jands’ compact yet powerful Vista S1 console has been specified to control dynamic light shows and changing immersive atmospheres at a state-of-the-art innovation centre in the Netherlands. Thousands of schoolchildren are expected to visit the new ‘Innovation, Creation, Education and Recreation’ (ICER) museum, which was founded by the local government, several schools, artists and local businesses to provide an innovation centre for young people and other visitors interested in the technical industry. Housed in an old factory, ICER is an exciting and futuristic space built for education

HARMAN’s Martin Professional today announced Garou Blancan as the winner of its 2014 Professional Young Lighting Designer contest. Throughout the month of February, young amateur lighting designers from around the world competed for a chance to win by programming their ultimate show to a music track of their choice and submitting it to the Martin Facebook page. Blancan was

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presented as the winner during the 2014 Martin Professional Prolight + Sound press conference. Blancan, a 25-year-old Belize-born Canadian, has been awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2014 Prolight + Sound Expo in Frankfurt Germany, and a Martin MG20™ lighting controller. The MG20 is a powerful yet compact controller that is easy to use and offers 10 fader playbacks, an external video screen, effects generator and a host of other features. The winner was chosen through a simple process: Facebook users voted for their favourite shows and the three shows with the most votes were then judged by a three-person panel consisting of last year’s winner, Brad Helzer, Martin Professional’s Global Product and Application Specialist, Theis Wermuth, and Pelletier. The contest also awarded prizes for the second- and third-place winners. As the second-place winner, Ricardo Dias of Portugal was awarded Martin’s M2PC™ control surface, which delivers a professional suite of features directly from any PC. The third-place winner, Mihail Kisiov of Bulgaria, won a Martin USB Duo DMX Interface, which offers XLR 5P female connectors and provides two DMX 512 universes from any USB-enabled Windows-based PC.

HARMAN’s Martin Professional at 2014 Paralympic Games for creative lighting and mid-air effects

To celebrate the historic 2014 Paralympic Games, rental company Euroshow provided HARMAN’s Martin lighting systems for a special programme featuring an ice show at Russia’s Yubileny Sport Palace in St Petersburg. The programme was held before the final stage of the Torch Relay. Lighting Designer Alexey Yevstifeyev, who deployed Martin fixtures based on their functionality and brightness, proposed the lighting concept of the show to feature creative lighting and mid-air effects, consisting of 20 MAC Viper Profiles, 12 Atomic 3000 DMX, 20 RUSH MH3 Beams, 48 MAC 101s and 20 MAC 2000 Wash XBs. The ice show took place at the Yubileny Sport Palace’s hockey rink, with the main challenge being the limited time for installation. Taking this factor into consideration, Yevstifeyev used a combined truss mounting and floor mounting system. By placing the MAC 101 fixtures on the floor around the rink, he was able to create a beautiful display with compact and extremely fast LED wash lights, emphasising the artist’s movements through the reflection effects.

HARMAN’s Martin Professional announces Leading Technologies as exclusive distributor of Martin lighting solutions in Italy

HARMAN’s Martin Professional has appointed Leading Technologies as the exclusive distributor of Martin products in Italy. Leading Technologies has been working with HARMAN since 1995 and this partnership will serve to enhance the sales, distribution and support of Martin Professional lighting solutions in the Italian market. HARMAN’s Martin Professional have changed their minds about the future of the TW1. After recently announcing that they would stop manufacture of their popular tungsten wash light, the TW1, they have had so many pleas from the Save Tungsten movement that they have reconsidered their decision. Martin Professional’s UK Sales Director Mike Walker said they had been so impressed with people’s concern and affection for the TW1 that they had now decided to continue production for the foreseeable future.

PANALUX Tektile®2 by Panalux

The Panalux TekTile®2 is a super-efficient, slimline BiColour illumination solution created by Panalux exclusively for the film, television and entertainment media industries. It features instantly-variable colour temperature from 3,000K to 5,800K, with no shift in light output throughout the transition, via an onboard Tektile®2 controller or when used in conjunction with Panalux F-stop® 8way Controller units The impressive specification of these new high-quality, highoutput fixtures includes: mains or battery power; local or DMX control; fully dimmable with no shift in correlated colour temperature; Panalux F-Stop® compatible; choice of mounting options; range of accessories, and optional wireless control – all housed within a sleek aluminium unit weighing just 2.5kg. Simple to operate and just 30mm deep, Tektile®2 is perfect as an effective, balanced ‘solo’ soft light, or it can be connected to any number of additional fixtures to create unique modular lighting systems providing flexible, practical illumination solutions that you control. Created by, and only available from, Panalux, a worldleading source of lighting equipment and ideas, the Tektile® family of fittings are available now at your local Panalux base.

HiLo by Panalux

HiLo is a unique softsource fixture designed and built by Panalux: a world-leading creator of lighting solutions developed specifically for the film, television and entertainment media industries. Forming part of Panalux’s exclusive range of low-energy creative lighting products and systems, HiLo is perfect for large-scale spacelight installations or as a stand-alone, controllable softlight, combining flexibile operation with energy-efficient cost savings of up to 90 per cent to easily outperform more traditional products. 42

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Producing a soft, diffused, uniform light with a single shadow, HiLo can be used individually or in multiples to provide incredibly consistent illumination; and with local control or remote operation via DMX, output intensity is easily managed, evenly, from 0–100 per cent, with colour temperature governed progressively between 3,000K and 6,000K. For added flexibility, HiLo can be used in conjunction with a selection of accessories, including eggcrates and conventional spacelight textiles. The unit is also fully compatible with modern camera systems, including Panavision, Red and Alexa. The Panalux energy-efficient range of proprietary lighting solutions, including HiLo, was recently welcomed by some of the world’s largest productions, including Guardians of the Galaxy, Mordecai and Exodus, where fixtures have been an integral factor in the production design process.

PHILIPS

a non-profit foundation that provides a financial safety for music industry personnel, which runs concurrent with the annual GRAMMY Awards. This year, on the back end of that event, producers also wanted to present the televised tribute to The Beatles, and so Firestone and his team were asked to reconfigure the lighting rig and be prepared to roll cameras in less than two days.

Philips Strand Lighting 250ML ‘super-efficient’ Control Console saves the day for Stark Films

For 26 years, Stark Films has been one of South Africa’s leading independent television production companies and its skilled resident Lighting Designer Chris Gardner recently turned to the efficiency and reliability of the Philips Strand Lighting 250ML Control Console for the studio’s muchneeded upgrade. The incredibly intuitive and easy-to-use Strand Lighting 250ML console provides designers with intelligent fixture control and can control 250 channels for dimmers and 30 automated luminaires for moving lights and LEDs. Looks can be stored as either submasters for easy access or cues for traditional theatre playback.

Philips Selecon provides ‘amazing’ LED upgrade for prime-time TV studio Red Pepper

Vari-Lite helps commemorate the night that changed America

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Recording Academy®, AEG Ehrlich Ventures and CBS presented The Beatles: The Night That Changed America – A GRAMMY® Salute. Featuring many of today’s top artists performing songs made famous by the seven-time GRAMMY Award-winning group, the production also included footage from that landmark Sunday evening, along with various presenters discussing the worldwide impact of The Beatles. Behind the scenes, it was Designer Matt Firestone who was charged with bringing the events lighting to life while working on an extremely tight production schedule, which he did, relying on VL3500 Wash, VL3000 Spot and VL3500 Spot luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite. For the last six years, Firestone has been involved with a GRAMMY Foundation fundraising event for MusiCares:

Award-winning Set Designer Michael Gill recently worked alongside Lighting Designers Joshua Cutts and Francois van der Merwe on South African TV studio Red Pepper’s ambitious upgrade project, specifying the remarkable LED technology of Philips Selecon Studio Panels, SPX Zoomspot and PLcyc1 luminaires for three new prime-time game shows. Red Pepper’s CEO Cecil Barry and Facilities Manager Marius Maritz (pictured right) joined forces with Gill, Cutts and van der Merwe to come up with a revolutionised set design and optimised LED lighting rig, including 14 Philips Selecon Studio Panels, six Philips Selecon PLcyc1 luminaires and eight Philips Selecon SPX Zoomspot luminaires, supplied by DWR Distribution (of whom Schalk Botha is pictured left), for the studios in Linden, Melville and Braamfontein. The Philips Selecon Studio Panel’s variable colour temperature works from 2,700K up to 6,000K using a mixture of amber and white LEDs. In addition, it is ideal for studio and location lighting as it can be transported around easily and can be powered on location by the camera alone. Set & Light | Summer 2014

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The Red Pepper upgrade project began in 2013 when the studios gained a new client, Connect, who planned to produce the three new game shows – Bounce, Ka Ching and Cula Sibone – to be aired during prime time from Monday to Thursday on the Mzansi Magic and Mzansi Wethu Channel. Red Pepper, therefore, needed a cutting-edge LED rig to deliver fantastic quality lighting for the new shows and so turned to the versatile and powerful Philips Selecon PLcyc1 and SPX Zoomspot luminaires.

PLASA Processing fees as low as 2.6 per cent from AMEX

PLASA Membership is pleased to offer a new programme with American Express that will offer members a processing fee as low as 2.6 per cent, effective immediately. With over 107.2 million cards in force, PLASA members that accept American Express have an edge over their competition and, with this new rate, can save significantly on their annual operating costs. In addition, members have also reported higher customer loyalty and increased business because of the convenience. Those with offices in the United States are encouraged to start saving today and sign your company on to accept American Express. For members who already accept American Express, getting the new rate is easy. PLASA’s membership team will walk you through it step by step and you can begin to save money immediately. Email membership.na@plasa.org or call +1 212 244 1505 to get started.

New European dates for PLASA Focus

PLASA Focus is set to debut in two new European locations in 2014 – Brussels in November and Glasgow in December. PLASA Events will lay down roots in two iconic European cities later this year. PLASA Focus events in Brussels and Glasgow represent a new era for the regional show format, which launched in Leeds, UK, in 2009. Having already expanded to various North American cities, PLASA Focus: Brussels and PLASA Focus: Glasgow will answer market demand for more European events. PLASA Focus: Brussels takes place at The Square Meeting Centre on 3–4 November. The show, which will attract visitors from across the Benelux region, has already received over 70 exhibitor applications. Those confirmed include Highlite, Robe, Chauvet, Shure, TMB, Soundsystem BVBA, EMD Music, XLR, Elation, Altman Lighting and Total Solutions. The following month, PLASA Focus: Glasgow will be held at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) on 2–3 December. As the first show of its kind in Scotland for five years, it is being warmly welcomed by the entertainment technology industry. This has been reflected in the number of applicants: over 50 exhibitor applications have been submitted, with companies such as Polar Audio, Stage Electrics, Avolites, FBT, SSE Audio, Blacklight, LMC Audio, Robe and Ambersphere already confirmed.

PLASA to host pre-LDI party for Behind the Scenes PLASA has announced it will host the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour – a pre-LDI party with music, food and drinks – from 44

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6pm–8pm on Thursday 20 November at The Las Vegas Hotel. The goal of Behind the Scenes Happy Hour is not only to throw a great party but also to raise money for Behind the Scenes, which provides financial support to entertainment technology professionals when they are ill or injured or to their surviving family members. Funds are granted, which can be used towards medical care, basic living costs or funeral expenses. Behind the Scenes, an initiative of the PLASA Foundation (formerly the ESTA Foundation), brings help and hope in times of great need. At this time, it will replace the Rock Our World Awards and Cocktail Reception, as that programme is being evaluated and updated for the future.

PRG PRG for the BRIT Awards 2014

PRG were pleased to work with Lighting Designer Dave Davey and Production Managers Kate Wright and Lisa Shenton to supply the lighting for the spectacular BRIT Awards at London’s O2 Arena on Wednesday 19 February. With a strong working relationship with both the LD and Production Managers, PRG provided a seamless lighting package for each stage of the event. 2014 was Davey’s first year lighting the BRIT Awards, where he was tasked with lighting the main stage, audience and specific band performances. Davey managed to create a unique show for every performance, with the stage transformed between each act – among them, Artic Monkeys; Beyoncé; Bastille and Rudimental; Pharrell & Nile Rodgers; Ellie Goulding; Katy Perry; Disclosure, Lorde & AlunaGeorge; and Bruno Mars. For the main show, PRG provided: 44 Best Boys, 257 Sharpy Beams, 24 Sharpy Washes, 39 Alpha Beam 700, 24 VL3500 Spots, 54 VL3500 Washes, Atomic and SGM LED strobes and a control system of Hog 4 and Compulite Vector. The show was project managed by Mark Davies for PRG.

PRG provides the ultimate lighting solution for Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall

2014’s Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) at the Royal Albert Hall has yet again seen a string of hugely successful performances given by some of the world’s most popular concert touring artists, including Ed Sheeran, The Cure, Suede and Paolo Nutini, along with an evening of comedy hosted by Jason Manford. As has been the case for many years, Production Resource Group (PRG) provided a skilled team of expert crew along with a comprehensive lighting and rigging package. The chock-full week of TCT events, which supports young people with cancer, has now been running for 14 years and is supported bycelebrities including rock legend Roger Daltrey. Torrington’s tailored floor and specials package augments the RAH’s existing rig and comprised: 30 VL3000 Spots, six

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VL3500 Washes, 12 Sharpys, Atomic Colours, GLP ImpressionRZ120 and Sunstrips, as well as Mbox Extreme Media Servers and several Whole Hog Full Boars. PRG also manufactured and supplied 12 sponsorship gobos, which were used to project TCT’s logos onto the hall’s acoustic mushrooms.

PULSAR Pulsar and A.C. Special Projects deliver exterior LED lighting scheme to Madame Tussauds

Pulsar Light of Cambridge (Pulsar) supplied A.C. Special Projects (ACSP) with an energy-efficient, bespoke colourchanging LED lighting solution for the façade of Madame Tussauds London. An international brand, with 154 locations including New York, Sydney, Hollywood and Hong Kong as well as London, Madame Tussauds gives guests the chance to get up close to some of the world’s most famous stars, combining glitz and glamour with incredible history. ACSP were tasked with creating an energy-friendly, flexible architectural lighting solution to help bring the exterior of the attraction to life at night, making it the focal point of its location. It was led by ACSP Project Manager Lance Bromhead, who said: “Up until now, Madame Tussauds London had minimal exterior lighting. The attraction was looking for a versatile solution where lighting could be set to suit different events in its calendar – for instance, washing the building in red, blue and white to mark the birth of the Royal Baby.” To achieve the desired results, nine Pulsar ChromaFlood 200 IP66 TriColour floodlights were specified by ACSP. These are used to dramatically uplight the column features of the building’s façade. In addition, eight ChromaBatten 200 IP66 TriColour battens are used to uplight the flat rendered panels in between. The result is a scheme that can bring dynamic colour-changing or fixed-colour looks to the facia of the building as required. Each fixture is individually controllable via a Pharos system with a built-in astronomical clock. ACSP also supplied Pulsar’s ChromaStrip X3 LED strips to deliver lighting from inside the refurbished sphere on top of the building’s famous domed roof, and a 6,000K coolwhite Pulsar ChromaFlood 200 to illuminate the Madame Tussauds London signage on the side of the building façade.

RML Kicking off the summer

Since Soccer AM first started in 1995 it has developed a cult following, with generations of young men spending their Saturday morning in front of the TV to tune into features such as ‘Can He Kick It?’, ‘Big Tackle’, ‘Fan of the Week’, ‘Third Eye’, not to mention the Soccerettes! In addition to the weekly TV show hosted by Helen Chamberlain and Max Rushden, every year Soccer AM also hosts a live event with music and special guests. This year it included performances from legends Soul II Soul and rapper Tinchy Stryder. Long-term LD Malcolm Reed designed the show, which was supported by Richard Martin Lighting (RML). Malcolm always sees this show as an opportunity to use the latest products available and this year was no different: the rig included Sharpys, Nexus 4x4s, Jarag-Ls and our most recent purchase, the Clay Pay A.leda B-EYE K20. The latter’s zoom ranges from four to 60 degrees and it is therefore suitable both for environments with low ceilings such as small theatres and TV studios, where large angles are extremely useful, and for shows in arenas or large environments, where a tight zoom is perfect.

Girls get in line

Everyone loves a good dating show, whether it be to re-live the days when you were single and carefree, because you’re looking for love, too, or purely for the entertainment factor. Just look at shows like Blind Date or Take Me Out – if you get it right then you are on to a winner! ITV Studios and GroupM Entertainment are the latest to have a go at mastering the format with new show Stand by Your Man, which began airing on Channel 5 in June. The show is hosted by cheeky Irish singer (and some might say ladies’ man!) Brian McFadden and co-hosted by rising star Laura Jackson. The show sees four male contestants being put through their paces in a series of fun games and challenges, each revealing more and more about their personalities. At the same time, 40 girls from the studio audience will decide which guy they like the most and stand in his line. The guy with the most girls in his line will then get to choose his favourite girl to take out on a date. Filming for the show took place at Dock 10, Salford. The lighting was designed by Roger Williams and provided by Richard Martin Lighting (RML). The studio set is designed to look like a bar/nightclub – somewhere all too familiar for those searching for a date. This meant that Roger could be bright and brave with his chosen look, which is just what he did. The lighting spec included VL1000TS, MAC Aura, ROBIN 100 LEDBeams, Alpha Spot 700s and Chroma Battens. In addition to that, one of the main lighting features was the Chauvet Nexus 4x4.

Celebrating science

This year Richard Martin Lighting (RML) will be celebrating 30 years in the industry: a huge achievement and one we are certainly very proud of. Part of the key to our success has Set & Light | Summer 2014

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been evolving with changes in the industry and building relationships with other rental houses and their staff. Those relationships have always been something that is very important to us, as is the whole ethos of working together to get the job done well, so when we were approached by Wise Productions to assist them in lighting a special anniversary dinner at the British Science Museum, we jumped at the chance. The building is steeped in history and to work in such an iconic building is always such a thrill. Pixel Par 90s were used to wash the walls – in fact, almost every surface, and as you can see by the pictures, they gave a real depth of colour and richness to the room. The advances in LED technology mean they are the perfect fixture to have in large numbers in a room such as this one at the Science Museum. The room won’t get too overheated, so guests can enjoy their dinner and evening.

Goodness Gracious Me

This year is a year of celebrations! Not only are Richard Martin Lighting (RML) celebrating 30 years in the industry, BBC Two is celebrating 50 years of comedy. The channel has aired some of the most iconic comedy shows of recent years, including Goodness Gracious Me, the British Asian hit show, which has been revived for a one-off special. The comedy, which starred Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia, was a major hit for the BBC in the late 1990s. The format, which started life as a Radio 4 show in 1996, ran for three series on BBC Two, and the stars also toured the most popular characters via a live theatre show. The programme was widely praised for its funny scripts and also for helping to bring British Indian culture to a mainstream audience, making it the perfect choice to be remade as part of the celebration. Chris Kempton was instated as the LD and chose Pixel Par 90s, Alpha Spot 700 HPE, Chroma Batten 50 kits and Robe ROBIN 600 LED Wash for the sketch show, which was filmed in front of a live studio audience at Teddington Studios, London. The special was shown as part of BBC Two’s 50th anniversary programming, which also included a look back at The Fast Show, one of the channel’s other hit sketch shows.

lighting designer, his company, Woodroffe Bassett Design, are acting lighting consultants for the entire Battersea Power Station development project, where their brief involves ensuring that there is continuity across the lighting of all architectural and environmental elements. The Elton John gig was project managed for Woodroffe Bassett by Terry Cook, who was also the Associate LD, and for Colour Sound by Steve Marley.

ROBE

Robe announces technical partnership with RADA

Battersea gets powered by Elton John and Robe

Battersea Power Station Development Company, on behalf of its shareholders, SP Setia, Sime Darby and Employees Provident Fund, hosted a concert by Sir Elton to thank everyone helping to make the development of the iconic power station a reality. The event featured a lighting design by Patrick Woodroffe, with Robe moving lights on the rig and equipment supplied by west London-based Colour Sound Experiment. Fifteen LEDWash 300s were joined by six LEDWash 600s and 12 LEDWash 1200s, eight Pointes and eight MMX Spots, all from Robe’s ROBIN series. A glittering array of celebrities turned out in force to attend and they and a capacity audience of 2,500 were treated to a rousing 90-minute set of Elton’s classics. As well as Patrick Woodroffe being Elton’s long-term 46

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Robe Lighting is proud to be working with London’s worldfamous Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), supplying technical equipment and resources. The arrangement was driven by Josef Valchar, Robe s.r.o.’s CEO; Ashley Lewis, Robe UK’s Key Account Manager for Film, TV & Theatre, and Matt Prentice, Head of Lighting at RADA. RADA has taken delivery of a number of moving-light products from Robe’s current ranges, which were selected by Matt as especially appropriate to theatre productions, following a visit to Robe’s HQ in the Czech Republic. The equipment includes DLS Profiles, DLF Washes and LEDWash 600s, together with two of the new MMX Blades – all from Robe’s ROBIN series. The lights will be used across RADA’s three main performance spaces: the 200-seater Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, the George Bernard Shaw Theatre (GBS) and the John Gielgud Theatre, all in RADA’s central London buildings.

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It will also provide very convenient locations for Robe to stage demonstrations, showcases and training sessions. RADA offers vocational training for actors, stage managers, directors, designers and technical stage-craft specialists and has built an outstanding reputation for excellence, offering the best possible teaching facilities and strong links with the industries associated with its graduates.

American distribution arm of special effects manufacturer Le Maitre, serving as President and Director of Sales.

ROSCO Roscolux #359 keeps giving to Behind the Scenes

Robe USA strengthens technical support team

Czech Republicbased lighting manufacturer Robe Lighting has strengthened its technical service department in the United States with the addition of industry professional Ambrose Gumbs, who has joined the company as Technical Service Department Manager. With increased sales and product recognition, Robe’s goal is to provide clients with first-rate technical support as the company continues to expand. Gumbs was most recently with Martin Professional for nearly 14 years, where he started out as bench technician and soon specialised in lighting console and PCB repairs. As a member of the technical support and training team, Gumbs has extensive industry experience and is excited to be joining the Robe family.

Robe Lighting appoints John McDowell as Central Region U.S. Sales Manager

Czech Republicbased lighting manufacturer Robe Lighting has appointed John McDowell as Regional Sales Manager of the Central United States, effective 7 April. McDowell, based in Austin, Texas, was most recently with Creative Stage Lighting as Western Regional Sales Manager. Due to higher sales volume and a wide range of popular products, Robe Lighting is expanding its reach in the U.S. under new CEO Bob Schacherl. This is the second new sales appointment to be announced in recent weeks in order to provide Robe clients with the excellent sales support and enhanced customer service that is expected. McDowell has more than 25 years’ experience in sales management with two automated lighting manufacturers, High End Systems and Vari-Lite. He also helped establish the North

Rosco Laboratories and The ESTA Foundation are pleased to announce the sixth annual presentation by Rosco of the royalty check from the sales of Roscolux #359 Medium Violet to Behind the Scenes, the charity that assists entertainment technology professionals in need due to serious illness or injury. Ed Donohue, President of Rosco – North America, said: “You have to have people you can count on, to know someone’s got your back. Behind the Scenes provides that support when it’s needed most – you guys are there for everyone. That’s not only admirable, it’s critical – and that’s why it’s so important to us that every year, we have your back. This year, Rosco is pleased to present you with the proceeds from Roscolux 359 Medium Violet, $2,227, for a total to date of just over $15,000.” Rick Rudolph, Chair of the Behind the Scenes Committee, accepted the cheque from Ed, adding: “We are very grateful to Rosco for this ongoing gift. It allows someone purchasing something as basic to a production as a sheet of colour to feel they are part of a community that won’t leave its colleagues without a safety net in times of crisis. Rosco was our first Pledge a Product partner and they have set an example that we encourage the rest of the industry to follow.” The ESTA Foundation’s Behind the Scenes programme provides entertainment technology industry members who are ill or injured with grants that may be used for basic living and medical expenses. For more information, to donate or to apply for a grant, visit www.estafoundation.org/bts.htm.

STAGE ELECTRICS Stage Electrics applies its knowledge to the Library of Birmingham

The breath-taking architecture and spectacular facilities of Set & Light | Summer 2014

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the new Library of © Christian Richters Birmingham drew the attention of the press when it opened in September 2013. Sited in Birmingham’s Centenary Square, the library is a major part of Birmingham City Council’s ‘Big City Plan’ to regenerate the city centre and draw people to Birmingham from the wider world. Described by Francine Houben of Mecanoo, its Belgianbased architects, as a ‘people’s palace’, the complex has been designed as a major cultural destination and sets a new standard for libraries in the 21st century. The library is joined to the existing Birmingham Repertory Theatre, with which it shares a common entrance and foyer, café and restaurant facilities, and a new flexible 300-seat Studio Theatre. The latter is a flexible venue, which caters for a prolific and wide-ranging programme of productions, events, functions, exhibitions and community activities. It is used by both organisations and, significantly, expands the range and quantity of work Birmingham Rep can produce and present. Stage Electrics was appointed by Carillion Construction to work alongside theatre consultants Charcoalblue as the systems integrator for the Studio Theatre within the massive £188.8 million project. It was responsible for transforming the conceptual design agreed with the client into an efficient working solution. As part of the process, Stage Electrics installed and commissioned a full complement of communications, lighting, audio and video systems, taking into account the studio’s multi-function role. The auditorium is served by a bank of retractable seating and a seating pit. The technical control room accommodating stage management and stage lighting and audiovisual operators is located behind the seating at mezzanine level. A Slingco tension wire grid extends over the studio, providing a safe access floor for stage lighting and scenery rigging, while stage lighting bars and audio equipment can be rigged in any position above the grid thanks to the distribution of customised facilities panels. Charcoalblue designed a flexible solution for the lighting. A system of moveable, internally wired ladder bars, manufactured by Stage Electrics, are attached to the vertical struts, which support the tension wire grid and can be moved to any position required. Doughty Engineering provided Stage Electrics with a number of boom arms, which can be inserted into Unistrut channels embedded in the studio’s wooden walls to create further rigging points. A combination of ETC Source Four profiles and Selecon Rama Fresnels, plus an ETC Ion control console and all loose cabling were among the loose equipment provided by Stage Electrics. 48

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Stage Electrics delivers bespoke solutions to Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Milton Court

Stage Electrics delivered the lighting, audio and video systems to Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s multimillion-pound facility near its premises in Silk Street. To ensure that it continued to offer students incomparable training in exceptional, modern facilities, the school’s aim was to update and expand its site, ‘future-proofing’ it for the next 25 years. The result is a venue that houses three rehearsal rooms, a television studio, a studio theatre, a 227-seat theatre and a 608-seat, world-class concert hall. Stage Electrics supplied, installed and commissioned the lighting, audio and video infrastructure venue-wide, which include dimmer racks, data distribution, paging and show relay, plus custom-manufactured stage-management desks, facility panels, lighting bars, ‘raceways’ and loose equipment. These bespoke solutions include custom-designed facilities panels for sound, communications, production lighting and AV, along with company switches and power distribution units that carry single-phase and three-phase power. These have been generously placed throughout the building to increase flexibility. Unique magnetic cable hooks in the ceiling, which flip up out of the way when not in use, and purpose-built cable passes, which pierce the walls between auditoria and frontof-house areas, were designed by Stage Electrics to handle the cable management in the public areas. Stage Electrics equipped both the studio and theatre with a GDS blues system backstage, a house- and working-light system (controlled by an ETC Unison Paradigm), ETC Sensor3 dimmers incorporating 3kW and 5kW dim and nondim modules, and ETC’s new ThruPower modules for production lighting. The latter can be switched remotely between dimmable and non-dim functions and were installed in anticipation of a greater use of LED fixtures. Rehearsal, performance and house lighting can all be controlled directly from each venue’s lighting console or from a Stage Electrics-customised panel with ETC touchscreen interface, which can be configured and programmed for all levels of technical ability. Stage Electrics also fabricated IWBs and custom-built lighting ladders for the theatre, in addition to manufacturing portable-dimming and power-distribution solutions.

TMB Solaris LED Flares tour with Justin Timberlake

Adding to the ‘experience’ in Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience World Tour are 75 super-bright Solaris LED Flares. Selected for their amazing performance and versatility, these award-winning, RGBW wash/strobe/blinders – in a single unit! – provide over 33,000 lumens each in a variety of applications. By specifying the multipurpose Flares, Lighting Designer Nick Whitehouse reduced the overall fixture count for the tour, saving space, energy, labour and freight, while at the same time gaining features and improved performance. Positioned on the stage, back wall, and overhead, the compact Flares can be used where conventional lights will not fit – for example, hidden in the stage and other tight spots. The Flares were

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provided by Solotech of Montreal and Las Vegas. Selected Live Design 2013 Product of the Year and earning the 2013 PLASA Sustainability Award, the Flare features instantaneous RGBW colour mixing, with 1200Hz refresh rate for smooth on-camera dimming. The ‘pixel map’ feature divides the Flare into as many as 12 sections. Saturated colours feature intense deep reds and blues, ultra-bright greens and brilliant, camera-friendly whites. Solaris LED Flare models also include the new Flare Jr, as well as Flare Micro and outdoor Flare IP (both coming soon).

UNUSUAL RIGGING The Laureus Awards get the Unusual touch

The most prestigious awards in the international sporting calendar, the 2014 Laureus World Sports Awards, celebrated their 15th anniversary in Kuala Lumpur on 26 March. Attended by the greatest names in sport, past and present, the event was staged at the Istana Budaya, the national theatre of Malaysia and home to the National Theatre Company and National Symphony Orchestra. An event such as this, which is broadcast to audiences across the world, requires a first-class setting, and once again, this was staged by production company Done and Dusted. Helping to build that set was a crew of four from Unusual Rigging, led by Senior Project Manager Steve Porter. Working alongside Paddy Hocken, Done and Dusted’s Technical Production Manager, Unusual also supplied winches to track two video screens, plus a variety of specialist rigging components not available in the region, to overcome the challenges of suspending the scenic elements in the theatre’s existing mechanical flying system. The scenic elements included several holographic cubes, two of which measured three metres square and were flown from the flybars, while the third and larger cube, measuring six metres square, was tracked on and off stage.

Helping King’s Theatre, Glasgow, defy gravity

When Wicked opened at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow in May, little did the management realise it would be the highestgrossing show in the history of the venue. Over 53,000 tickets

were snapped up for the show’s sell-out Scottish premiere. But to ensure the venue could play host to the spectacular musical phenomenon, it needed a little assistance from the team at Unusual Rigging, specifically to make the grid of the King’s compatible with the magnitude and distribution of suspension points required for the show. The main problem for Project Manager Gavin Snelling in staging Wicked at the King’s Theatre was the overall weight of the show. The King’s grid was not strong enough to provide the suspension points required. Unusual was brought on board by Mike Jackson, ATG’s external consulting engineer, to install an array of steelwork to transfer the suspension loads back to the fly-tower walls, enabling the show to be suspended without overloading the existing grid and roof structure. Such a complex job was not without its challenges. The work had to be completed in a two-week period immediately before the Wicked get-in – any delay would have had massive financial implications. And to add to the challenge, the Unusual team had to work around the Scottish Ballet and Let It Be, both of which were taking place during the period of work. All work took place overnight above the live shows. It was vital the stage was operational by 10am each morning, and care had to be taken not to damage the ballet floors, set, scenery and lighting. Unusual created a mock-up back at the office to work out a system. They fabricated height-adjustable rollers to enable the beams to be moved clear of obstacles and strengthened parts of the grid to take a 22mm plyboard runway, which spread the load and created a clear route to move beams within the grid, as the existing flying system and roof structure was in the way.

WHITE LIGHT 2014 Olivier Award winners announced

The 2014 Olivier Awards, marking the best of theatre to open in London’s West End over the last 12 months, were presented on 13 April in a star-studded ceremony at the Royal Opera House. The Best Lighting Design award, supported by entertainment lighting supplier White Light, was awarded jointly to four designers across two shows: to Paul Pyant and Jon Driscoll, responsible for lighting and projection design on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal Drury Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Lane, and to Tim Lutkin and Finn Ross, lighting and projection designers for Chimerica, at the Almeida and then the Harold Pinter Theatre. Another lighting designer was also recognised during the evening: Michael Hulls was presented with the Outstanding Achievement in Dance award for his body of lighting work, including Ballet Boyz – The Talent at Sadler’s Wells. The Olivier Awards ceremony has become a major production in itself. Staged once again this year at the Royal Opera House, with highlights shown later on television, the show was designed by Es Devlin, with lighting by Ben Cracknell. White Light supplied the lighting rig to the show to a tight production schedule, working around the Opera House’s busy performance schedule.

Runners raise more than £1,000 for Light Relief

A team from entertainment lighting specialist White Light recently took on a 10K running challenge to raise money for Light Relief, the industry charity that provides support for lighting professionals in extreme hardship. Dubbed ‘Team White Light’, the group of 22 runners raised more than £1,000 for their efforts in completing the Richmond River Run in March 2014. The challenge was a full-team effort, with participants of all skill levels from across White Light departments, including hire, sales, events, technical service, operations, rigging and marketing. On the day, top runners from White Light were Dispatch Supervisor Steve Smith, Hire Co-ordinator Josh Yard and Business Development Director Richard Wilson. An avid runner, Wilson, along with Marketing Manager Fanny Saint-Pasteur, set up the challenge as a team activity and recruited colleagues to join the cause.

XL VIDEO At The BRIT Awards 2014 with MasterCard

The BRIT Awards 2014 with MasterCard – hailed as one of the liveliest and most compelling to date for content, production and visual presentation – featured a fresh and epic look at London’s O2 Arena, with an eye-catching stage set designed by Peter Bingemann and XL Video once again supplying LED screens, projection and crew. The accompanying cameras, PPU, control systems and a Twitter feed-to-screen/moderation system were supplied and managed by Ogle Hog’s Chris Saunders, who continued his 20-year relationship with The BRITs. It’s the 12fth consecutive year that XL – and Production Manager Paul Wood – has been involved as the video contractor for the high-profile annual music awards, once again working with Papilo Productions, which manage the project for BRIT Awards Productions. The show was presented by James Corden, broadcast live on ITV and streamed live on the internet for the first time. It included some show-stopping live performances from Bastille, Rudimental, Beyoncé, The Arctic Monkeys, Katy Perry, Disclosure, Pharrell Williams and Ellie Goulding, among others. The main stage set design included 120 square metres of XL’s Absen 6mm LED screen product, configured in three 50

Set & Light | Summer 2014

very elegant 12m-high architectural set pieces. An 11m circular, close-down projection screen was flown in (downstage on the main stage) while awards were being presented on a central B stage, and this was fed by three Barco HDQ 2K40 projectors positioned at FOH. Four Barco HDF-W26 projectors, also at FOH, were used for projecting images and texturing onto a 12m-high scenic awards statuette – a striking and prominent set feature positioned upstage centre.

XL Video towers above for The Amazing SpiderMan 2 world premiere

London’s Leicester Square was the venue for the world premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – the latest instalment of the Marvel Comics franchise from Columbia Pictures. The glittering premiere was attended by the stars of the movie, including Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan. For the red-carpet exterior of the cinema, XL Video were brought in to provide a video solution, including multiple LED screens and media control. XL Video’s Project Manager, Mark Rooney, selected the company’s new MC-7 LED, which displayed the logos and character images from the film. Despite the bright sunshine that day, the screen performed very well, with vibrant colours. With only a few hours to rig the screens from 6am on the day of the premiere, XL’s crew of Gary Burchett, Steven Grinceri, Rob Smith, Colin Mudd and Fabrizio Di Lelio worked closely with the Layher riggers, cladding company and production team to construct the six towering LED displays. XL Video’s 2 x 2 touring frames ensured that the screens were built in about 30 minutes each.

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A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd (Jonathan Walters) Centauri House, Hillbottom Road, Sands Industrial Estate, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP12 4HQ Tel: 01494 446 000 ~ Fax: 01494 461 024 ~ Email: jono@ac-et.com ~ Web: www.aclighting.com

Ambersphere Solutions Ltd now incorporating MA Lighting (Glyn O’Donoghue) Unit 13 Alliance Court, Alliance Road, Park Royal, London W3 0RB Tel: 020 8992 6369 ~ Email: 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

ARRI CT Ltd (Andy Barnett, Siobhan Daly, Lee Romney) 2 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 1LX Tel: 01895 457 000 ~ Fax: 01895 457 001 ~ Email: sales@arri-gb.com ~ Web: www.arri.com

ARRI Lighting Rental Ltd (John Colley, 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) ~ Email: mohara@arrirental.com ~ Web: www.arri.com

Aurora Lighting Hire Ltd (Nick Edwards) Aurora Lighting Hire Ltd, Unit 21, Ockham Drive, Greenford Park, London UB6 0FD Tel: 020 8813 2777 ~ Mobile: 07710 261 838 ~ Email: nick.edwards@auroratv.co.uk ~ Web: www.auroratv.co.uk

Avolites (Koy Neminathan) 184 Park Avenue, Park Royal, London NW10 7XL Tel: 020 8965 8522 ~ Fax: 020 8965 0290 ~ Email: koy@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 Email: tmcgrath@barbizon.com ~ Web: www.barbizon.com

BBC Studios and Post Production Ltd (Danny Popkin) 77–79 Charlotte Street, London W1T 4PW Tel: 020 3327 6900 ~ Email: danny.popkin@bbc.co.uk ~ Web: www.bbcstudiosandpostproduction.com

BBC Academy (Tim Wallbank) Room A16, BBC Wood Norton, Evesham, Worcestershire WR11 4YB Tel: 0370 010 0264 ~ Fax: 0370 010 0265 ~ Email: bbcacademy@bbc.co.uk ~ Web: www.bbcacademy.com

CHAUVET® Europe Ltd (Michael Brooksbank) Unit 1C, Brookhill Road Industrial Estate, Pinxton, Notts NG16 6NT ~ Tel: 1773 511115 X.204 ~ Mobile: 07977 208435 Skype: michael.brooksbank.uk ~ Email: mbrooksbank@chauvetlighting.com ~ Web: www.chauvetlighting.co.uk

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

Chroma-Q (James Bawn) Hawksworth Commercial Centre, Elder Road, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS13 4AT Tel: + 44 (0)113 386 9118 ~ Fax: + 44 (0)113 255 7676 ~ Email: james.bawn@ac-et.com ~ Web: www.chroma-q.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 ~ Email: j.coppen@cirrolite.com ~ Web: www.cirrolite.com

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 ~Email: davide.barbetta@claypaky.it ~ Web: www.claypaky.it

Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Please mention Set & Light when contacting sponsors

Doughty Engineering Ltd (Julian Chiverton, Mark Chorley) Crow Arch Lane, Ringwood, Hampshire BH24 1NZ Tel: 01425 478 961 ~ Fax: 01425 474 481 Email: sales@doughty-engineering.co.uk ~ Web: www.doughty-engineering.co.uk

Eaton – Zero88 (David Catterall) 20 Greenhill Crescent, Watford Business Park, Watford, Herts WD18 8JA ~ Tel: +44 (0)1923 495495 ~ Fax: +44 (0)1923 228796 Mob: +44 (0)7921 742803 ~ Email: DavidCatterall@eaton.com ~ Web: www.eaton.com

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 ~ Email: info@elp.tv ~ Web: www.elp.tv ~ Elstree Office: 020 8324 2100 ~ Manchester Office: 0161 300 2922

Electronic Theatre Controls Ltd (Mark White, Jeremy Roberts) Unit 26-28, Victoria Industrial Estate, Victoria Road, London W3 6UU Tel: 020 8896 1000 ~ Fax: 020 8896 2000 ~ Email: 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 ~ Email: mail@ftvs.co.uk ~ Web: www.ftvs.co.uk

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

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

Havells-Sylvania Ltd (David Hogan) Havells-Sylvania Ltd, Avis Way, Newhaven BN9 0ED Email: david.hogan@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 Holdings LTD (Simon Stuart, Mike Oates) Unit E&F, Glenfield Park, Philips Road, Blackburn, Lancashire BB1 5PF Tel: 01254 698 808 ~ Fax: 01254 698 835 ~ Email: hire@hslgroup.com ~ Web: www.hslgroup.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 ~ Email: pauly@jamesthomas.co.uk ~ Web: www.jamesthomas.co.uk

Jands (Jack Moorhouse) Centauri House, Hillbottom Road, High Wycombe, Bucks HP12 4HQ Tel: +44 (0)1494 838 323 ~Fax: +44 (0)1494 461 024 ~ Email: jack.moorhouse@ac-et.com ~ Web: www.jands.com/lighting

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 ~ Email: alex@keylight.tv ~ Web: www.keylight.tv

Lights Camera Action (Nick Shapley) Unit 14, Fairway Drive, Greenford, Middlesex UB6 8PW 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 ~ Email: ecruffell@leefilters.com ~ Web: www.leefilters.com

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Society sponsors

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 ~ Email: mick@lightinglogic.co.uk ~ Web: www.lightinglogic.co.uk

Litepanels Studio Lighting EMEA (Spencer Newbury) 16152 Saticoy St., Van Nuys, CA 91406, USA Tel: +31 629 29 6575 ~ Email: Spencer@Litepanels.com ~ Web: www.litepanels.com

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

Martin by Harman ( Mike Walker) Martin Professional PLC, 7.G.2, The Leathermarket, 11–13 Weston Street, London SE1 3ER Tel: 020 3207 2975 ~ Email: 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 ~ Email: sales@mems.com~ Web: www.mems.com

OSRAM Ltd (Terri Pearson, Andy Gilks) OSRAM House, Waterside Drive, Langley, Berkshire SL3 6EZ Tel: 01753 484 175 ~ Fax: 01753 484 165 ~ Email: 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 ~ Email: info@panalux.biz ~ Web: www.panalux.biz

Philips Entertainment Group Europe (Amber Etra-) Rondweb Zuid 85, Winterswijk 7102 JD, Netherlands Tel: +31 611 030 083

Philips Lighting UK Ltd (Stuart Dell) Philips Centre, Guildford Business Park, Guildford, Surrey GU2 8XH Tel: 07774 122 735 ~ Fax: 01296 670 956 ~ Email: stuart.dell@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 Email: 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 ~ Email: simon.honey@pinewoodshepperton.com ~ Web: www.pinewoodshepperton.com

PLASA (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 ~ Email: norah.phillips@plasa.org ~ Web: www.plasa.org

Production Resource Group (Mick Healey,Kelly Cornfield, Jon Cadbury) 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 ~ Email: prglighting@prg.com ~ Web: www.prglighting.co.uk

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 ~ Email: andy@pulsarlight.com ~ Web: www.pulsarlight.com

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Please mention Set & Light when contacting sponsors

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

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 ~ Email: info@robeuk.com ~ Web: www.robeuk.com

Rosco (Cristian Arroyo, Tom Swartz, Laurie Giraudeau) Blanchard Works, Kangley Bridge Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5AQ Tel: 020 8659 2300 ~ Fax: 020 8659 3153 ~ Email: marketing@rosco-europe.com~ Web: www.rosco.com

Schnick-Schnack-Systems GmbH (Erhard Lehmann) Mathias-Bruggen-Strasse 79, 50829, Germany Tel: +49-221-992019-0 ~ Email: erhard.lehmann@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 ~ Email: 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 ~ Email: info@specialz.co.uk ~ Web: www.specialz.co.uk

Stage Electrics Partnership Ltd (Adam Blaxill, Russell Payne) Third Way, Avonmouth, Bristol BS11 9YL Tel: 0117 938 4000 ~ Tel Mark: 07890 271 535 ~ Tel Adrian: 07836 540 421 ~ Fax: 0117 916 2828 Email: 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 ~ Email: samd@thehospitalclub.com ~ Web: www.thehospital.co.uk

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

Tiffen International Ltd (Kevan Parker) East Side Complex, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Bucks SL0 0NH Tel: +44 (0)870 100 1220 ~ Fax: +44 (0)1753 652776 ~ Mob: +44 (0)7545 440973 Email: kparker@tiffen.com ~ Web: www.tiffen.com

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

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

Unusual Rigging (Mark Priestley) The Wharf, Bugbrooke, Northamptonshire NN7 3QB Tel: 01604 830 083 ~ Fax: 01604 831 144 ~ E-Mail: mark.priestley@unusual.co.uk ~ Web: www.unusual.co.uk

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

Set & Light | Summer 2014

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Please mention Set & Light when contacting sponsors

XL Video Ltd (Jeff Bailey) 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

SPONSORS DIRECTORY

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

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

Index of advertisers ARRI Clay Paky Doughty 56

Set & Light | Summer 2014

15 23 16

ELP ETC Lee Filters

BC 11 IFC

Unusual Rigging White Light

4 4

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COMING TO MANCHESTER? TA L K T O E L P F I R S T

If your studio or location lighting production is heading for Manchester, Media City or the Sharp Project, then who better to supply your equipment than the crew with the best local experience. • • • • • •

Flexible dry hire and great value production packages Energy saving LED lighting systems State-of-the-art digital lighting and controls Own fleet of mobile power generators and trucks In-house structural design, rigging and staging expertise Local production office, local crew and local knowledge

Contact Darren, Sinbad or Matt on 0161 300 2922 or email darren@elp.tv

w w w. e l p. t v ELP Manchester Gold 60 The Sharp Project Thorp Road Manchester M40 5BJ •

•

Set & Light: Summer 2014 (Issue 112)

Articles inside

Society sponsors

Sponsor news

Event: The Trotter Paterson Lecture

STLD visit: Teddington Studios

STLD visit: New Broadcasting House

Profile: Doughty Engineering

Lighting: The One Show

Information: PLASA benefits

Information: A request from the Editor