Television Lighting: Autumn 2009 (Issue 99)

Where art meets science

www.leefilters.com

Editorial

Welcome to this issue of Television Lighting.

Number TL99 so I toyed with the idea of an icecream cone complete with chocolate flake on the front cover.

However John O’Brien came up with a better option on our trip to visit Clay Paky in Milan. All this ties in nicely with Lee Allen’s article on the visit and also congratulations to John and the other winners and nominees involved with the 2nd Knight of Illumination Awards.

The next issue is number 100 and I’m hoping you folks will write in with some stories of programmes you have lit over the lifetime of this magazine. Please contribute otherwise it’s going to be a dull read!

Our coverage of Showlight 2009 continues in this mag and the next along with reports from two STLD meetings; BS7909 and Quantel. I’ve also written about my own dramatic event this summer, Sky Arts Theatre Live!

TL100 will be the last with the the title “Television Lighting” after that will come “Television Lighting and Design”. Time to hear from the designers out there?

Iain

Contents 4

An Italian Job

8

Sky Arts Theatre Live!

20

Showlight Opener - 21st Century Studios

26

STLD Visit - BS7909

31

Showlight:- Dichroics and the early days of moving lights

STLD Visit - Grading at Quantel

45

Obituaries

46

Sponsor News

59

Society Sponsors

65

Society Committee

Showlight - How I lit a West End Show in 3 days

Television Lighting is the journal of the Society of Television Lighting Directors and is published three times a year in February, June and October.

ISSN 0957-2961 Deadlines for the next issue: Advertising copy : 31 January 2010.

Editorial : 31 January 2010.

Advertising is accepted only from sponsor members of the Society Editor and Magazine Production: Iain Davidson E-mail: editor@stld.org.uk Editorial Address: Barnwell, Shinehill Lane, South Littleton, Evesham. WR11 8TR Web: www.stld.org.uk Sponsor News: Richard Bowles Tel: 07973 152 682 E-mail: sponsornews@stld.org.uk Advertising: John King E-mail: adverts@stld.org.uk S © Society of Television Lighting Directors 2009

Cover Picture: John O’Brien LD Design: Clay Paky Showroom

Issue 99 Autumn 2009

STLD is printed by evolve complete print solutions associated with the lighting industry for over 20 years Tel: 01923 774111 Email: info@evolve-print.com www.evolve-print.com

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

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STLD Visit

Italian Job Travelogue: Lee Allen In May this year 11 of us STLD members were lucky enough to go to Italy to visit Clay Paky to look at their lamps and RAI television studios to meet Italian LD’s or should I say “Directors of Photography”.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Bernie Davis, STLD, and Enrico Caironi from Clay Paky arranged this whistle-stop tour for us all. We arrived at Bergamo late afternoon on Thursday, visited Clay Paky Friday morning then on to RAI studios for the rest of the day flying back to Stansted on Saturday Morning.

The flight to Bergamo was on Ryan Air, now anyone who has flown with them will know that when they arrive on time they play this very annoying jingle about “another flight on time”. One always prays that arrival is late just so you don’t have to hear it!

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We arrived at the hotel in Bergamo, which is near Milan, in the evening, had enough time to freshen up then off to the restaurant. It was high up in the mountains and a pleasant drive up, it’s always fun to see how other countries drive when not doing so yourself because it can get a bit scary. One thing that’s international, however, how youngsters drive those little scooters, mad, loud and darting in and out with no fear! The scenery was wonderful as we were driven up the mountain; it was lovely to see a skyline not spoilt by large looming buildings. The views from the restaurant were breath-taking,

higher mountains to one side and Bergamo rolling away from the other with such a clear sky and the stars out in force.

When a big group of people go out for food it’s always hard, and time consuming, getting the order taken. It’s even worse when the meal has 4 courses and the menu is in Italian. The waiters were great though and provided us with menus in English. With the antipasti, first and second courses ordered we sat, chatted and toasted our

hosts and they us. Then came the food, “could anyone remember what they had ordered?” I was OK on the antipasti, but when it came to the first course I couldn’t remember, so I waited until everyone got theirs and the one left was mine, cheeky or what. This worked for that course but when the second one came, everyone had the same idea which lead to some mayhem. Our hosts Enrico and Ashley were fantastic, they found it was Iain’s birthday and arranged a cake with candles, we all sang happy birthday - not sure what key it was in…….. No doubt Iain will not forget this birthday for quite awhile.

Up early next morning to go to Clay Paky’s headquarters. We were shown to their demo room, which is an amazing room full of “toys”. Having operated moving lights for years this was like heaven on earth to me, lights, smoke and a dark room, it doesn’t get much better than that. The first demonstration was of Clay Paky’s Alpha 300 range of beam, wash and HPE spots. The houselights went out and the show began, smoke puffed, Bon Jovi “Living on a prayer” boomed out and the moving light operator put on a fantastic show to the music, it had a “wow factor” even for a hardened operator such as I. What a dream job! We were next shown the capabilities of the Alpha 1200 profile lamp, which has 4 blade shutters for knifing in to the desired shape. The blades have a great field of travel and can go virtually the whole way across the light output. The purpose of this demo was to show us that the lamps didn’t really have to physically move much, the shapes of boxes, triangles and rectangles were made with the smooth knife blades moving in, out and rotating. No heavy rock music for this demo! The last lamps to be demonstrated were the new Alpha 700 range, these lamps are the physical size of the Alpha 300 range but with the functions of much bigger lamps. The speed of movement of the 700 Alpha Beam was amazing, they have new motors and boy they shift, along with the punchy light output these are great lamps. The

Visit to Clay Paky in Italy

It was then off to RAI (Radio Televisione Italiana), the state owned public service broadcaster and the biggest television company in Italy. RAI operates many television channels, broadcasting in analogue and digital terrestrial, satellite and IPTV, plus 12 radio stations all funded 50:50 by license fee and advertising revenues.

It started, in 1924, as a privately owned company but in 1954 it became state owned and began a regular television service on the third of January from its Milan office. The head gave us all a brief chat and showed a video of the work they do then we were taken to studio 3 which was set up for an afternoon

The news studio next. It had been a radio studio in which they put a free standing truss off the floor, not a square box truss in Italy, oh no, it looked like spiders legs converging in the middle of the studio to hold up the rig, it was an engineering marvel. The main news set had large plastic panels, “what about reflections?” we enquired. “Simple” they said, “put the cameras on those marks and don’t move them”. What a concept, correctly positioned, static

cameras! This studio also held two C.S.O. areas and the local news.

shows without overhead changes for either, one was lit purely by the automated lights and the other by normal tungsten lamps. Plus all ped camera’s had Arri 650w fresnel lamps bolted on top as headlamps.

All the studios are equipped with Phillips and Thompson cameras and racks. The generic and automated lighting is controlled by Compulite desks.

Most of their moving lights are from Clay Paky, Mr Ferrari done good…

Just outside RAI’s main building is a very high transmitter which, as a treat, they arranged for us to go up, “WOW what a view!!!” You could see the whole city and the mountains beyond.

Apparently no structure can be taller

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Alpha Beams have become one of my favourite lamps to use, especially with big long throws and even in red you still get a good beam. I could have stayed for days in this room, which if you get chance to see it has a funny angled door or that’s what your eye and brain thinks!

recording. The studio is a monopole system with widely spaced tracks which we and the DOP agreed was not ideal, closer spacing would be more flexible.

The rig had a lot of automation including pointy, washy, and video projection moving heads as well as generic 5K’s, 2K’s and 1K pups, iris 1’s with scrollers on the front and some profiles.

This rig was put in for two different

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Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Visit to Clay Paky in Italy

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than the Madonna on the top of the Cathedral but the transmitter was allowed to be, so, as a mark of respect, a small Madonna was placed on the top facing the Cathedral.

We had lunch in the RAI canteen, which the locals regard as highly as we do the BBC one, but I thought the food was lovely all the patrons really friendly and, no-one got sick!

We were then shown the virtual reality (VR) studio. Here the cameras have a funny looking multi arm contraption on top so they can be located in the virtual world. RAI seem to have a few programs that use VR, we seem to have gone off VR a bit here.

Then off to the lighting store, a huge room full of many different types of lighting kit, and so tidy. RAI own and maintain most of the equipment they use, make and paint their own sets, have a props department, a full fleet of OB trucks and the staff are all employed by RAI, rather like the BBC and ITV years ago before they sold and

trashed their assets.

We met some of RAI’s DOP’s, Bernie being spokesperson, keeping us in order, and Enrico and Ferrari translators.

During these discussions it became apparent that the Italian lighting directors/designers prefer to be called “Directors of Photography”, suggesting film to us in the UK, but in Italy they seem to start as camera operators, work their way up to ‘camera 1’ then DOP. Also, if a production wants to bring in a freelance lighting person they also have to have a RAI DOP on set to make sure the pic-

tures are up to standard for RAI. We were then taken across Milan to RAI’s new studios in Mecenate. Here there are four large studios all controlled from any one of two fully equipped galleries.

The studios are truss rigged, again with a lot of all types of automated lights with some tungsten as well. It was amazing to see such a variety in one studio. One of the studios had the lighting rigs for two shows in position and ready to use, just the set changed for recording either show. Again the ped camera’s had Arri 650w fresnel lamps bolted on top as headlamps, and I just about get away with an MR 16 birdie!

The desks of choice in RAI studios are Computlite’s Photons, Spark 4D’s, Sabres or Vectors. It was amazing to

Visit to Clay Paky in Italy

The evening meal, but this time at the restaurant there was no trying to remember who ordered what as we had a selection of food brought to us, this helped because we had some of RAI’s DOP’s with us and it would have taken so long to order we might still been there.

It was so good to see a television company making shows, still having staff and they’re own facilities, this is a rare thing these days.

I would like to thank Bernie, Enrico, Ferrari and everyone at Clay Paky and RAI studios for making it such a fanatic trip. It was great to see other lighting methods, ways of working and the latest moving lights on the market.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

see so many as every desk used on a show had a back up sitting next to it.

They even had a Vector Red, which I have never seen in a studio before, boy it’s big and red.

We got to see a show being recorded, we slipped into the lighting gallery with the red light on and no one seemed to mind, in fact the DOP wanted to chat about his lighting of the show and that he liked using upstage keys.

It was the classic set up, everyone on their desks working while the LD, I mean DOP, was given 2 faders to play with to keep him out of the way of the operators. Some things do translate!

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Lighting

Sky Arts Theatre Live!

Snow in July and other challanges Iain Davidson explains

The last thing you need during your only hour rig time for a music number is to have your performance space taken over by a press conference.

During this years Hay Festival, Sky Arts used my time to promote a new series of TV drama. Only they weren’t to be TV plays as such - rather theatre performances, written specially by established writers who had not penned a theatre play before. Oh and they would be performed once -Live!

The inspiration for the event came from Sandi Toksvig who persuaded Sky Arts that it was a great idea. She was to be Artistic Director for the series and worked hard to ensure it was a critical success; not accepting the easy option, pushing to deliver something special for the audience in the the studio and at home.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Pre-production

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Following on from the press conference, back in London, I attended an initial production meeting with Sandi, James Hunt and Linda Agran (exec producers for Sky Arts), Stuart McDonald (TV director), Richard Plumb (TV designer) and Laura Green (production executive).

The foremost ideal was that this was to be a theatre event seen on television.

TV would not be allowed to dictate artist positions and moves, camera angles would have to fit in with the audience layout and not affect sightlines. Artistic feel was to be theatre led with the TV types trying to reflect the experience from the theatrical POV. In addition to a stage, space would be given to as much audience seating as possible to help the feel of live theatre audience.

Richard Plumb and I had already discussed some of the initial ideas for the studio since we were both working on the Hay Festival. There was to be a generic stage area which the theatre designers would use and Richard designed a setting for the rest of the studio and foyer space which would create a “studio theatre” feel. We decided upon some theatre booms within the sides of the proscenium arch, dressed with an array of Patt23 and Patt123, partly out of reminiscence and partly from weight considerations. These were supplied by White Light, not practical but sprayed up black to hide the years of use!

The Company Presents, formed by Mary Hamilton and John Harris, ran the theatre side of the operation. They organised a rehearsal space at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond where each play would get just over two weeks of preparation. In addition they provided all the theatre staffing.

At this first meeting we also agreed that the theatre Deputy Stage Manager would call all the sound and lighting

cues. This made sense as they would be the most aware of how the play was running on the night since they would have been involved from the start.

Turnaround between shows would be tight for the TV team. Of course we would get scripts in advance, however major changes happened during rehearsal including a different number of actors and a change of name. In the end Director Stuart McDonald, the sound and camera supervisors, floor manager and I attended a rehearsal on the Thursday. I scribbled a plot over the weekend which was then rigged on the Monday at the same time as the set was built in studio 6 at Sky. Tight timescales meant that theatre build crew, headed by Matt Cox, and my team had to work very closely; the set was often hung from the lighting bars.

Rehearsal was on Tuesday with Live TX at 9pm on Wednesday Carlton and Peter were our sound supervisors over the six week run.

Initially it was suggested that Fischer booms would be used but that idea faded away due to cost and the obstruction they may cause to the audience.

T In The Park

Songs of Praise

Shan Cothi

Can I Gymru

Clothes Show Live

Big Weekend

Upstaged

Easter Service (Liverpool)

The Proms

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Theatre Live!

The Designer’s viewpoint Richard Plumb ‘Sky Arts Theatre Live’ was a very interesting and challenging project, fundamentally the set brief was to create a theatre within a television studio, to create an environment for the live audience, a frame for the insert sets for the individual plays and brand the space as a Sky Arts Project. It was something of a poisoned chalice as it had to achieve all this and not lose sight that ‘the plays the thing’. To some extent it worked as an environment, we had also dressed the scene dock as a foyer area for the audience with photo blowups of the plays in progress to set the scene, however the designers of the theatre set inserts somewhat ignored the framing concept and used the space without reference to the proscenium arch and the wings we had provided.

The original brief was to create a fringe theatre feel and to that end we used rough untreated wooden planking for the proscenium, wings and stage front. Door portals and branded signage dressed the auditorium area, this was to cover the reverse shots for the Q&A section of the show, subsequently dropped from transmission.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Iain Davidson and Malcolm Reed, the lighting directors, had their work cut out in lighting a completely different theatre set every week while creating the right look for the auditorium. I think they did admirably in every case.

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The director, Stuart Macdonald, was constrained by the camera positions possible, however this helped in avoiding a sitcom look in presentation.

The project was an interesting marriage of theatre & television and I was very pleased to have been involved.

However at the final production meeting Sandi mentioned that she wanted the best for the sound coverage. Radio mics wouldn’t give the required perspective and from experience they can pop and fizzle on a live show. Much to the surprise of the sound department they got the go ahead to source a pair of booms and I rashly agreed that they would not be a problem for lighting.

Lighting was the only area fully across both theatre and TV. My brief was to work with the theatre director and designer to produce a theatrical experience but I also had to work with the TV director and craft teams to produce a viable TV production The lighting rig was pretty standard Studio six with a couple of added bounce boards from my stock and some additional source fours.

Show 1 “Mind Away” A domestic set with a twist, three locations in one. The acting area reresents an old ladies living room but also uses the same space to form a doctors surgery. The table with the daughters typewriter was also the doctors desk.

Later lights change to reveal the walls as a gauze and we see through to the outside world where it starts to snow.

It was a wide set with little depth. I don’t usually light all the walls on a drama set but had to here. Any action played directly in front of the set could have caused boom shadows. The snow machines gave us a few problems on the day, noise from the fans and loads of mess to clear up after each run. We had snow drifting down from the grid for weeks!

Despite doing loads of live shows as part of day to day work, this one had

Theatre Live!

SKY ARTS THEATRE LIVE! The view from the production office.

The brief was very simple: to produce six new plays, written by novelists, each lasting no more than thirty minutes, each cast with no more than four actors. Broadly, they had to be set in a contemporary British setting: no Harry Potter-esque fantasties or moon landings. And the twist was that they would be performed for one night only, live on Sky Arts, in front of a small audience in the television studio but for many more watching at home. From the outset, we were determined to ‘think theatre’. Our company produces live theatre day in day out, from six week repertory runs, to one-off celebrations for royal birthdays to massive music festivals in lovely settings. The ‘live’ bit didn’t scare us but the complexity of producing six new plays in quick succession was always going to make for interesting logistics.

Our schedule was terrifying. We received the final go ahead in mid January, with a first transmission date of July 8th giving us barely six months to pull the whole thing together. The final agreed budget was almost 40% less than our first projected costs, giving rise to many strong discussions that yes, this was a television project but on fringe theatre money. The first drafts of each play took an agonisingly long time to arrive (the last not appearing until ten days before rehearsals started) and were then fascinating plots but not ‘script-ready’ enough to persuade actors to come on board. Some writers found the process of ‘handing over’ their script to a director far harder than others, leading us to lose one play alto-

We were determined to cast actors who were right for the part, rather than looking for ‘names’ at every point.

Established performers proved charmingly reluctant to tackle live tv for 30 minutes, when performing six days a week in the West End might hold no terrors at all. We knew our sets had to be symbolic as neither money nor time were available to create anything full scale in the manner of The Queen Vic or Holby General. But designers quickly realised that what could work in a large theatre, with the audience many feet from the stage, would not withstand the scrutiny of HD television.

And then it turned out that each play contained its own production ‘speciality’ be it snowfalls, death by drowning, cannibalistic murder, brick building, fire pits, smoking and riots. This is all regular stuff in a theatre. But to produce it in a television studio more used to hosting Champions League required everyone to dig deep into their creative (though not financial) resources. So (without giving away too many trade secrets), it was a plastic paddling pool and two stage hands under the stage for the drowning, a local brickie teaching a very grown up actor how to make mortar and build a wall and some very cooperative chaps in the Sky canteen with spare ribs and ketchup for the murder.

We knew we needed a ‘home’ for our rehearsal period that would centre such an ambitious venture and we found it in the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

Using its various interlinked spaces, all close in size to the eventual broadcast studio, gave a sense of ‘company’ as actors met over coffee, writers talked to designers and casting directors swapped notes with costume supervisors.

Starting with just the two people who run The Company Presents, our ‘family’ grew to reach over 100 at its largest point, with three plays in rehearsal at any one time, plus stage management, casting, props, costume, construction crews, writers, directors, all feeding through our production office. Each

play was allotted just under three weeks to prepare, from first reading through a reasonable rehearsal period and then the daunting move to the Sky studio barely two days before transmission.

This was a culture shock for the actors (particularly when we found ourselves sharing the facilities with ‘Poker Millions’ in the studio next door!).

But slowly, as the sets came together and the technical rehearsals progressed, the sense of ‘thinking theatre’ returned and the siting of the cameras became a benign, rather than daunting presence.

The welcome we received when we reached Sky was astonishing. Far from seeing us a bunch of luvvies who’d invaded their world, everyone from the television side embraced this unusual and demanding project with enthusiasm, bringing their own specific skills to the benefit of the whole. There was a clear understanding that we were televising theatre, rather than making television drama – a distinct and important difference which kept the focus throughout. The decision to use Fischer booms to create the right ambient sound was inspired. The skill of the camera to pick up just the right glance, the important interaction, the encompassing wide shot created an intriguingly harmonious relationship between tv and theatre in what could have been a rather demanding arranged marriage.

And did it work? No one died on set, no one forgot their lines (such as anyone noticed anyway), nothing fell over, nothing caught fire (probably to the slight disappointment of those anticipating car crash telly). Some plays were exceptional, some were rough round the edges but that was always the point. We weren’t trying to create theatre that was finished, polished, honed to within an inch of its life – that’s not live theatre.

We were just doing what we always do, but with the benefit of television as another creative partner whose own skills, experience and enthusiasm added immeasurably to the strength of the project as a whole.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

gether and undertake vigorous re-writes and alterations with many others.

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Theatre Live!

extra pressure. I made the decision to operate my own lighting console, not wanting any delay in communicating balance changes. A lot of riding lamps to optimise the balance. The stage height reduced the height from floor to grid in an already low ceiling height studio.

In reality I found the LX calls useful to be confident that any major change happened at the right time. Obviously any TV adjustments were made with the theatre people being unaware of any change.

I was nervous about the change to light behind the gauze, trying to keep light off the gauze from in front and behind was tricky in such a tight space. I was also worried that the HD cameras would resolve the gauze fabric on any close ups shot through the cloth. In the end I think the end result did work quite well. I enjoyed the chance to get away from a totally naturalistic look in the sequence leading up to the snow scene.

Eventually the action came downstage of the gauze but the exterior snow effect had to follow them onto the main stage. This eventually gave way to a single follow spot as the older woman danced with the doctor. Climax with an iris down on the follow and DBO.

Television Lighting Autmn 2009

Show 2 “Syrinx”

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Couldn’t be more different to show one. Disbelief when I saw the designer’s idea for the set. 12 chairs suspended in a circle over the acting area. I have always said I like a bit of a challenge! I said I would give it a go, no time to change the design anyway. This was my one disappointment with the preproduction arrangements. The theatre designer wouldn’t consult with lighting before the final design was chosen, hopefully this will change if/when we do a second run. I felt for sound, they would have to get their booms past the obstuctions.

Set in a headmistress’s study as she is about to deliver a final end of term speech before she retires. She attempts to resolve a long standing disagreement with two friends involving the death of

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Theatre Live!

one of their daughters. The deceased appears during the play unseen by the other performers. She rises from a hole in the stage containing a watery pool.

Temptation here to revisit my am dram days and do a green follow spot as in Blythe Spirit!

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

I was pleased with the look of this one as I think the theatrical theme worked well on the TV screen. I nearly didn’t make the rig and TX this week as I was hit with “seasonal flu” over the weekend; I don’t think it was the piggy variety.

I knew the show would go well as the first sound after the opening caption was the boom hitting a suspended chair with a clunk.

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Show 3 “Last Words” A kind of Big Brother show, Last Words, starring Pauline Collins directed by husband John Alderton. The designers model showed a deep blue backing lifted with an array of stars.

The built set was a bit low key compared with the model for a big brother look and I felt disappointed after the first rehearsal. However after everyone had gone I sat in the audience and contemplated how I could add a bit more colour to the set. I didn’t have many

lamps to spare but found some birdies lying around so added six of those and squeezed a couple of source fours in too.

The script made great play of some strange lighting effects happening outside of the patio doors. Weird coloured lights were to reflect in the night sky and the occasional lightning flash. The audience were meant to ponder on whether it was usual eviction display or had world war three broken out. To this end John from the Company Presents invited theatre designer Rob Halliday to join the show along with an EvenLED display provided by White Light. Using a GrandMA console he was tasked to

produce the desired effects. I enjoyed having a creative collaboration with another designer and worked out some effects which would meet the demands of John the theatre director.

Lightning effects were provided by a few Pixeline 1044’s using a cold blue wash and the rapid response time from the LED’s. First time that I’ve used LED’s for lightning. Interesting to see the different viewpoint from Rob to mine on the exterior sky, I felt we had to moderate the saturated colours to work on the tight shots whereas Rob would be looking to get the most lurid possible!

Theatre Live!

A Sky At Sky by Rob Halliday Someone famous in showbiz – I can’t remember right now who – once said that a new show didn’t begin with the idea or even the contract but with the phone call. So it was in early July: the call was from John Harris, friend, lighting designer and now producer, leading to an entertaining little diversion into a world I knew little about: television.

I’d heard talk of John’s live-theatre-for-television project from him a long time before, but it had been pushed to the back of my mind until a few weeks earlier when an article appeared about the project in the newspaper. I’d been meaning to see if I could go watch one of the shows. John’s call meant that not only did I get to go watch, I got to join in, too!

He was calling for a chat. The third play, Famous Last – a take on the world of celebrity Big Brother- had a sky visible through a glass door, the ‘world beyond’ the two remaining celebrities’ confinement. John Alderton, the show’s director, wanted this sky to offer an infinite range of possibilities – from normal daylight to an abstract ending where his ambition was that no-one quite knew what was happening – was it paparazzi flashbulbs, was it fireworks, was it the world ending?

Like all good producers, John Harris was casting around for ideas that could achieve the ambition (and, like all good producers, ideally to a tight budget….)

So, I went to see – and greatly enjoyed – play two, which meant I also got to see the set-up and meet Iain Davidson. I didn’t want to barge in to his territory, but having seen how little space was available in the studio, particularly in the set, I immediately had what I hoped might be a helpful suggestion: EvenLED.

With Iain’s agreement I became ‘special-ops, cyc’, or perhaps the lighting designer for up-stage left! Thanks to the good graces of White Light, we were able to build a 4m x 3m wall with a fast-fit frame supported BP screen downstage of it. Also thanks to MA Lighting, we were able to borrow a grandMA console, its pixel-mapping controller the ideal vehicle for controlling EvenLED. With all that in place, I had a fascinating two days learning about the world of television studios and lighting for television from scratch (particularly loving the 5Ks pointing at reflector boards!), rather than adapting existing theatre lighting for camera. Iain and his team were great guides, particularly in letting me hang around in the control room to watch just how many people it takes to make a tv show, and how all their equipment looks much flashier than our lighting consoles! We also tried some tricks you just can’t do in a theatre – turns out EvenLED makes a great tool for creating greenscreen backgrounds! (As a bonus: turns out a Sky TV control room is a great place to be during the last day of a test match…)

The disappointing part of television is how little of your work you sometimes end up seeing, lost to close-ups. But that was part of the challenge of the whole Live season – having to cater for that view and the live theatre audience simultaneously, and I think Famous Last’s cyc did that pretty well. I really am no television lighting expert, but I suspect EvenLED has a big future in television, just as it has had so far in theatre.

Rob Halliday has been lighting and programming theatre shows – including Equus, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins and more – for almost twenty years. He’s spent relatively little of that time in television studios, but is fascinated by the process – and the differences to theatre – every time he does.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

This is the LED cyc lighting product that I’d found for and used to great effect on last year’s UK tour of Mary Poppins.

It’s a one-metre square tile containing sixteen three-colour LEDs, with the tiles modular and designed to be linked together into arrays – effectively a low-resolution video screen. The difference is that most video screens have narrow angle LEDs, designed to be looked at from afar. EvenLED has wide angle LEDs: it is designed to be rigged behind a back-projection screen and to give even coverage to that screen. Depending on the BP material used, the LEDs can be as close as 25cm to the screen and still give a bright, beautiful even coverage in just about any colour you like: the best cyc lighting ever! Plus because each pixel is individually controllable, you can do graduations, wipes, dissolves – just about anything the imagination allows (and because the fades are sixteen bit, there is none of that horrible steppiness that I dislike about so many LED products). The tiles themselves are just a few cm deep, so the total space occupied by lighting and screen would be much less than trying to use floods or projectors or gobos or anything else. Plus EvenLED is silent – important with the boom mics used to catch the sound - and relatively light and don’t use much power.

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Theatre Live!

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

only 20cm to spare between the windows and the black drapes, The play called for live sound spot effects, uncluding gun shots and mob violence,

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Show 4 Lit by my colleague and new STLD member Malcolm Reed. Friends reunited for a dinner, usual end result of murder and cannibalism……

Show 5 “Charity Begins..”

The same designer as the hanging chairs provided a semicircle of suspended plastic moulded windows and a huge table which was tilted over during the action. As usual the full depth of the stage was used as acting area leaving

visual effects of bricks coming through the windows and a transition from day to night through the show with a fire effect for good measure. Low ceiling

ITV “The Colour of Money”

BBC Electric Proms all photos © Louise Stickland

Theatre Live!

height came into play again as some of the action took place on top of the table, inches away from the key lights.

Some nice scenic painting effects on the windows helped me immensely.

Show 6 - “The Turning Point”

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

This show certainly gave me some highs and lows. A two hander between Churchill and Guy Burgess set in 1938.

Real brick walls and real grass.

18

There was a major theatre/TV clash which involved tears and tantrums and that was just the lighting department.

However by the end of the first day’s rehearsal and the theatre director having seen what we could achieve via the TV camera, all was resolved. The downstage area in front of the stage was covered in real turf and the director was looking for a natural, non TV feel here but didn’t want any light spilling onto the set behind. Frontal lighting was out because of sound coverage by the booms. I had to use upstage keys that worked well from the camera viewpoint but caused heartache when seen raw by the theatre director. However once this effect was moderated by a suitable bounce board and a little haze in the air I got the look that I had envisaged and the director was placated.

Theatre Live!

High pressure Sodium lighting was rigged to keep the grass alive overnight.

rehearsal but in recorded drama they never use your best take anyway.

At the end of the day

Each performance was preceeded by some visual programme notes, interviews with the writers and performers plus some chat with backstage workers. One episode was spoilt by some bloke with a big nose trying to explain the work of a lighting director; note -must get a better looking stand in for these features

I relished this opportunity to get back to my theatrical roots and to be lighting drama again. The flames were rekindled within the old crafters in sound, cameras and lighting. We proved that we still have the skills available in house (except the vision mixer, Ian Trill came in do all six episodes).

Never thought I would have the opportunity do live drama when I joined Sky last year.

The dedication of the production team to produce a great result was backed up and appreciated by the powers that be within Sky. Plenty of advertising sold.

Thanks to The Company Presents, Rob Halliday and Richard Plumb for their contributions

Did being “live” make any difference? I think so; certainly the actors modified their performance to the audience reactions. The best lighting always happened in

Rehearsal photographs with kind permission of photographer Rob Day and Sky Arts.

$ % * +

! "# & ' "(()") ,

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

• • • • •

19

Showlight

Showlight Opening The first paper at this years Showlight - presented in fine style! Extract from “Building a studio in the 21st century” Tim Hall, Joe Breslin, Rick Dines + Nick Mobsby After the Garden festival the site again became derelict, until a plan to regenerate the area came to fruition.

By 2004 BBC Scotland had decided it was time to move from its previous location in the West End of Glasgow and Pacific Quay was the chosen site.

The Pacific Quay building is 117 metres long and 54 metres wide.

The BBC brief was to incorporate a 750 square metre production studio called A and a general purpose 245 square

Stage Directions LIGHT PIPER TO PLAY THE TEAM ONTO THE STAGE LIGHTS UP ON TEAM AS WALK ACROSS THE FRONT OF THE STAGE AND UP THE STEPS GALLERY SIDE. TIM HALL WILL WALK TO LECTURN OTHER WILL STAND BY CHAIRS UNTIL PIPER STOPS PLAYING TEAM TO BE DRESSED IN KILTS, FLACK JACKETS AND HARD HATS

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

NORMAL PRESENTATION LIGHTING TO FADE IN

20

metre studio called B at ground floor level.

Elsewhere in the building there are studio facilities to service the needs of National and Scottish news.

And so the building work began.

Given the proximity to water, the possibility of flooding was considered and therefore the whole building stands on a plinth one metre above the 200 year high water flood mark.Here we see the superstructure for Studio A, at this stage the steelwork stands 11m from the finished floor level – in office terms that’s up to the ceiling of the second floor.

The framework you see here amounts to approximately one eighth of the building’s final volume.

BBC Scotland is described as a microcosm of the BBC in one building. From this site, the BBC broadcasts Scottish versions of BBC One and BBC Two and late last year they added BBC Alba, a Gaelic language channel.

In addition, there is editing, dubbing, graphics, News and Radio.

Tim Good Morning and Welcome to BBC Pacific QuayToday we will start at the Architect’s concept of a central “street” where the rise of the stairs is formed by the each of the studios in turn...and we will take you on a journey through to the implementation of Studio A. With the demise of the ship building industry the site became derelict. In 1988 when I was still a wee boy this site was home to the Glasgow Garden Festival temporarily revitalised the area.

But of course, the most important part of PQ are the three rather splendid studios and ....

Some Lighting Control There came a point during the design phase where PQ would either be the last Standard Definition station in the BBC or the first High Definition station.

It made no sense to build a station with outdated technology.

A few facts about the video and audio systems in PQ

Showlight 2009

High definition 1080i 5.1 Surround Sound capable A fully “tapeless” workflow A single converged Broadcast and IT network .

There were some challenges to overcome along the way and some points to note for the future. HD video doesn’t travel far on co-axial cable and some of the longer runs resembled ……. multi camera Drama and Sitcom, and the maximum height of set was 10 to 12 feet (3 to 4 metres), but it became a challenge when faced with more and more light entertainment programmes, and bigger and bigger sets.

Ultimately taking over London based network shows, and shoehorning them into the space. It was a very difficult thing to do, and even more difficult to convince Network producers we could do it. However, after a few successful programmes we proved it could be done.

It was also great experience for us to go see these shows in BBC Television Centre. Giving us a great insight as to how the various studios there functioned, which was valuable information for making decisions on the new studios of Pacific Quay.

Joe

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

We nick named the fire pipe installers the sprinkler fairies!

Visit the site, measure and photograph the ceiling. Come back the next day and POOF! The Sprinkler Fairies had been and it had all changed again.

To follow on from Tim I want to give you a little bit of history on our Studio A in BBC Scotland and the changes we wanted to build into a new studio. Our Old Studio A had a reasonable floor area, never enough some would say, but was lacking in height in comparison to it’s width and breadth.

22

To follow on from Tim I want to give you a little bit of history on our Studio A in BBC Scotland and the changes we wanted to build into a new studio. Our Old Studio A had a reasonable floor area, never enough some would say, but was lacking in height in comparison to it’s width and breadth.

This was all okay when it’s main area of expertise was

Queen Margaret Drive lighting bars were of (2.45m) dimension with (1.85) pitch and 0.45m separation(115) kg lifting capacity. All proving inadequate for moving lights, number of cross bars to be rigged, concentration of dimmers in one area, etc. There was no DMX on the lighting bars so it had to be cabled in from wallboxes which caused a lot of lighting bars to be tied together as they were daisy chained.

So all of this led me to this design concept for a new lighting bar. With increased lifting capacity over a shorter distance with a higher concentration of dimmers, and lighting control outputs on the bar. You can see it was based on sine wave dimmers, as we had some experience of these. It was considered a more flexible an option and it gave me the concentration of dimmer channels I wanted with the ability of splitting a 5kw channel into 2 of 2.5kw channels.

I don’t know if you noticed but on the lighting bar there was an Ethernet outlet which was my very ignorant attempt to imply we needed something which could be controlled over a network. The basic concept of Pacific Quay is the ability to control any studio from any gallery and we would need some kind of network to achieve this. Lighting control desks suitable to control LED, moving lights as well as con-

Showlight 2009

ventional fixtures was a desirable thing, so the hunt was on to find something that could do all of these things. The next couple of years were a very steep learning curve for me.

With other problems to solve like, pantograph’s, air conditioning, hoist’s and hoist control, we had a lot of work to do. So please let me handover to Nick Mobsby and Rick Dines who can give you a little more as to what was actually built!

Unusually the consultant and the contractor have decided, for at least the beginning of this talk, that we will work together, it may not finish like that!

Having realised that this building was the first large scale new build broadcasting centre that was to be built in the UK for many years and that a lot of the expertise had been dispersed, we were not sure of where to start!

The first ever single electrical system in a BBC Broadcasting Centre.

The use of sine wave dimming and why we chose to use distributed not installed dimming .

The first ever large scale streamed ACN lighting network.

The Studio Electricians panel .

And finally a brief look at the luminaires selected.

My job, as the studio consultant, was to recommend how a space of 32m long by 27.5m wide and 13.5m high should be turned into a studio suitable for the 21st century.

Air conditioning is a major issue in a TV studio – it has to be silent and remove vast quantities of heat when required so suitable space has to be designed into the studio layout.

While conceiving the hoist layout it become apparent that, although not shown on the architects drawings, several very large structural trusses would also have to share the grid space, so we ended up with the layout you see directly above your heads today.

As you can see from the photograph the large Warren trusses to the right occupy a large amount of space and actually support the beams from which the lighting hoists and scenery tracks are suspended.

Nick So we sat down and did what all good TV studio designers and contractors do - we consulted the library.

We found the answer lurking at the back of the book shelf.

Seriously though, we are both very proud of what has been achieved and felt that in the 10 minutes available we could not cover all aspects, so we have selected a few topics which are firsts or are so different from the norm that we felt they should be explained.

We hope to be able to show you some of the systems working as we never get the time to play, so do not be surprised if you see things moving they are supposed to – well that’s out story anyway.

So without further ado I would like to hand over to Rick who fortunately still works with pencils and paper, allowing the mistakes and changes to be easily corrected leaving the wonderful studio you see today Rick The major aspects that we would like to explain this morning are summarised as;The complex grid that supports the entire lighting and scenery solution.

There are 18 rows of 7 lighting hoists interleaved with 17 rows of 6 scenery hoists.

Because of the grid structure, the scenery hoist winding gear was located at gantry level to your left, which provides very easy access when required.

Nick The drawing shows how the eventual design squeezed in all of the facilities. The photograph details all of the different services that were ‘packed in’ around the Warren trusses.

The situation was further complicated because fire sprinklers, smoke detectors and fire alarm sounders had all been installed as part of the base build further reducing the available space.

Rick Discussions took place as to whether the lighting hoists should be mounted on the grid or be an under-grid self climbing unit. Always one is trying to leave as much clear height in the studio as possible to allow the most flexible TV or film space to be created. The final hoist solution was

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Rick to Hold up Blue Peter Book

23

Showlight 2009

tected with RCBO’s fitted as a specific requirement from the BBC. One 25 Amp Three Phase and Neutral supply is run out as a radial supply to each hoist with local electrical protection.

The inset photograph shows the method of connecting power and Canbus control data into the lighting hoist. 2 CAT 5 cables travel down the hoist cable flip flop – one of which is for lighting control. All hoist connections are via plug and socket allowing a complete hoist to be replaced quickly.

Wallboxes are provided around the grid, gantry and studio floor for technical and lighting services. to use hoists located within the grid structure. Whilst this leaves a clear grid, it does make maintenance more difficult. Provision has been made for the hoists to be lifted out onto the grid if major maintenance is required.

Each supply is protected by local RCBO devices.

Rick House-lighting in studios is always difficult due to the high grid height, the need for tungsten colour temperature for set painting and dressing, zone control for small and large scale productions, and the requirement for low maintenance and energy efficiency. In this studio, with the severe space restrictions, under run 1kW tungsten halogen sources were selected, connected to conventional SCR dimming that was available from the old studio.

Nick Each luminaire is individually addressable enabling the lighting director to programme any zoning required. A master set of touch screen controls are fitted in the lighting control room and down on the studio floor. Simple on - off control switches are located by each access door. After a period of inactivity the lighting levels are gradually reduced, unless a button push is detected. The houselights are powered upstream of the production lighting to ensure that if an EMERGENCY POWER OFF button is pushed in the studio all houselighting is brought on at full 500 lux intensity to maintain safe studio operations. Failure of any phase of the production lighting supply boots the house lights to full allowing a live broadcast to continue under temporary illumination.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Rick

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Historically production lighting for TV studios of this size would have been fed from a separate transformer. However, for Studio A at Pacific Quay one supply is used for production lighting, technical services and general power. The building is also the first BBC building where the principle of common bonded earth has been employed.

This studio is serviced by one 1200 Amp 3 phase supply via an electrical room at gantry level. All electrical supplies in this studio are derived from this.

Nick An aluminium bus-bar system with copper conductors was used to run this supply from the electrical room onto the studio grid. The studio grid is divided into 7 zones, at each zone a tap off point connects power into a local distribution board. This board then powers a zone delivering separate supplies for production lighting including hoists, technical and general service power. Each supply is separately pro-

Rick The first BBC studio to have sine wave dimming was Studio B in the old building, some 5 years ago. After a few initial teething problems these worked well. Indeed these units were subsequently refurbished and are in use in this building today.

Nick Sine wave dimming has had a slow period of gestation with lots of worries about technology, reliability, heat generation and so on. My experience back to these early days is yes new technology can be problematic but we are well passed that period now.

For television applications their immunity to mains borne interference, their ability to handle different types of load whether resistive, inductive or capacitive make them more reliable. The lack of dimmer generated acoustic noise is vital in modern TV studios. Importantly the sinusoidal waveform removes the harmonics and power loss found in conventional SCR dimmers. This allows for a simpler electrical design with consequent reductions in running costs Rick During the design phase one of the major questions was the number and capacity of the dimmer outlets on each hoist.

Each hoist in the old studio had 3 dedicated 5kW circuits.

There were a further 4 x 5kW circuits shared with several other hoists used for cyclorama lighting. Current lighting techniques generally favour lower power luminaires but sometimes 5Kw circuits are still needed, especially for large soft lights. Hoists with top cyclorama lighting fixtures require an additional 4 x 1.25kw circuits.

The ideal solution would be three pairs of 2.5kw dimmers

Showlight 2009

located on each hoist, each pair being fed from one phase of a three phase supply which could also be used to feed the hoist motor. If the paired dimmer outputs could also be connected in parallel to provide 5kW circuits when required, we would have a very flexible solution which requires the minimum of supply cables and with the dimmers local to the load, allowing the sine wave dimmer to automatically compensate for supply voltage variations.

The selection of 2 x 2.5kW or 1 x 5kw can be done locally or remotely and its not necessary to unplug the 5kW load when switching to the 2.5kw sockets. A remotely switched 2.5kW Non Dim socket and a direct power outlet have also been added.

Rick The drawing details the zones and channel allocation over the lighting grid.

Anticipating the channel hungry moving light and LED revolution, Joe originally asked for 4 separate streams of DMX on each hoist. When we looked at the practicality of providing this we decided that it would be better to use Ethernet to feed each hoist and derive selectable DMX universes within the dimmer unit.

Nick

Nick

Joe and his team spent some time deciding how the BBC would ideally like to control lighting and scenery hoists and came up with the concept of using a touch screen to replace the old switch panel.

The concept is that the dimmer bar is detachable from the hoist and can be deployed around the complex wherever a 3 phase supply is available. Indeed this unit has been hung on the hoist lighting bar for this demonstration.

In the short time left the slide details the services now provided at studio floor level to improve operational flexibility and rigging speed.

Joe chose the luminaire types and wattage range.

The dimmer unit is powered via a Harting supply plug and receives direct Ethernet lighting network data. Both these cables form part of the hoist flip flop cable that raise and lower with the hoist.

A BBC requirement was that any control room could control any studio or temporary production space.

A number of transport protocols were considered. At the time ETC had just launched Net 3 which offered significant user benefits allowing diagnostic information to be returned to the electricians panel.

The distributed dimmer unit has a built in Ethernet node producing local DMX allowing items like moving lights to be plugged directly into the dimmer.

Considerable discussion took place about whether the BBC local area network could be used to transport this data or should a dedicated lighting network be installed. The unanimous decision was to install a dedicated lighting CAT 5 copper cabled network with its own switches and patching.

When you look up you will notice some of the BBC standard dual source units or ‘double enders’ with a fresnel keylight at one end and a soft at the other.

Joe chose dual filament keylights so there are Desisti 2½/2½ and 1¼/1¼ Kw units. There are also conventional tungsten large format Desisti softlights, ETC Source 4 profiles and pars. Martin TW1 and Mac 700 units were added to the existing Martin stock which was refurbished.

Rick Finally in the last seconds let’s look at the other TV studios in Pacific Quay.

Studio C is used for News and Sport.

Studio B is a 245 square metre general production studio.

Studio D is a self operation studio.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The dimmer is convection cooled and considerable thought went into the hoist body design to ensure that it is relatively easy to remove from the hoist.

The next major part of the installed solution was to consider how to deliver the lighting data required to control and configure the distributed dimmers and other devices.

25

STLD Meeting

BS7909 Report by Roger Francis Photographs by Mike Farmer and Bill Dudman An Overview of BS 7909:2008 -The provision of temporary power distribution for entertainment. A talk

by Dave Roberts.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

After a morning and early afternoon of rain the skies cleared for the talk held at The Penthouse, No 1 Leicester Square, London. The outside of No 1 is all black though in a classy sort of way. It is billed as one of “Soho’s film premier party venues”. So it certainly looks like the STLD is gaining in status. I daren’t ask how Andrew arranged it.

26

The entrance to No 1 is quite wide, like a small cinema, and having had our names checked by a cheerful young lady we gained entrance by a door to the right.The Penthouse is on the seventh floor with full height windows to the south and west and a balcony overlooking Leicester Square. We had views over London to the Houses of Parliament, London Eye and a large Odeon sign.

The Penthouse was quite small though just about the right size for our meeting though, in common with all these venues that follow the latest fashion for hard floors and walls, I think the acoustics are a bit suspect.

The three course meal that followed Dave’s talk was one of the best that I’ve had at a STLD meeting; perhaps

we can make it the permanent STLD meeting place.

The speaker, Dave Roberts, worked for many years at the BBC on the provision of lighting consoles including the much loved Q File, special luminaires and even the 1.25/2.5 kW bubble with Thorns and GEC. After leaving in 1994 he was asked back to help vet lighting hire companies and has been working on BS 7909 since the 90’s.

Dave gave an overview of BS 7909 including who is responsible for the temporary electrical system(it might well be the LD). Apart from the LDs and electricians there are serious implications for equipment suppliers.

BS 7909 : 2008 is a major rewrite of BS 7909 :1998.which itself was a full revision of BS 5550-7-5-1:1981. It takes account of principles of BS 7671, the IEE 17th edition wiring regulations and in a couple of places the 17th edition refers to BS 7909.

It has been extended to cover all events with temporary electrical systems, ranging from agricultural shows and mobile fairs to the TV and film industry. Even a simple news shoot would be regarded as an event. It goes

beyond BS 7671 allowing temporary electrical systems to be safely created and used with the speed and flexibility required by the entertainment industry.

It is not a legal document but a Code of Practice giving industry best practice and guidance in the use of temporary electrical systems. As such it could of course be used as evidence in a Court of Law. It not only lays out guidelines for doing things but also for the management of temporary systems.

The code introduces the roles of Event Manager and Responsible Person. The Event Manager is the person in overall control of the event and in the Film and TV business this person is the Producer or in some cases the Production Manager. They do not need to be electrically knowledgeable people but they need sufficient awareness to realise the importance of appointing a ‘Person Responsible’ who is sufficiently electrically competent to take responsibility for the temporary electrical systems of the complexity involved. The Person Responsible will control the creation and use of the temporary systems and take responsibility for the equipment and

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STLD Meeting

crew involved so that all the work is carried out safely.

Large/complex events might require several different facilities such as lighting, video walls, OB units, comms units, catering, make up, wardrobe etc, as well as a temporary electrical distribution and perhaps a generator to supply electricity to wherever it is needed. For these larger events the Event Manager, very early in planning, needs to appoint a Senior Person Responsible to be responsible for the overall management of all the electrical requirements and ensure that they are properly planned, provided and managed; the work can then be split into various manageable parts each under the control of a Person Responsible.

A common thread through all parts of BS 7909 is that people who take on Person Responsible duties need to know the full extent of their responsibilities before accepting the duty. BS 7909 expects such a person to decline a role if they feel they are not competent to carry out that duty.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

BS 7909 aims to make life simpler for the electrical crew when rigging a temporary electrical system. Clause 4 requires that suppliers ensure the equipment they provide is of suitable design, made as plug together units, in safe functional order and supplied as tested units with evidence that this has been done.

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It is for the Person Responsible for any particular part of work to ensure the equipment is visually inspected when selected for use and is suitable for the actual purpose it will be used for.

Provided these requirements are met BS 7909 provides for simplified inspection and test procedures.

If equipment is not delivered as fully inspected and tested units, then the inspection and testing of the temporary systems will have to be done according to the requirements of BS 7671 which is extensive and time consuming..

The two categories of work are outlined in BS 7909 (A) Small/simple using up tp 6kVA from a single source.

These would be simple Drama, Documentary, Current Affairs, News shoots using mains from a single premises with the temporary system protected by a 30mA RCD. Some might have a crew of just Cameraman and Sound guy, no electrician.

In this type of work the Person Responsible is very likely to be the LD, Cameraman or perhaps someone else on the crew. For the small/simple work the presence of an electrician or similarly electrically qualified person is not required, but whoever takes the duty of Person Responsible needs to have sufficient training and knowledge to carry out the work involved safely.

They need to be able to competently visually inspect and set-up the equipment to be used, test the supply for polarity and earth loop impedance, correctly use a 30mA RCD and look after the safe use of the equipment in the conditions that exist.

(B) Large/complex using over 6kVA from multiple sources.

These are likely to be a mix of generators and local mains (possibly

from several premises and multiple phases). Having multiple sources can create a number of different hazards, even an OB truck parked in the street next to a lamp post creates a potential hazard.

All work in this category will require a Person Responsible who is trained and competent to undertake the duties they will perform; the Producer (Event Manager) at an early date needs to have appointed such a person and fully explained all the responsibilities involved and checked that the duty has been accepted.

For the smaller works in this category, such as a relatively simple drama shoot that does not require the presence of additional facilities, it is quite possible that there will only be one Person Responsible and that person is likely to be a fully qualified electrician (a gaffer) with experience of this kind of work.

They may be working on their own or more likely have with a small electrical crew.

As the size and complexity of the work increases to include, for instance, facilities such as OB units, extensive lighting, generators, video walls, wardrobe, make-up, catering, etc, then the Producer needs to have appointed a Senior Person Responsible to oversee and manage the whole event and split the work into manageable parts with a Person Responsible to look after each

BS 7909

particular part.

Depending upon the scale of the work and the facilities required the Senior Person Responsible might be a Gaffer, Engineering Manager, or OB Unit Manager; while the Persons Responsible for the separate facilities might be a gaffer, best boy, electrician, generator operator, OB vision supervisor, guarantee engineer or technician. For the non technical facilities a Person Responsible also needs to be identified; they do not have to be fully technically competent on the electrical equipment they are responsible for, but they should know that it is fully inspected, tested and safe to use and ensure it is used safely. They should also have access to competent assistance from the suppliers of the facility in case of difficulty.

Clause 6 outlines of the responsibilities that might be carried by a Person Responsible working on a large complex event. These responsibilities apply to the work through the phases of design and instruction, work on site, inspection and testing, operation and final removal. For instance the Person Responsible will also:

In all cases anyone with a Person Responsible duty needs to fully understand what they are responsible for and be competent to carry out the duty successfully.

For most of the larger/complex activities an LD is unlikely to be required to take the role of Senior Person Responsible. Depending upon how the design of the lighting and the temporary electrical distribution for lighting is commissioned, the LD might be asked to take the role of Person Responsible for the design of the lighting; this could include the related temporary distribution, but the design of the distribution is often done by someone else. This is something that needs to be confirmed and understood when accepting design work.

The Person Responsible is expected to be present whenever the temporary system is being worked on, used or energised. However, if they have to leave they need to appoint a

(a) ensure that sufficient and suitably competent staff are present to operate and look after the temporary system. (b) be responsible for risk assessments. (c) should ensure that cables are tidily laid in safe positions, (d) points of isolation are clearly identified and easily accessible, (e) Protective earthing and bonding are provided where needed, (f) RCDs are present and functional, (g) RCD bypass is only permitted after risk assessment,bypass is removed immediately the reason for it is resolved. (h) hazardous sites and weather conditions are fully considered, (i) warning signs related to use of electricity are in place, (j) everything is safe when energised (k) regular visual inspections to ensure safety (l) equipment etc is guarded or supervised to prevent tampering (m) systems are secure when

unattended. (n) checking all emergency facilities or services operate correctly whether they are permanently installed or part of the temporary system.

For some time local authorities have required a completion certificate before they will issue a license for an event to take place in their locality. A completion certificate is now required for every temporary electrical distribution of the large/complex type that is covered by BS 7909. The inspection and testing required for this completion certificate is simplified because all the individual units of the temporary system will already have been tested by the suppliers before delivery and will have been checked before use.

BS 7909 does not deal with Lightning though some information is given about static electricity.

There are a number of Annexes for the technically minded.

Annexes A and B are about the details and construction of distribution units.

Annex C gives information about earthing of temporary systems and the

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

sufficiently competent deputy to carry out the duty.

After a temporary system has been left unattended it should be visually inspected to ensure everything is correct before re-energising and use. Anything made or repaired on site and anything lacking evidence of test or where there is doubt should be formally inspected and tested (PAT). If a temporary system is staying in place for an extended period arrangements must be put in place for further re-inspection and re-testing after an appropriate period, especially when other people will have access to the site.

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STLD Meeting

earthing arrangements for supplies.

Annex D shows diagrams and guidance that is related to the contents of Annex C. Annex E brings together useful information about the use and operation of RCDs. Annex F gives guidance for venues wishing to provide supplies for use as the source of power for temporary electrical systems.

Annex G deals with inspection and testing and contains the model completion certificate and related information.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Well run and properly planned events shouldn’t find it difficult to work to BS 7909 as they may well be working this way already. However there are several unanswered questions that arise.

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Competence is difficult to judge and there are currently no qualifications that indicate competence. Many people work on a freelance basis; they are not permanently employed by any organisation. Do those who actually take on crew members for electrical work know such people are competent?

Suppose a Gaffer is provided with crew members whose competence he does not know. He will be controlling the crew and responsible for them and their work, so it is right that he should know their competence and have a say in their acceptability for the work he will give them. How often does this happen? The chain of responsibility and

control of action is quite clear: Event Manager (Producer), Person Responsible (LD/Cameraman, Gaffer etc) and the chain is unlikely to follow the line of payments.

obtain a copy of BS 7909:2008.

PLASA are offering their members and STLD members a 25% discount on the listed BSI price of £190 for copies of BS 7909:2008.

SkillSet and Ealing Institute of Media have an arrangement for NVQ assessments to City and Guilds 7507 but to date noone has taken this up.

BS 7909 brings together a great deal of guidance about temporary electrical systems and their use; it outlines best practice, and in the annexes provides useful information about distribution equipment, RCDs, and earthing arrangements.It is likely that the major broadcasters will make it a requirement that BS 7909 is followed wherever temporary electrical systems are involved as a part of their productions. It might be appropriate for those involved with temporary electrical systems to

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Showlight 2009

Jim Bornhorst – The God Father of moving lights…”Dichroics and the early days of moving lights” Lee Allen reflects -

Jim Bornhorst got his degree in engineering and was, and still is an audio junkie. It was 1971, Nixon was in the Whitehouse and the Vietnam war was coming to the end the world was going into a recession, the jobs in the defence industry were gone, so he moved to Dallas and in with his ex-college friend and his pregnant wife.

Jim started to look for work, nothing was happening until his friend’s wife handed Jim a job advert advertising “Sound engineer, degree needed” for a company called Showco. Jim had an interview with a man called Harry ‘Rusty’ Brutsche, who he still works with to this day. Jim found out that Showco designed and built audio touring systems; Jim was hired and went out with a band called “Three Dog Night”.

He worked his way up the ladder and became a ‘systems engineer’ responsible for front of house sound mixing.

Jim worked with bands such as James Taylor and Jackson Brown then on the road with Alice Cooper which was “quite interesting”.

Between gigs back in Dallas the electronics degree came in useful as Jim and Rusty were building a new sound system called ‘The Superboard’ this was a 30 input quadraphonic mixing desk with full parametric EQ on every input channel, whatever that is? I’m sorry to say it but if light doesn’t come out, I haven’t got a clue about it, whatever it was it was successful. Jim did the electronics and Rusty the mechanics on it The company grew in size pretty quickly becoming a full production house with full sound services, lighting, set design and construction for bands.

Rock and Roll became an industry and the system sizes on concerts grew also.

In 1976 Paul McCartney’s Wing’s tour went out in 5 full trucks, which in those days was a big tour. Led Zeppelin was another big tour and in 1978 the Van Halen tour had 1000 par cans, each wired separately, it was all getting out of hand!

In the late 1970’s the company grew to

120 staff and the company was under a big financial strain, in 1979 they did the Bee Gees “Saturday Night Fever Tour” it was a massive rig with chrome par cans and truss. The big element of the tour was the dance floor, it was very complex as it was computer driven which was programmed by typing in on a teletype machine and the paper tape was fed into the system. The tour was a success for the band but Showco lost money on it. They also had a few other problems, when they were out in Japan the lead singer was arrested and the concert cancelled and they did not get any compensation.

In 1980 a concert in England was about to start and one of the band members died causing the concert to be cancelled with more losses, the bill collectors were knocking on the door, their lighting equipment was getting old, a new 6 lamp par bar multi wired fixture and 1K dimmers were around, so they sold the lighting department, got out of set design and only concentrated on audio systems.

Jim and colleagues had learned a few things from these experiences; all the equipment of lighting was inefficient, it was hard to move it all about easily, and took a lot to plug up. They had been throwing about an idea of a gel

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Having been a moving light operator for a few years and used them on many shows, this paper at Showlight 2009 had me very interested - for this was the man who helped the lighting world get from the idea of colour changing par can, to the moving head lights we all use so much today. Jim wasn’t the first person to put a servo motor in a lamp but he and his group of engineers in Dallas were the first to put 7 in one fixture, a new and wild idea, but how?

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Showlight 2009

changer for quite awhile with ideas ranging from air driven concepts, liquid crystal, fluid changing and they even built some prototypes but they just didn’t work.

In 1980 Mr Brutsche took Jim and his team of 2 to one side and said that they were to have one last crack at this gel changer, we are going to use a 1K par can, it’s to have six different colours, the colour has to change in a 10th of a second, it has to have a digital controller so cues can be recalled and you have 3 months on it after which we move on to something else.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The 3 of them, all audio guys, set to work on this lighting problem.

With the best will in the world Jim knew that moving gels in and out of a 1000W par can wasn’t going to happen with the size and heat of it, so a new light source was called for. They didn’t tell Rusty that they were going to change the source of the light. This came in the form of a 350W arc spotlight, it had as much output as a 1000W tungsten lamp, but smaller than a par lamp.

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Jim got hold of the lamp, the ballast was scary as it looked like it had came out of “Frankenstein’s kitchen”. Jim fired the lamp up and everyone liked the colour and output of the lamp, then they put a gel in front of the light, it vaporized the gel as soon as it was put in the beam, oh dear! Jim being an avid photographer knew about dichroic filters, so he went into the staff photographers dark room and looked at his new enlarger, he opened it up and saw the cyan, yellow and magenta dichroic filters. Jim decided not to take out the dichroic filters but ordered a new set.

The filters turned up, Jim looked through them and was amazed at the colours they produced, as he tipped the filter the colour changed with the angle.

He fired up the lamp placed the filters

in the beam and they survived! The colour look great! It was at this point they decided to make not just a gel changer but a continuously variable colour changer instead. This was a good idea as it might save their jobs and save Showco.

They built a basic set up on an optical bread board with the light source clamped in a vice and the light passing through the dichroic filters and then the lens. The dichroic filters moved and the colours changed, it was looking promising so they started to build a prototype, this was the birth of the VL-0. It had colour crossfade, dimmer and a douser, they decided to drive them with model airplane servos.

One day Rusty and Jack Maxton came back into Jim’s area after being off saving the company and said that they need to get together to see where you’re at over a barbeque lunch. So they went off to lunch and Jim had to come clean about they weren’t using a par can or gels and that they were using dichroic filters for colour, after a bit more chat Jack asked how many servos had the lamp got? Jim replied 5, Jack suggested adding 2 more servos and it could move!

The next thing was how to control the lamp, a digital controller was needed. A small desk was made with 16 preset cues to store information, no micro processors were used as this was the early 80’s and not many were around at the time and everything was built as hardware. They built a transmitter that had a thumb wheel on it that would take data and format it up, put an address encoded by the thumb wheel and send it out. On the other end was a receiver, again with a thumb wheel on it, so when the two thumb wheels matched up data transferred between them. The receiver put out analogue values to the servos.

The units were connected together with

3 core mic cables as they had a lot hanging around. The unit was finished and hanging in the conference room and they were pleased with its performance but a few people were shown the lamp and it wasn’t that warmly received. The big demo came in December 1980 when the VL-0, Jim, Rusty and Genesis’ lighting designer, Alan Owen, came across the pond to England to see Genesis at their farm. In a cold damp barn the lamp was set up, the cables were stiff with the cold but the demo began. The band, and Tony Smith the manager, turned up to have a look, with a few preset focuses and a bit of waggling about everyone was liking what they saw and thought that there was something in it. Mike Rutherford said “I didn’t know it was going to move I thought it was just going to change colour.”

After a bit everyone went back to the house and sat around the fire to cut a deal. What Tony wanted was 50 lamps and a controller for their 1981 September tour. He was willing to put up 1 million Dollars for the deal, for that Tony and all 3 band members got 10% of the company that was going to be set up around this technology, Tony coined the name for the lamp as “Vari Lite”.

On the flight back Jim said to Rusty “I don’t think this is what they need as Genesis use a lot of beams and ACL’s in their shows, we need a bigger lamp and maybe some projection”. Rusty reluctantly agreed to change direction with the lamp. So after taking their money they went back to the drawing board.

Jim Started building the VL-1 in January, these lamps had a gobo wheel, dimmer and colour wheels, the colour changed in 1/10th of a second. Instead of mixing, the colour was put on 3 separate wheels. The basic design is almost the same as in today’s moving lamps.

Showlight 2009

The system was set up in the shop in the late summer of 1981. The 55 lamps were on a truss, and the operator, Tom Littrell, opened the iris of the lights and turned the tilt knob moving the lamps while lit. Everyone was thunder struck as all these beams moved through the air, no-one had conceived moving the lamps around with the light on, they were originally designed to be a repositionable light.

The system was packed up and shipped to Shepperton studios for a month of

rehearsals with Genesis. A few electrical and mechanical problems were sorted out and the band was happy, the lights were getting a lot of attention from the crews working at the studios.

After a month the kit was packed up and driven to Barcelona to the Plaza De Toros bull ring. The performance starts but the lights weren’t shown until a lit-

tle way into the show. The VL-1’s very first cue was what they called the bathtub drain, the lamps were in a puky green colour and just swept into the crowd, the effect on the audience was instantaneous, they stood up “WOWed”.

The tour carried on all throughout Europe with a fantastic response from the crowd. Lots of problems with the lamps but they were all fixed along the way. After a month Jim left the tour and returned to Dallas, and decided they needed to redesign the lamps again and build more of this equipment. The next few years were a blur for Jim as things progressed at an incredible pace, with them building 33 consoles and over 800 lights.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

They built 55 Lamps in seven months, hand building many parts. They also built a controller for the lights based around 5 micro processors, the desk had chaser and sequencer built in and a cross fader.

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Showlight 2009

How I lit a West End Show in Three Days - Bernie Davis Mike Baker writes -

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

What I loved about Showlight was the huge breadth and depth of the papers presented. The contrast between the sheer size and complexity of the lighting challenges was both jaw dropping and inspirational.

Following on from the previous speakers ‘Lighting the Storr’ on the Isle of Skye, Bernie took us totally in the opposite direction - to London’s West End where he was been lighting the Royal Variety Performance off and on since 1994.

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Bernie’s experience in high end lighting is legendary within the industry and he also is the master of understatement. As he told us, finding an appropriate venue is not easy - it needs to be available for a one-week booking in December. This year (2008) it was decided to return to the Palladium, the natural home for the Royal Variety. The only down side with the Palladium is the lack of wing space, and on this occasion the fact that the Sound of Music [SOM] was running.

The Royal Variety has high aspirations and takes months of planning but has some rather large inherent snags. Just two days of rehearsals, one dress run and then the show ‘as live’. There is not much room for error. By anyone!

Bernie’s challenge on this occasion was: a Saturday night performance of

SOM, followed by an immediate but limited get-out. By Tuesday morning they had to be rehearsing, with a dress run during the day on Thursday and the show itself on Thursday evening. There

would then be a complete get-out with a SOM reset and a performance Friday evening! The SOM lighting rig could not be moved - or even refocused - so any additional lighting had to go in over the top.

The PLAN Set designer Simon Kimmel and Bernie talked about what could be put in to fit that schedule, and came up with a TV studio-style design breaking away from the portal template - a standing set with just a few drop-ins to ring the changes.

To add to that there would be an LED wall upstage.

With the surround set all the side light would be obstructed and Bernie suggested that slots in the set would enable

cross lighting. Simon also offered a rail around the top of the set for more lighting options as well as building pracs into the set.

Bernie then got a costing based on a couple of trusses-worth of his own moving lights, a few movers for the floor and a few for dedicated sets, a few custom gobos, some 6-lamp bars for audience lighting, and a rig for the foyer. By the time Catalyst and operators for moving lights and Generics were costed in, lighting was already significantly over budget.

Up to then the set plan had been little more than a sketch and model. It was difficult to see which components of the SOM rig would come into play until a set plan arrived in October. It didn’t look good!

Half the overhead lighting was blocked by the high surround set. The slots in the set were not as big as Bernie had hoped and 4 heads per slot were not possible. He settled for three, and went for a mix - 700 Profiles, 700 Washes and TW1 Tungsten Washes in each of 6 slots. The top rail was lined with Mac 300s for variety. A Mac 700 was squeezed in at each end of the lower rail and 6 x VL1000s on the upper rail giving him focusable keys. The trusses had to hang more or less under the house LX positions so that limited the use of the SOM rig, but it gave him a

Showlight

set of lights that were still occasionally useful.

Martin Professional had just brought out their new Mac IIIs and Jessica Allen kindly offered a loan of four plus a spare. Bernie knew they did excellent beam work so he gladly accepted the offer and decided to use them on the floor for some of the acts.

A LiTTLe ABouT SoMe of The ACTS News of the acts was now gradually coming in; one would be Brian May and Kerry Ellis performing a very heavy Queen-style Defying Gravity from Wicked. Bernie really wanted it to look different from the rest of the hightech looks; retro R&R was to be the plan! There was a small slot in the grid upstage that he grabbed and dropped in 48 parcans as a backdrop. 500w pars were used to save cabling and dimmers, and while not exactly the 2000 par rig that Brian would remember it was a good nod in that direction. Bernie used a range of colours around green to go with the green used in Wicked.

Simon Kimmel arranged to use X-Chip LED from Panalux to decorate the set, as well as insetting some Barco MiTrix panels to extend the video effect around the set a little more. Five panels of Martin LC panels were flown mid-stage with no definite uses in the show, all to evolve later.

There was to be a fight sequence where Zorro has an entrance complete with rope swing on stage. Some of the cast turned up at the Palladium to try it out.

Bernie was warned that the swing was

As for the Lion King extract, the Disney Empire informed Bernie that there had to be enough space behind the cut-out sun to back-light it. He didn’t want to say that it didn’t look possible, so gave the diplomatic answer – ‘we would do all we can to make it as good as possible’.

George Sampson’s management wanted him to perform what was really his latest video live onstage, a complex sequence involving shadow play on a downstage kabuki cloth, dancing with himself on the upstage screen, then leaping through a tube train window to continue in the carriage, then a big dance finale. All pretty straightforward, then!

Bernie had assumed that Peter Kay would be a stand-up

comedian - usually the breathing space in a variety show for the lighting team.

Instead he was to do a sequence from his show ‘Britain’s got the X Factor’ in his Geraldine persona. Starting at a grand piano he would end up blowing out the candelabra - and when the lights come up he would be on a Harley Davidson singing ‘Born to be Wild’, the start of a frantic medley finishing with his Christmas song and dancing snowmen.

For Cliff Richard there were dancers in the wings making shadow play on translucent panels where the doors were. This was where just a Mac III either side did the trick in spite of limited space. Luckily the Mac IIIs are very wide.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

in danger of blocking lights, and in fact at a tech trial they had swung in only to wipe out a line of Source 4s and a wallbracket chandelier. And that was just a trial!

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Showlight

So hoW DiD The RiG Go? The Sunday rig was very frustrating for the crew. The set arrived and the flying pieces were too heavy for cradles. Extra cradles had to be fitted and while the set sat on the floor the sound crew arrived and filled the stage with flight cases. By the time the ELP lighting crew were out of hours hardly any lights had been fitted to the set.

Fortunately, the Palladium found a theatre crew and by next morning the rig was in.

That before lunch, Jersey Boys, Pussycat Dolls, Naturally 7, Duffy and Josh Groban before dinner, and Brian May and John Barrowman after dinner.

GRAPhiCS Bernie went on to give some detail about the graphics content.

He recalled Rick Fisher speaking so eloquently at Showlight in Munich about how limiting the use of graphics can be to the lighting designer, and Bernie completely agreed.

On Tuesday the operating position was shoe-horned in, just.

Bernie likes to operate from the auditorium as it is so useful during rehearsals to be in good contact with the stage, as well as the fact that there is no time to risk moving to the lighting box between the rehearsals and the show. Besides, at that time the lighting team will still be programming!

A number of the acts had pre-edited frame accurate sequences cut to fit the track, though not laid down with the track. This presented a number of problems:

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

As every seat removed potentially loses money there was a need to fit into as small a space as possible. All notes were on a laptop to avoid unnecessary paperwork. Rehearsals were recorded on hard-drive recorder for reviewing and lighting rehearsals at night.

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ReheARSALS Tuesday duly came, with a run from 10.00 to 22.00 followed by programming up to 01.00. Lion King and Cliff and The Shadows were before lunch; Zorro, and Peter Kay before dinner, and George Samson, Leona Lewis and Rihanna after dinner, with a few comedians slotted in between.

Wednesday was just as busy: Cage Aux Folles, Ballet de Trocadero and Take

PRoBLeMS There weren’t too many problems, in fact Brian May even approved of Bernie’s suggestions! However he did ask if we could change the colour as Kerry had been in Wicked for a while and was sick of Green!

The net result of that was that the lighting crew had to trawl around the Palladium for any colour cuts in reds and blues they could find!

1. Some of the track versions were different from the ones used by the graphics editor resulting in utter confusion.

The schedule did get behind, but every act got rehearsed. Bernie pointed out that each act came on stage with no cues stored, but by the end of rehearsal most of the cue structures were in place. By the end of the rehearsal period about 2,000 cues were duly stored.

2. Any changes in the graphics requested on site meant considerably more than a quick video edit; sometimes requiring a five-hour re-render.

Not exactly easy in view of the rehearsal schedule.

3. Colours and speeds were predetermined by people not seeing the finished

Showlight

Predesigned graphics are fine, but in Bernie’s opinion, they should be supplied as components to be controlled by the graphics operator. Running a graphics sequence is just like running a lighting cue sequence and we certainly wouldn’t want that to be predetermined before we got on site.

CoNCLuSioN Bernie had called the talk ‘How he lit a West-End show in three days’ but that was of course a rather ‘tip of the iceberg’ description of all the preparation that went into the televising of the show. He felt that the end result was nowhere near as slick as the average theatre production but from what we, the audience at Showlight then saw in the way of video extracts of the show, he could be justifiably proud of what he and his team got together in just a very particular three days.

Something like 7.5 million viewers watched the show as transmitted; interesting to note that it would have taken some 15 years for a theatre audience at The Palladium to notch up that many viewers. The power of TV! Bernie concluded by thanking his operating team - Nigel Catmur, Ross Williams, and Oliver Lifely, Crew Chief Paul Tibbles, Dave Draude and his team at the Palladium and of course Linford Hudson and the Palladium spot team.

nd

2 Knight of Illumination Awards

....and the winners are -

In Association with

London, 13th September 2009 “...The only Awards exclusively dedicated to professional Lighting Designers...”

Drama John o’Brien The Bill

For more information: www.knight-of-illumination.com

Music Will Charles

The Album Chart Show

L.E. Chris Kempton Friday Night with Jonathan Ross

Events Gurdip Mahal

BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Recognition

Mark White

More reports from Showlight in the next issue

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

product – (ie the show recording). What might look exciting in isolation in an office could look manic behind the close-up of a singer. The use of servers and screens offers a fantastic tool to the designer, but it is really important that the control of this stays with the lighting designer whose skills are to match colours and moods to the action and costumes and set.

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STLD VISIT

Graded grains make finer pictures! Visit to Quantel Report by Paul Middleton to emerge during the mid 80’s.

The advent of digital technology, component video recording and computers (which didn’t take up an entire room) were the catalysts for the subsequent changes that have happened to TV and Film post production over the past 35 years.

At the forefront of digital TV technology has been UK company Quantel. It was started by then Chairman Peter Michael as Micro Consultantsî in 1973 using technology which could convert signals from analogue to digital and then back to analogue again.

Television Lighting Summer 2009

On Thursday 25th June 2009 a group of STLD members travelled to Newbury in Berkshire to visit the headquarters of Quantel to view the Pablo grading system and learn whether it really can be fixed in the edit!

Having trained on 2” Quad in the 70’s and then becoming a Video Tape Editor on 1” and then BetaSP, the thought of being able to edit and re-order video clips without generation loss is something I could only have dreamt of back at the start of the 1980’s.

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At that time programmes could only be edited sequentially and each edit from tape to tape reduced the picture quality.

There was also other issues such as the PAL 8 field sequence that meant you could only edit to the nearest frame in the 4 frame sequence, rather than cutting to the exact frame that you wanted. Editing down four, or possibly five, generations was the most that was usually allowed if picture quality was to be technically acceptable for transmission.

Colour correction could initially only be done in the camera chain where the raw RGB signals could be worked on independently. Once recorded to tape, the ability to change the colour balance between shots recorded on location and in the studio was very limited. With the advent of more sophisticated telecine machines, in certain companies the edit suites could be hooked up to the telecine colour graders and various colour grading effects applied to the pictures once recorded on tape; but this was still in the analogue domain, and union restrictions often meant that such activities were often only available to the independent facilities companies that started

Quantel’s first products were Digital Timebase Correctors and Framestore Synchronisers to which they then added the “Digital Library System” followed by the ubiquitous “Paintbox” . These two products could store full resolution TV pictures onto Fujitsu hard drives, which were enormous taking up about 12 U of rack space and providing just 300 MB of storage. i.e about 300 pictures or about 12 seconds of video. However the speed of access of the hard drives at that time didn’t allow realtime playback or recording of video, and it would be several years before the use of RAID arrays made real time video record and playback a reality.

In the 80’s to edit a video clip the individual frames had to be grabbed one at a time from tape and then recorded back to tape in the same way. The Paintbox however was the real catalyst for a whole new generation of products which allowed a TV picture to be manipulated in every conceivable way.

Nowadays pictures can be edited in any desired order without limitation, and the results viewed immediately.

With current standard SD recording the range of effects that can be applied to alter exposure and subtly adjust colour, or correct under or over exposure is relatively limited due to the restricted contrast range of data recorded onto tape. With the newer generations of HD, 2K and 4K cameras which can produce pictures with much greater depth of colour information, the possibilities for colour correction and manipulation are greatly enhanced.

Like many Quantel products the current “Pablo” is part dedi-

Quantel Visit

cated Quantel hardware and part standard PC, with the Quantel software tying everything together.

The system that was on demonstration in Quantel demo room was a 4K Pablo, but the system also encompasses versions for working in 2K and standard HD, as well as the latest stereoscopic 3D. The speed of the multiple processors and the background processing engines that are part of the Quantel system means that the system has the ability to go way beyond 4K resolution if required in the future, still with real time response.

You may ask why do we need to shoot at 4K resolution? Well the answer is that the higher the input resolution the better the final result will be when down-converted compared to shooting at a lower resolution.

The first question we asked before starting the presentation was “how do you calibrate a High Definition grading suite so that the video projectors and desktop monitors present a known reference?” The answer is that there is a very detailed standard for Digital Cinema (DCI) which defines the requirements of all the equipment which is used for D-Cinema production. Full details are available at www.dcimovies.com The standard was defined by a consortium of the seven main Hollywood movie studios in 2005 and has been steadily updated since then to include new technology such as Stereoscopic 3D.

Whilst the seating in the Quantel demo theatre meant that we could see both the operator’s video monitors and the video projector - for cinema grading purposes the grading session would be conducted with the decision makers just viewing the video projector which would be set up in exactly the same way as in a real cinema. The DCI Spec defines standards such as ambient light levels, pixel aspect and shape, image luminance and white point chromaticity. The DCI standard doesn’t however include information about how the data in the movies is actually formatted as that is defined by the relevant SMPTE digital cinema standards.

The XYZ colour space defined in the standard is interesting because it is based upon the tristimulus values which are roughly red, green and blue and are what the eye appears to see as the colours from a light source which hits the eye of the observer within a 10

degree field of view.

The mathematics and physics are very interesting but beyond the scope of this article. Full details of the XYZ colours can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The Digital Cinema Initiatives partners are MGM, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. Getting such a consortium of companies to work together was itself a major undertaking, as the US Anti-trust regulations would normally prevent groups of companies working together to try and establish a monopoly position. Luckily the positive side of having such a standard was recognised and allowed to proceed.

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Quantel Visit

If the final output is going to be Film, Digital Cinema, or Broadcast TV then an appropriate LUT will used to ensure that the colour settings used to view the final output will match the actual output medium. This is the same method used as applying ICC Profiles to make sure that printed material matches the pictures seen on a desktop publishing system.

The Pablo on demonstration was based on the iQ system first released by Quantel nearly 7 years ago. The control surface uses a Dual Quad Core Processor running Windows XP for the interfacing of the Neo control panel, which itself is a USB device which uses around 24 USB ports.

Throughout this article there will be mention of Look Up Tables (LUTs). These are increasingly important in digital cinematography systems as they enable various transformations to be applied to pictures in order to achieve various effects.

The demo system uses a shared pool of storage on a local SAN with 8 x Dylan RAID arrays giving 40TB of storage over Fibre Optic connections.

With the increasing amount of post production now being done on TV programmes the reason for the visit to Quantel was to see some of the effects that can now be applied to TV and Film productions so as to be aware of what might happen to your carefully lit pictures in post, and also what steps need to be taken into consideration if a scene is being shot with a definite expectation of it being manipulated in post.

Colour Grading The evening started by a viewing of the ì100 years of Filmî promo produced by BAFTA in association with Quantel on the Domino system back in 1994 for the UK/LA Film Festival. The Domino system (which was a forerunner of Pablo) had been used to clean-up, restore and grade the numerous classic archive films, removing dirt and other blemishes as well as putting the colour back in, and making the shots look as good as new.

The demo then moved on to start to show what could be achieved 15 years later using the latest technology.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The first presentation used shots from a trailer for the IMAX production “Mystic India”. This had been scanned at 6K from the IMAX negative and was received at Quantel on HDCAM SR (1) as log based material (2). Log based material appears very washed out when viewed directly as it is low contrast, high dynamic range material. Before grading can start a lookup table (LUT) has to be applied to the source material in order to view it properly. The LUT allows the raw video footage to be viewed in the same format as it would be if the film was processed traditionally and then projected. This is the same process as when a RAW file from a digital camera is viewed natively on a PC in a program such as Photoshop.

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RAW .R3D low contrast- high dynamic range log frame Pablo Neo control panel above.

Steve Owen Head of Product Marketing and Damon Hawkins - Pablo Product Manager.

Feature Films are now almost entirely digital for post production. i.e Digital Intermediate (DI) The uncompressed data rates are 1.15 GB per second of data in 4K = 48 MB per frame. SD TV is around 800K for 4:2:2 digital.

LUT table corrected frame taken from sample RAW 4K camera file at http://camerarentalz.com/wpcontent/uploads/2009/05/

Quantel Visit

Damon showed that the log image offered a very wide range of adjustment options as the dynamic range of the film source material is much higher than the video projector or the LCD monitors can cope with. Once the exposure of the scene had been set, the next stage was to set the colour balance. With all the colour correction being done digitally it is possible to be very selective over how individual colours or ranges of colours can be adjusted. The picture changes are all applied in real-time, and unlike systems from a few years ago there is no need to go and have a cup of tea whilst a scene is rendered.

The adjustments are made on one frame of a scene and the whole shot can then be viewed immediately with the same corrections applied. At any time the picture could be switched back to its base LUT version to see if the corrections being made were OK. Once a particular shot has been graded the same look can be instantly applied to the another shot and any further adjustments made. Where the power of the computer starts to show through over a traditional film lab is that effects can be applied on a key frame basis throughout a shot and by using various keys mattes and object tracking techniques, colour grading can be applied very selectively to specific portions of a shot. A great feature is that a shot from another project can be selected using a still store of clips, and the settings from that clip transferred to the current scene.

The next demo’s were more applicable to lighting and how the grading could be used to either simulate lighting effects or correct/alter specific lighting. The first was a shot inside an Indian temple with light streaming in through four relatively small windows. The interior was solely lit from bounce light off the floor coming from outside and as well as seeing the vaulted ceiling in the temple it was desired to see the action outside the windows. In order to enhance the effect of the light bouncing off the floor lighting the ceiling the shot had to be darkened overall. Damon then pointed out that as the shot was darkened the saturation also had to be reduced to match.

As the scene was darkened the detail in the windows increased, such is the dynamic range of the original film. The next step was to fake the lighting of the ceiling. This was done by defining the area into which the ìlightî was going to be pointed using a series of built in drawing tools to isolate the required area of the ceiling.

A question was asked about what cameras and recording methods provided the greatest latitude for grading. Steve explained that recording standard 10 bit HD to HDCAM (YUV) would give the least amount of latitude whereas recording with a camera such as the Arri D21, or Red One to HDCAM SR would give around 11 stops of exposure latitude for post production.

However what camera manufacturers are trying to do is persuade users not to apply Gamma correction etc when shooting, but instead to shoot high dynamic range (low-contrast pictures) using Log curves so that as much dynamic range as possible is recorded on tape directly from the sensor. This option is even being provided on relatively low cost cameras, where an HDMI output is provided to give the full HD output which can be recorded using an external tape or hard drive system, rather than trying to be compressed both temporally and spacially in order to fit the limitations of the built in recording system.

Some cameras such as HDV for example only record the HD Chroma Signal at a reduced horizontal and vertical resolution in order to reduce the recording bandwidth, even though the camera sensor is producing full bandwidth pictures.

Compared to setting up the camera traditionally with the required gamma and limited contrast range the new technique is to monitor the camera output via a LUT generator on set so that the desired look can be observed on a local monitor without the RAW camera output actually being affected on the recording.

The next demo involved enhancing a shot of a camel and rider walking across a sand dune in silhouette. Damon showed that the colour correction could be done on multiple layers on a shot. The first level was to take the original flat sky and create a nicely gradated sunset. On another layer an elliptical matte was created to produce a highlighting effect behind the rider. The effect produced a nice halo but it was static on screen. Damon reckoned It would look nicer to have the effect follow the Camel across the screen. This could either be done by manually moving the halo to the required position for each frame of the shot, but Pablo has a much easier option. This is to use a tracker. A point on the camel could be selected using a cursor and the software then automatically tracks that point as it moved across the screen. This gave a perfect match for the effect to follow the camel across screen.

The next demo was to show how gradings and effects from one shot can be picked up and then applied to another shot using a still store. As well as being able to switch backwards and forwards between the graded and the un-graded image it was also possible to use a split screen to compare before and after effects. The demo also showed how a typical effect of grading the sky separately from the rest of the picture could be achieved. The still photographers amongst our readers will be aware of the problems of achieving a good exposure on the sky without under exposing the land in the shot. The sky exposure can be adjusted during the shoot using Polarising filters or graduated ND filters but when the shot is on video, and is moving, then filters are not so easy to use. There is also the issue that any colour correction being done to create a warm effect (for example) on a scene, would not normally want to be applied to the sky, as it would then tend to push the sky more towards grey, rather than keeping the nice deep blue sky, which is often used as the signature look when a hot climate is trying to be reproduced.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Once a base LUT has been applied to a log image it will then start to look like the required final result. Different LUTs can be applied to the log image to simulate different film stocks, or to give the equivalent of a film processing procedure such as bleach bypass.

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The answer is to use an HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminance) key which can produce a matte from any particular colour in the scene. One tap of the cursor on the main area of the sky immediately generated a key signal, which could then be fine tuned by adjusting the Saturation and Luminance levels to full isolate the sky. Should it happen that another area of the scene also contained the exact same blue colour then a series of wipes and masks could be applied to the key signal so that only the sky was affected, and not for example its reflection in water in the shot. Another useful feature shown was that the key could also be generated from the original low contrast source frame which made selection of the sky much easier.

Another typical effect is to apply a vignette to the picture (as if often seen to excessive amounts in Top Gear videos) and many different effects could be cascaded on top of one another.

Original 10 bit image

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The next demo of this section of the evening was to show how coloured lighting in a scene to be changed. The example shot featured a young Indian boy with a very strong three quarter backlight with a daylight filter on it to contrast with the low angle cross from the opposite direction giving a candle lit effect. Damon was able to show how the Pablo could select a particular colour (and a range of colours surrounding it) and then adjust those colours on a global basis within the picture so that the ultimate result was the effect of the daylight filter could be totally removed, or replaced with another colour e.g to give a much bluer nightime effect, or else to go to an orange so that the scene appeared to be lit at sunset.

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LUT applied

Colour cast removed without affecting the rest of the shot

Fettle curves are a unique Quantel feature that has been present in Quantel products since the days of Henry. Fettling is the process whereby individual colours in a scene can be replaced on a global basis with a given input colour being replaced with a new output colour.

Another feature of the Pable software was the ability to alter the detail in a particular area of the picture, thus emulating, for example, the effect of using net or mist filter on a camera lens, but on a selective area of the picture rather than the whole frame. A typical use of this would be to remove wrinkles and smooth out the skin of a star actor, or by going to an extreme and creating an ethereal halo around a character.

One of the selling points of Pablo is that is more than just a colour corrector. It features a full Quantel Paintbox system, built in, as well as the ability to use the thousands of third party plugins that have been developed for use with Quantel products over the years. These cover areas such as grain addition and noise reduction. Grain addition can be applied to a video picture to help it match with scenes shot on film, and noise reduction is usually applied to help reduce bandwidth requirements on transmission or when encoding to DVD. Damon then showed an example of how to remove an unwanted object from a scene. Using the standard Paintbox tools, he was able draw around an area of the picture such as a clump of grass and then duplicate it to cover another area of grass that was distracting the overall picture as it had a birds nest in it. By using the tracker tools he was able to simply click on a reference point in the birds nest in the first frame and then as the camera panned across the shot the same area of unwanted birds nest in each subsequent frame was automatically replaced by the matching piece of the grass. The whole process took a matter of seconds to complete and gave a perfect result. Similar uses for the feature would be to remove an unwanted TV aerial from a house in a period drama, or to remove the reflection of a crew member accidentally caught as a shiny car door was shut.

ReD The discussion then moved onto the subject of the RED cameras which are currently very popular because they are cheap (around $17K). As well as TV work they have been used for feature films such as Angels and Demons as well as District 9. Steve pointed out that there were a few challenges to working with the camera in terms of Post Production workflow.

The RED range features a large format Bayer sensor on which the RGB pixels are interleaved with one line of pixels having alternating Green and Red Pixels with the next line having alternating Blue and Green pixels. The software provided by RED can take the raw Bayer data and decode it to produce a 16bit, 12bit, 10 bit or 8 bit data file from the original data file. The software interpolates the missing pixels in each colour in order to ensure that the output resolution at 4K is full 4:4:4 resolution. An interesting fact is that because of the nature of the files, when recorded on tape they canít be viewed when shuttling through the tape. They have to be dumped to disc and then decoded first. Steve explained that

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the actual choice of decoding will be determined by the amount of post production to be done. Most post is currently done at 10 bit.

A great feature of the Pablo is that it can mix resolutions on the fly, such that an HD program with SD inserts doesnít have to have the SD clips rendered up to HD, thus saving on disc storage space. Pablo generates the desired output resolution on the fly and there is no need to render files up to match the resolution of the main sequence. Thus files of HD, 2K and PAL 625 can be mixed with the resolutions being converted by means of high resolution multi-point bi-cubic interpolation.

Day for Night If the sun is going to replace moonlight effect then the difference between the shots are that the night time version will have a black, or very dark sky. This can be achieved quite well in daylight as the sky will invariably be brighter than the rest of the scene and thus can be keyed out quite well.

Strong sunshine is better at producing a moonlight effect than a overcast day, as the contrast between lit and unlit sides of faces is more pronounced. Lighting may need to be added to a shot to provide increased contrast when the final effect will be to grade a shot for night time. Exposure may also need to be slightly over, so that when nightime grade is applied the picture doesn’t lose too much contrast.

Conclusions When shooting digitally pictures still need to be exposed properly so that the maximum range of data is recorded.

Waveform monitoring via histograms allows peak whites and blacks to be set right on the limits of the recording medium.

There is no need to underexpose, as this just wastes data bits in the recorded data. The exact choice of digital camera will affect the lighting as each has a different response based on the sensors used. Before shooting with any given digital camera tests need to be done to establish any correction needed to lighting.

The answer to the original question is that it really can be fixed in the edit!

Thanks to Steve and Damon for the demonstration. I doubt that any of us will be investing in a Pablo, but at a starting price of around £100K it offers an amazing range of features.

Appendix from Quantel Digital factbook 2008 Ref 1 hDCAM Assigned D11, this is a series of Sony VTRs based on the Betacam principles for recording HD video on a tape format which uses the same style of cassette shell as Digital Betacam, although with a different tape formulation. The technology supports 1080-line standards. Various methods are used to reduce the video data including pre-filtering, DCT-based intra-frame compression and sampling at around 3:1:1. Together these are said to provide data reduction of between 7 and 10:1. Four non-compressed audio channels sampled at 48 kHz, 20 bits per sample, are also supported.

One variation, CineAlta, is aimed at addressing the needs of digital cinematography. HDCAM SR is further extension of Betacam recorders using mild MPEG-4 Studio Profile (SP) intra-frame compression to store full bandwidth 4:4:4 HD RGB 1080 and 720-line video offering more headroom for digital cinema users, as well as 4:2:2 Y,Pr,Pb component video for television. It offers video data rates of 440 Mb/s and 880 Mb/s, and more audio channels than other currently available systems. It is scalable in its

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

HD edited material may have the same horizontal and vertical resolution but the colour depth is still limited compared to raw data files and there is a limit to the amount of further correction that can be applied to a picture once it has been graded and then output to HDCAM for TX.

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pixel count (SDTV, HDTV and film-resolution data), bit depth (10- or 12-bit), and colour resolution (component or RGB). The Sony F950 camera provides suitable RGB sources for this, including undercranked footage. The close-to-rawstate RGB material is well suited to the needs of digital cinematography as the full latitude and bandwidth of the pictures is preserved through recording.

Website: www.sonybiz.net/hdcamsr Ref 2 10-bit log

Television LightingAutumn 2009

This usually refers to a 10-bit sampling system that maps analogue values logarithmically rather than linearly. It is widely used when scanning film images which are themselves a logarithmic representation of the filmís exposure. This form of sampling is available directly from some digital cinematography cameras. The 10-bit data can describe 210 or 1024 discrete numbers, or levels: 0-1023 for each of the red, blue and green (RGB) planes of an image. However, as all electronic light sensors have a linear response and so produce an output directly proportional to the light they see, when scanning film they represent the transmittance of the film. Usually it is negative film that is scanned and this means a large portion of the numbers generated describe the sceneís black and dark areas (representing bright areas of the original scene), and too few are left for the light areas (dark scene) where ëbandingí could be a problem ñ especially after digital processing such as grading and colour correction. Transforming the numbers into log (by use of a LUT) gives a better distribution of the digital detail between dark and light areas and, being better matched to the eyesí response, offers good rendition over the whole brightness range without having to use more bits. A minimum of 13-bits linear sampling converted to 10-bit log sampling means sufficient detail in the pictures is stored to allow headroom for downstream grading that is common in film production. 10-bit log is the basis for sampling in the Cineon and SMPTE DPX formats that are widely used in the post production and DI industries.

The full 20th edition of the Quantel factbook is available online www.quantel.com

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Photographs by John O’Brien Picture credits Mystic India IMAX production copyright BAPS Charities 2005 www.mysticindia.com Elvis and Annabelle copyright Goldcrest Films and Burnt Orange Productions 2006 Quantel highlights 1976 Quantel DF3000 used at Montreal Olympics to provide the first picture in picture inset.

1981 Quantel Paintbox launched 1985 Harry compositing / non-linear editor released 2000 Quantel Management buyout from Carlton Communications 2005 Pablo Colour grading system launched

Welcome to new members Tim Hall Richard Pattimore Malcolm Reed Andrew Stagles

WANTED! Next issue is a landmark -TL100 Contributions required to reflect this acheivement. Have you any personal thoughts, ideas of landmark events, favourite bits of kit, funny stories? How about your biggest mistake!!!!

I need 100 items, big or small to stick in a box like this to entertain our readers.

Email or write to the editor editor@stld.org.uk or address on page 3

...also wanted Guest Editor for Television Lighting and Design

Obituaries John Treays - Membership No 1 To the editor Television Lighting.

I guess others better qualified than me will have written of Johns long & outstanding career at the BBC & thereafter as one of the first freelances. I want to mention his pivotal role in the formation of the STLD which may never have come into being without his vision & drive. This was networking before the term was invented. I have “Newsletter number one” in front of me, a fascinating bit of history for all its brevity on both sides of a single sheet of A4. It outlines the inaugural meeting in October 74 where John & his steering committee laid down the principals of the society which remain largely unchanged to this day.

For the first time, apart from the legendary meetings at Strands Floral street theatre, there was a forum for lighting designers to meet, swop ideas & information in a convivial atmosphere. Great Oaks from little acorns & all that The passing of my chum John T, as some of us affectionaly knew him, takes away a good friend & a great photographer & artist, he made good pictures, very good pictures, what more can one say of a lighting designer. What constitutes a good picture provided many hours of heated debate over the dinner table, once John had wrestled the beef out of the oven which no doubt Barbara had masterminded, at least until the wine ran out: it never did! His creativity spilled over into other crafts using glass, wood & metal, his objects usually reflected or filtered light in some magical way. I suppose other role models will come along but John T will do me.

Regards, John Watt I worked with John as his Vision Supervisor (console op.) for a couple of years in the late 70’s along with Robin Barnes my Vision Op. I had only been promoted to VS for a couple of days when John walked into the office and asked for me to work with him on a Play of the Month. To say I was nervous was an understatement. He along with Dennis Channon were the ‘gods’ of drama lighting and I had only really worked on LE and Sit. Com. I obviously did ok as I carried on working with him on all the major dramas that he did for the next couple of years.

I found him easy to work with. He kept things simple and clean, not putting up three lamps where one would do. But that is not to say that he had an empty rig, far from it. I remember on one Greek Tragedy we did in TC1 in a daylight scene we managed to get all three phases into the red, and yes I did add one too many lights and the breakers came out! The next scene he lit with two pups. It was also the first time I remember a cyc cloth put up specifically as a bounce cloth. Always experimenting, always striving for the best. He believed passionately that what we did was art and not science..

Chris Watts

elemer Nyíry 1938 – 2009

Born in Hungary early in 1938, Elemer was proud of his Hungarian heritage. As a serious, dedicated student it was soon recognised that he had a flair for analysing complex technical problems, but he also found time to organise and play violin in his college string quartet to help with tuition costs. He studied both engineering and music, gaining degrees in both. Early in 1957 Elemer had left Hungary shortly before the authorities arrived to arrest him for the active part he had played in the 1956 Uprising, during which he had, amongst other things, acted as a courier between the movement’s headquarters in Budapest and his home town of Szekesfehervar. He was also an accomplished sportsman; a Sabre fencer to championship standards and later a qualified ocean yachtmaster.

His involvement in the Motion Picture and Television industries was long and productive. Although better known in recent years for his power systems and lamp designs through his family’s company, Cinepower International Ltd., he had, amongst an enormous variety of projects, been involved with the early development of fast charging NiCd technology working with Saft in the 1960s, at the forefront of HMI ballast development since its inception, and was responsible for coming up with the hardware and systems that allowed a massive Super Panavision camera to be used successfully in the midst of a violent storm at sea, producing some stunning footage.

A gentle man, with a great sense of humour and a love of good food, Elemer always had a friendly smile. His enthusiasm when showing his latest inventions was invariably accompanied by an explanation of the technology intuitively matched to the listener’s level of technical understanding, whether basic or advanced. He will be missed by his family, many friends, and colleagues around the world.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

News of Elemer Nyíry’s untimely death on 29th March 2009 came as a shock to his family, friends, and industry colleagues. Elemer was known and acknowledged worldwide as a brilliant, innovative engineer who would tackle problems that others fought shy of. When some particularly thorny problem had to be solved, he would sometimes retire to his workshop issuing very strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. A solution would invariably be forthcoming.

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Send your news, at any time, to SponsorNews@stld.org.uk for inclusion in the next issue of Television Lighting!

A.C. Entertainment Technologies A.C. Special Projects Ltd. has provided a state of the art architectural lighting and control system for the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court at the heart of Somerset House in London. Located between The Strand and the River Thames, Somerset House is a spectacular neo-classical building with one of the most architecturally stunning courtyards in the capital. A major arts and cultural centre with a year-round programme of large-scale contemporary exhibitions and events, each summer 55 fountains dance in the courtyard and the extraordinary space is host to a series of major open-air concerts and film screenings. In winter, the courtyard is transformed into one of London’s most popular ice rinks.

balconies. RGBA spotlights fill in the areas above the doorways. Careful attention was paid to providing a discreet installation, as Somerset House offers guided tours of the lightwells that have considerable historic interest. For The Strand entrance, A.C. provided bespoke lengths of RGBA LED strip lighting enclosed in custom manufactured frosted tubes to uplight the vestibules vaulted ceiling and the capitals of the four central columns. In addition, various warm white LED fixtures highlight the courtyard statue and flagpole, with RGBA spots lighting the two clock towers. Flexible LED strips were installed at the base of main roof dome above the South wing of the building to give a stunning halo effect.

Control is provided by a Jands Vista PC, triggered by an AMX panel for presets, and City Theatrical Wireless DMX is used to reach some of the more tricky locations without needing new cable installations.

With the courtyard providing entertainment on an increasingly grand scale, the existing floodlighting system was becoming inadequate and time consuming to maintain.

ADB

Television Lighting Autumn 2008

At IBC 2009, ADB launched a raft of new products for the television studio market. Heading the list was the new ALC4 LED Cyclorama fixture, the first of its kind in the world.

With four advanced 40W Philips Lexel RGB+White LED light sources, one ALC4 can deliver the equivalent of 1250W of halogen power for an actual power consumption of just 160W.

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As a result, the venue had resorted to hiring in lighting systems for events, which was proving expensive, so they commissioned Lighting Designer Patrick Woodroffe to develop a contemporary scheme that would transform the space at night with a classic warm white illumination of the building’s facades. The contract to supply, install and programme the lighting system for the new scheme was awarded to A.C. Special Projects,.

Following lighting trials, the combination of red, green, blue and amber (RGBA) colour-mixing LEDs was found to provide the best warm white lighting. In addition, by utilising RGBA lighting fixtures, the battens provide the additional potential to illuminate the building facades in colour, adding a theatrical element to corporate and themed events.

Anolis RGBA LED battens mounted in the lightwells below the courtyard level uplight the West, East & South facades of the building and backlight the columns of the three facade

The Lexel LED module is colour-tuneable (RGBW) and the light is mixed in a mixing chamber. This results in a perfectly homogeneous light output from the module, eliminating coloured shadows or separately visible colours. It is also flicker-free and has no colour or white changes when

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dimmed, allowing easy creation of both smooth background illumination or effects.

Furthermore, due to an internal feedback system, the module offers an extraordinary colour consistency. It will hit the exact colour desired – and stay there – at any time. The colour consistency between different units is particularly valuable when using several of them together .

For maximum flexibility, the system can be controlled by DMX in different modes. In particular, it can be operated in a colour-tuneable RGB mode, or in a white-tuneable CCT mode. In the CCT mode, the white colour temperature can be accurately controlled from 2700K to 6500K. The colour rendering index (CRI) is above 80.

Both XLR-5 and Powercon In and Through connectors are provided for easy daisy-chaining. A modular reinforced aluminium housing, in a corrosion free black powder-coated finish, accommodates a choice of three high brilliance aluminium reflector options, including the standard asymmetrical type, allowing the fixture to be used not only for cyclorama lighting but for Fill lights and Washes as well.

The cool-running ALC4 can be floor mounted or hung.

ADB Lighting’s range of motorised studio suspensions is now expanded to four, with the new PWS-1, PWS-2 and DWS-3 motorised studio hoists and a new TDM-1 motorised telescope.The hoists offer a choice of pile or drum winding of suspension ropes, with standard overload/no-load protection, or for even more safety critical applications, ADB's proprietary Intelligent Safety System (I.S.S.) and, as a bonus, a very competitive price.

The new TDM-1 motorised telescope is based on ADB’s original proprietary telescopic tube concept and an innovative drum drive mechanism, ensuring perfect linearity of movement, speed and load capacity over the entire travel of the telescope. The performance is designed to match the positional accuracy and repeatability of modern motorised lights.

High technology hybrid dimming was also on show at IBC in the shape of ADB’s new EURODIM Twin Tech dimmer.

Nearly 100 thyristor cabinets have already been ordered, and the first sine wave dimmers are set for delivery this year.

Finally ADM was happy to announce that TF-1 in Paris have installed no less than 36x WARP/M Profiles into their latest News studio.

room only, with candidates being turned away at the door.

Subjects covered included how to maximise Art-Net’s capabilities, the integration of Art-Net into large scale applications and a discussion on broadcast and unicast protocols.

The content catered for the wide variety of attendees which included specifiers, designers, end users etc, who agreed that the discussion clarified points of use and brought people up to speed on the history of control and what Art-Net II, the latest version of Art-Net, could offer. Transcripts and video clips of the seminar and the Q&A session which followed can be found on the Artistic Licence website at www.ArtisticLicence.com Four new products were launched at the show - Art-Play, ArtRelay, Sign-Control and Two-Play - in a well attended press launch and cocktail party on the Sunday evening. Two products, Sign-Control and Two-Play, were entered for the PLASA09 Awards for Innovation and Artistic Licence was very happy to learn that Two-Play was awarded a Commendation from the judges.

Two-Play is a two-universe, multiple record and playback Art-Net controller providing the perfect control solution for small to medium size installations.

Avolites The Art2000 Power Cube was released at PLASA. This uses the very popular ART2000 technology to give a flexible mixture of power in a very portable rack. It is designed to be quick and easy to setup, as well as being a single-person lift when stacked.

There are 24 Circuits that can output across 8 Socapex outputs, made up of 12x 10A dimmer circuits, 6 further combined dimmer / fixed mains circuits, and an additional 6x 16A fixed mains. Two further 16A outputs are provided on Cee-Form, and the whole unit can be provided in Single- or Three- Phase configurations.

Artistic Licence Artistic Licence celebrated its 21st Anniversary at one of its busiest and most successful PLASA shows to date. Creative Director Wayne Howell’s seminar on "Art-Net: The Benefits in Large Scale Installations & Applications" saw standing 47

Compiled by Richard Bowles – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

that debuted with the Showgun is also now available for the first time ever in a moving mirror fixture. The legendary Cyberlight Lithopatterns and effects have been updated to provide fresh, creative imagery.

There is a vast host of control facilities, including DMX or ArtNet, with a large friendly screen for a user interface - this can even be remotely managed by a Web interface. Of particular interest is that the ArtNet input can then generate an additional DMX output, or for a more low-tech solution, the unit can have 12 programmable memories, which can then be adjusted by the local control Rotary Faders

Barco - High End Systems A blast from the past? The first new Moving-Mirror in a decade? The biggest product that didn't get launched at PLASA but should have? Well, the Cyberlight 2.0 is all of these!

With over 21,000 fixtures sold after its launch in 1994, there can be few members who haven't met the Cyberlight in the past. However, the new 2.0 is a thoroughly modern piece of engineering that marries pure power with measured control.

The 2000w MSR short arc lamp delivers over 30,000 lumens of output via a new electronic ballast tuned to provide electronic strobing and boost functions. Furthermore, the unit automatically reduces the current draw when the dimmer is closed, resulting in increased energy efficiency and reduced heat generation.

For those looking for a more contemporary look, the new DL.3F is a fixed-installation version of High End Systems' popular and well-established DL.3 digital light. This features the same integrated media server and output capabilities as the DL.3, yet with reduced input/output capabilities.

Although the new digital light does not include the DL.3's integrated camera system, the DL.3F does retain its predecessor's full range of media manipulation tools, stock content library and ease of maintenance, and adds highly attractive pricing aimed at the fixed-installation market.

Clay Paky Away from the excellent Knights of Illumination Awards, Clay Paky also had a large number of new products to show at PLASA. The Alpha range has now been fully expanded with four versions at the largest 1500W size.

Starting with the Alpha Profile 1500, this is a powerful moving head spotlight featuring a unique shutter system that allows the most accurate and versatile beam shape control.

The Alpha Spot HPE 1500 is a powerful graphic effects moving head,with an incredible array of imagery devices, and the Alpha Wash 1500 is a wash luminaire with an extra-wide 1:10 ratio zoom range. And, finally, the Alpha Beam 1500 is a super-powerful luminaire belonging to the new special category of fully automated ACL fixtures, generating a solid, super-concentrated parallel beam for extremely long-throw projection Meanwhile the mid-sized Alpha 700 range are already available to rent in the UK from a number of Sponsor companies - these are as bright as 1200W units, but incredibly small and lightweight.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

ELP

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Production lead times seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

At least that’s what ELP are finding these days. For example, a sudden format change for the X-Factor Auditions provided LD Mark Kenyon and ELP to show what they can do under pressure - the lighting plan was drawn on a Wednesday afternoon and the first trucks were being loaded at the ELP warehouse on Friday morning of the same week The spirit of reinvention continues with an integrated LED menu system, 5-pin XLR connections, RDM capabilities, and an updated DMX protocol. Improved software capabilities means faster mirror movements without sacrificing smoothness and repeatability. The innovative TriColor effect

Simon Cowell wanted these shows to be more like Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) with an audience, stage set and show lighting. Under such last minute circumstances the production team did their best to book the show into similar

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arena-style venues across the UK but inevitably, due to lack of availability, there was variation in terms of venue size and style. So Mark needed to create a design that was flexible enough to be customised at different locations.

Originally Production wanted lots of moving lights and smoke. But Mark advised them that it was impossible to programme such looks for auditions as you really don’t have any clue what the acts will deliver on stage, how many of them there will be or even what tempo of song they will perform! So a simple but effective solution was used - Three lengths of silver mini beam trussing were flown, two above the stage and one above front of house to create the lighting positions. All the moving lights were placed at front of house over the audience as this was the most difficult area to access - these consisted of VL1000s, VL3500s and Mac 500s, and were used to light Specials as well as the audience and the judge’s desk.

Over the stage, an assortment of Par cans, Fresnels and Source 4 profiles provided a vibrant but uniform look so that all the contestants had the same equal coverage across the stage. Set designer Florian Wieder installed a huge video wall at the back of the stage which was framed on both flanks by corner shaped Mac LC video panels, and Chroma Pars were nestled in the truss frames on stage left and right, which were the ideal size and accentuated Florian’s set design very well.

Bullet 18kw HMI Fresnel kits. Dave lined up the 575s on both sides of the road to create the stunt runway and then placed the more powerful 1.2Ks and 2.5Ks at the point where Robbie would be in mid flight. Dave was able to work out the riders exact trajectory and predict the lighting angles using a 3D CAD simulation. The LD was also careful to ensure that no lights were focussed into the riders eyeline!

Two Aurasoft 800 2.5ks provided the soft lighting and four Sachtler Battery Hand-Held kits were made available to the crew. Two ELP twinset generators (one on each side of the open bridge) provided power for the stunt site.

For the FEI European Dressage and Show Jumping Championships, televised by BBC Sport, Darren Fletcher and the ELP Manchester crew made a rare foray down South during the summer when they travelled to Winsor Castle.

Normally this type of event would take part in daylight, but with a vast array of competitors, much of the programme was going to take place at night.

ELP came up with a simple yet highly effective way to light the temporary stadium in the Castle grounds. 12 x 18 KW HMIs were flown over the seating using six fully extended Cherry Pickers. The results were highly effective, quick to implement and provided outdoor lighting for stadium crowd, competitors and TV cameras.

Finally, back on familiar territory way up North, Darren provided lighting, rigging and power for The Royal National Mod in Oban, Scotland. Working alongside BBC Scotland’s LD Joe Breslin, the ELP team provided studio lighting and the lighting for the main performance hall. The studio kit comprised of Arri Junior fresnels and source 4 profiles while the main hall included a much wider range of hardware including LED fixtures, moving lights and par cans. And ELPs 4x4 Land rover generator was used around the rural terrain of Oban to access some of the hard to reach locations!

Elsewhere, ELP provided all the on-site lighting, rigging and power for a 'death-defying' motorcycle jump over Tower Bridge. LD Dave Evans had to achieve several purposes obviously first of all there was a requirement to simply light the Live Event, but also Channel 5 were shooting a documentary from various camera angles both on the bridge and down by the riverside below. And, perhaps most importantly, they were effectively lighting up the runway for the rider, Robbie Maddison, so that he could see where he was going!

ELP supplied Dave with an assortment of Arri Fresnels including 575w, 1.2kw, 2.5kw and also a number of Silver

The SmartBar 2 is the next generation of SmartBar dimming from ETC. These small, portable dimmers come in two lengths with four or six 2.3kW dimmers with magnetic breakers and have an all new electronic design. The four channel, 150cm, bar is typically used as a T-bar with wind-up stands, whereas the six channel, 220cm, bar is generally used with hook clamps in truss and on pipes in the theatre.

Each version comes with additional hot power out and is controlled by DMX512 with Remote Device Management (RDM) support. SmartBar 2 is ideal for small and budget sensitive venues as well as touring productions: indeed, anywhere that you need to distribute your dimmers around your venue. SmartBar 2 provides an integrated dimming and

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

ETC

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Compiled by Richard Bowles – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

luminaire mounting solution for compact low-power applications, and is fully digital - featuring the same userfriendly interface and programming set as the ETC SmartPack dimming range.

The Selador LED range of fixtures, previewed in the last issue of Television Lighting, went on to winn a coveted Innovation Award at this year’s PLASA. The award judges congratulated the ETC Selador fixtures for “taking a significant step towards the ultimate goal of energy efficient incandescent replacement lighting.” They continued by pointing out that “ETC has developed this LED fixture with a colour output that gets close to the spectral curve of traditional incandescent source, thereby making LED technology a step closer to wider use in theatres and similar applications.”

Essential Lighting

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Essential Lighting is pleased to announce the addition of GDS LiteWare LED Battery Powered Wireless Uplighters to its extensive range of LED lighting. Featureing up to 24 hours of permanent use from the integral battery, wireless DMX control, and full RGB colour, they provide a compact, neat, and flexible solution for temporay events.

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The 38W unit has a 24 hour runtime (14 hours in full white) from a 6 hour charge, and is IP45 rated for interior and exterior use. It is supplied in flightcases of 6 with built-in charging, and is finished in stainless steel to blend into any surrounding. A 16 bit dimmer curve is used for smooth transitions, and 50 preset Lee/Rosco colours are built-in.

Contact Essential for a demo!

Grand-Pa grandPA – Programming Associates has kicked off a busy summer with the arrival of its newest lighting control investment of an MA2 Lite. The grandPA’s decided on buying the “lite” version as it is more manageable for freelancers to use on a daily basis in terms of transport and is also the equivalent of a series 1 fullsize console. This new arrival to the fleet was whisked away on the same day it

arrived by lighting company Siyan for a four week tour with the Killers starting at Hyde Park. The company is also proud to announce that they added a further grandma series 1 fullsize and a grandma lite to their hire inventory over the summer peak, where they had consoles out on tour with Madonna, The Killers and as well as on TV for Big Brother.

The companies agency wing was also extremely busy this Summer, with their programmers working on shows such as the Take That Circus Live DVD at Wembley Stadium, Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet Tour, Girls Aloud Live DVD at the O2 Arena, and a large installation show project in China.

GrandPA strive to provide the very best in programmers and programming worldwide, as they have found that there is very much a demand for quick, efficient programming with an artistic flair - which they aim to provide every time for their clients by always matching the right person to the style of show, and makeing sure that if its a broadcast event or concert/touring that they have the relevant experience!

HSL HSL supplied substantial quantities of ColorWeb and ChromaStrip LED products to the latest ratings-busting series of Britain's Got Talent. This was shot over a week in Studios A and B of Fountain Studios, Wembley, London - the largest TV stage in the UK. The studio was packed with excitement, anticipation and a live audience of 750 each night. The highly versatile LED-based set was designed by Dominic Tolfts and featured several different types of LED, all of which were sourced and supplied to the production by Simon Deary of LED Poison who specialises in digital lighting.

The creative concept-which heavily involved lighting designer Dave Davey - was to produce a flexible setting comprising low, medium and high resolution LED surfaces, offering at least 50 totally different performance looks for the 10 finalists as they battled it out throughout the week-long series. On top of that, additional unique looks were needed from the same set for guest spots, plus a series of generic default states was also required including incorporation of the series' logo and branding.

HSL supplied nearly 600x Pulsar Chromastrips, which were

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integrated into 4 large and one smaller metal fins running down each side of stage, and also used to highlight the 2 sets of staircases and the edges of the judges’ rostra. The 480x panels of ColorWeb 250mm and 50x panels of ColorWeb 125mm pitch were used to wrap around the entire back wall of the set, which proved eye-catching camera candy and introduced further depth to the set, alleviating the black holes and creating background movement, colour and interest.

Driving all the various different LED surfaces were 4x Hippotizer media servers run by Russell Grubiak via a CompuLite Vector Blue lighting console and programmer Bill Peachment via his CompuLite Vector Green and Hippo Critter. Bespoke media for the Hippotizers for each of the finalists and the main show was created by Jane Aspinwall of Timeslice films.

were supplied by Greenford-based Panalux, who were so impressed with their performance after the second series of the show, that they purchased them this time around.

The lighting director for this series was Mark Cunniffe, and the Satellites were operated by James Ashdown using Martin Light Jockey software. i-Pix have also recentlylaunched a new version of its phenomenally successful BB7 LED luminaire - with wider angles than the original 10° developed last year. The new optics offer an 20° and 35° choice from the one fixture, and are all homogenized without any colour striation within the beam. This eliminates the pixelation and blocky effects associated with more standard LED products, and is a feature that is central to the whole i-Pix BB range.

I-Pix Lighting Designer Tom Kinane used 60x i-Pix Satellite LED bricks to illuminate the set and stage for the third series of popular daytime TV quiz, "Wogan's Perfect Recall", recorded in studio TV2 at Pinewood, Middlesex, UK. The circular set was designed by Dominic Tolfts and consisted of a large semi-circular matrix of sharkstoothscrimmed and open frames. This was washed with a set of 37x Satellites, positioned around the rear section of the spherical stage floor. Fitted with 60° lenses for wide dispersion, they produced a rich, even coverage across the whole set area - which changes colour to denote the different phases of the quiz.

A new fast changeover arrangement enables users and technicians to swap between BB7 optics in approximately a minute. For floor-mounting, an optional freestanding yoke is now also available for all BB7 units - attachable quickly and easily without the need for any tools.

The floor-based Satellites on the camera side of the stage were tucked in close to the stage podium, and shot dramatic slices and blocks of colour across the studio floor, enhancing the depth and perceived size of the space. The other 23 Satellites were mounted on mono-poles poking over the top of the back of the set, used as camera "twinklies".

Each BB7 unit draws just 0.9 amps on full, with the further option of combined or individual control of each of the 7 RGB cells or pixels. This allows the creation of some truly funky chase effects, and each cell is also powerful enough on its own to be used in similar fashion to a PAR type lightsource.

Lightfactor The LightProcessor dimmer range now includes the LP RCBO Paradim dimmer, offering all the features and values of the standard Paradims, with an RCBO on each channel for full compliance with the 17th Edition IEE Wiring Regulations (BS7671).

LightProcessor's diverse selection of DMX tools is now joined by a new RJ45 version of the popular rack, truss and wall mounted unit. This unit is designed specifically for the LED market which has adopted the RJ45 as a standard connector for DMX in and out.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The Satellites were the main lighting fixtures of the show the only others being some tight key and fill lights. They

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Compiled by Richard Bowles – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

Lightfactor Sales have supplied 8 of the new Novalight Nova-Flower 2K flower effects to rental company PRG. This builds on PRG's previous purchases of Novalight High Grounds in 2006, followed in 2007 by their original 1.2K Nova-Flowers.

The Nova-Flower 2K offers all the features and functionality of the 1.2K version with substantially more power and punch.

The Nova-Flower is a unique effect and ideal for high-impact and dramatic back-lighting and for the silhouetting of performers. It is also the first fully programmable moving yoke ‘flower effect’ with DMX controllable pan, tilt, colour and shutter, plus other standard features. It has CMY mixing, a rotating reflector (in both directions), pan/tilt and remote lamp re-strike.

others working in the field who are not in regular full time employment, Light Relief can provide either practical support or financial help, depending on the individual need.

One such person was the impetus to setup Light Relief, when nine years ago, Tom Donnellan's was at home caring for his dying wife and caring for his young daughters. Now, as if to prove that lightning does indeed strike twice, Light Relief is once again helping Tom, as he not only battles with his own cancer, but also copes with effectively being on the dole as the company he worked with closed down.

If you know someone who needs help, or if you need help for yourself or your family, contact any of the trustees who are listed on the Light Relief website: www.lightrelief.org.uk If you would like to make a donation, this can be done either directly through their website, or via the STLD.

Litestructures The 2009 edition of the Litestructures Product Brochure is out now, cataloguing their complete range of trussing, staging and supporting systems. It's packed with useful information, from applications, through to structural diagrams, and full technical information - it's all in there.

For rapid rigging onto a truss, it is trolley mounted. The units can also be used in stand alone mode programmed via the display buttons on its base, and has a weather-resistant IP 43 rating. In addition to being used on a plethora of tours, PRG's Nova-Flowers have also become popular for visually engaging TV shows - making recent appearances on the Dancing on Ice, X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent TV series for LD Dave Davey.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Light Relief

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Since 2003, when Rosco introduced #313 Light Relief Yellow to its Supergel range, the company has contributed thousands of dollars to the UK charity Light Relief, and at PLASA/09 one of the charity’s trustees, John Simpson, accepted a cheque for over $4,100 (approximately £2,500).

This is the largest cheque they have presented to Light Relief since the program began, with total contributions now in excess of $19,000, funded totally by purchases of #313 Supergel!

Light Relief is a charity established by and for the entertainment lighting industry, to help in times of extreme hardship. Formed specifically to help lighting designers and

To complement this, Litestructures have also launched a brand new website at www.litestructures.co.uk. The more interactive website is easier to navigate around and introduces all the Litestructures key divisions thanks to an informative home page.

In June, Litestructures luanched its brand new division called Litestructures Live. This is a unique, one-stop-shop facility, unifying three previously distinct areas of operation : Hire, Stage and Set, and Litestructures Studios, merging them into a single, powerful entity. Add into the mix on-site custom design and manufacture and you have the most capable, flexible, experienced and user-friendly force in the concert, touring and events marketplace.

One of the biggest Stage Set of the year certainly belongs to the latest Take That ‘Circus’ tour and Litestructures Live are pleased to have supplied one of the integral features of the

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MA Lighting Since our last issue, the GrandMA2 has been flying out of the doors as fast as they can make them, and has proved very popular with many users. To complement this, MA Lighting’s new MA Video Processing Unit (VPU) is especially developed to further extend the MA system by integrating innovative video control.

The whole operation relies on MA's well established control philosophy and is therefore as straightforward as possible.

Setting up and programming the VPU is really timesaving.

This plug & play solution allows for instant show start - after connecting the VPU to a grandMA or grandMA2 console everything is ready to go and can be controlled just like another lighting fixture.

It is possible to select, control, live-access and to alter all the VPU’s videos, still images and 3D objects from the grandMA. As all MA VPUs and grandMA consoles share the same showfile in a network, just one additional VPU can backup a large system, regardless of which unit fails.

There are three version available : The Pro provides four Full-HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) DVI-outputs, The Plus offers two Full-HD outputs, and the Basic two 1280 × 720 pixels outputs. Thanks to the horizontal and vertical softedge blending as well as the keystone correction, it is possible to scale the output to any needed size. Furthermore the 3D Keystoning functionality enables the user to fit content to any 3D objects irrespective of size and shape. If there is a video running too fast or too slow it can be adjusted via the frame interpolation and smooth speed control.

Additionally the powerful Pixel Mapper can be used to display video content on any DMX-Matrix (up to 256 DMX universes via Art-Net), and the picture can be aligned on pixels which don’t have fixed aspect ratios. With up to 32x 3D-video-layers depending on version, the MA VPU allows massive scope for creativity, coupled with over 15GB of professional pre-installed HD and SD video content on every unit.

Martin Pro The Mac250 Beam is a new member of Martin's popular 250 watt series, and is an extremely punchy and compact beam fixture that generates variably sized pencil beams as well as wash effects via a motorized frost filter. It is available as an easy and inexpensive upgrade that installs or can be removed in just 5 minutes on any existing Mac250 Wash fixture.

The Beam upgrade kit consists of a new front module with micro Fresnel lens and a set of six beam effect gobos/apertures. The resultant intense light output and tight beam make for an extremely powerful mid air effect, which is optimized via a glass cold light reflector.

A large diameter micro Fresnel lens produces a distinctive wide beam look that looks great mid-air. A long 3000 hour lamp life translates into a low cost of ownership. A gobo wheel with 6 static gobos/apertures plus open allows for wider or tighter beam effects (3 to 8°) as well as multiple beams or cone looks. A motorized frost filter can be employed for soft beam or wash type effects. A high resolution dimming system provides smooth dimming and fast strobe effects.

A CMY color mixing system produces a broad spectrum of colors with smooth cross fades in between colors for spectacular mid air effects. The unit is exceptionally quiet with variable fan control that keeps noise levels low to suit theater and TV studio applications. It features all the remarkable speed and quiet movement of the MAC 250 Series and a high-speed, automatic reset function realigns the fixture in seconds.

Turning to video manipulation, the P3-100 System Controller lets you treat LED screens like lighting instruments - the brightness, image position, image rotation, etc. can be adjusted and changed instantly - all independently from the source of the video. The P3-100 is not a media server but an intelligent interface between the source and the screen.

The P3-100 makes setting up an LED screen very straightforward and intuitive. It also contains a built-in graphical user interface with real time visualization of the video mapping – true ‘what you see is what you get’ emulation of what the screen is showing. The P3-100 also includes a number of other advanced features including built in scaling and de-interlacing. The integrated scaler adjusts images to fit the LED screen in real time while the deinterlacer enables regular video signals to be connected directly to the P3-100.

Video cabling has always been a headache - but with the P3100 Martin introduces P3 technology, bringing the plug and play nature of DMX to the world of video. Based on Gigabit Ethernet and Cat5e wiring, the P3 technology removes the inherent limitations of video-type protocols for easy

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

show. Working in conjunction with set manufacturer Brilliant Stages and from a concept designed by Es Devlin, LS Live was asked to manufacture a custom ‘Big Top’ trussing structure measuring 6m high with a 15m diameter circle .

The all custom structure was a very challenging build and had to be able to rotate 90 degrees up making a total height of 30m when lifted. The structure includes 9 curved truss legs attached to a main truss ring. The rear of the structure is fastened to steel hinges and hydrolic catch arms allowing it to lift up. It took the LS Live team 6 weeks from design to completion; which is a very short timeframe considering the scale of the structure.

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Compiled by Richard Bowles – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

connectivity and speed of set-up. The power of the Ethernet technology enables bi-directional communication with the LED screen, creating a network that greatly increases the speed of setup and mapping.

Philips Entertainment Group Leading Australian venues are making a dedicated commitment towards reducing their greenhouse gas emissions while significantly reducing stage lighting and air conditioning heat loads. This commitment to energy efficiency is endorsed and encouraged by Australian state governments and is high on the priority lists of fiscally and environmentally aware theatre consultants and management teams who are involved with the refurbishment and development of theatrical lighting around the world.

Splitting the signal can be done with standard off the shelf Gigabit Ethernet switches - no need for expensive video distribution amplifiers. Panels can be addressed in single pixel increments and addressing of any panel can be updated in real time. As a convenient time saver, built in test patterns can be used to check the screen before use. All LED panels communicate with the P3-100 to report any problems, and all settings can be conveniently stored on a USB stick.

The P3 technology supports 500,000 pixels over single Cat5e link. And with 48 bit data updated up to 75 times per second, you get HD broadcast quality transmission with no stuttering and no compression - just smooth, fluid images. Latency (system delay) is virtually undetectable meaning the image on the LED screen is in perfect sync with your source.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

This advanced processor supports multiple video protocols and resolutions including DVI (currently up to SXGA@75Hz) and analog video signals (CVBS, S-Video & Component), eliminating the need for an expensive external processor.

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We've run out of space to tell you about all the LED products Martin have brought out, such as the Mac 401 Dual, but of particular interest to Set Designers will be the new FlexDot S1, which allows LED video displays break free from the flat, rectangular format. Fully customizable and DMX512 controllable, these bright and lightweight strings of individually-addressable LED pixels, which allow for the creation of customized video solutions with maximum artistic flexibility and a minimum of effort, without the long lead times or costs associated with a "from scratch" design.

Selecon’s lower voltage 80V 1200W Pacific Profiles and Rama High Performance Fresnel replace traditional 2500kW and 2000kW mains powered luminaires and deliver impressive energy savings in both stage lighting and air conditioning systems with the added advantages of smaller, easier to use luminaires that deliver bright, pure white light.

Over 300x 80V 1200W Power Systems have been supplied to a wide number of leading Australian theatres over the past two years, including the Sydney.Opera House.

Pulsar Pulsar is proud to announce a major addition to its established ChromaRange family of LED fixtures. The ChromaPowerPix 200 is an advanced DMX controlled LED fixture featuring 12 high power pixels on a 250mm grid. Each pixel contains five 3W TriColour devices giving an amazing LED power rating of 15 Watts per pixel. A total of 180W of TriColour devices are built into every ChromaPowerPix 200 and are driven by Pulsar’s smooth, continuous light, flickerfree and step-free drive electronics, all powered by a robust world-wide compatible 200W power supply.

ChromaPowerPix 200 is designed to be a flexible lighting tool and has many applications. PowerPix 200 is supplied complete with wide angle Diffusion Plates and White Overlay to allow choice of a black or white front panel. Also optional Diffusion Domes and Lens Plates in a variety of beam angles are available for total beam control flexibility.

Primary mounting is by an optional Suspension Cable system with Hanging Bars. Camlok Spacer Straps and Omega Clamps are also available to allow ChromaPowerPix200 to be deployed in many ways with ease.

There are many uses for this unit - the first is as a Cyclorama Backlight: PowerPix 200 provides high power, wide angle illumination of Cyc backdrops. Only 250mm (10") of space is required between PowerPix 200 and the Cyclorama to create totally even illumination. Using a control system, beautifully smooth gradients, fades and sky animations can be achieved.

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Another completely different use is as an Audience Blinder changing the diffusers to Lens Plates concentrates the power of the 3 x 4 matrix of colour changing lights power into the gaze of the audience. Or by fitting the Diffusion Domes, it provides a 180° viewing angle perfect for exhibition displays or building atrium features, and the white front panel decorative overlay can even be printed with colour and/or graphics if required.

When fitted with 10° Lens Plates, ChromaPowerPix 200 produces great beam effects in smoke or haze and when combined with animations from the control system can provide stunning dynamics for your shows. And finally, the unit can simply be used as a general light source, as the light output is on a par with the ChromaFlood 200 TriColour fixture!

had with GLP, purchasing a significant number of the Chromed standard Impressions, they soon had enquires to provide a Chromed version of the XL Impression to their clients. The light offers 240 LEDs making the light output almost 3 times as bright but keeping the same quality and all other advantages of the Impression.

RML was also the first rental company in the UK to purchase a number of the latest Alpha 700 range. These lights have the usual Clay Paky stamp of quality but they are small - so small in fact they weigh almost the same as the less powerful Alpha 300’s! They have invested in all three fixtures in the series : Alpha 700 Beam, Wash and Spot HPE. Each have their own features, the Beam 700 with its long-range capabilities, such power for a little light can make many a lighting designer weak at the knees. The Spot HPE is fast, silent and deadly.

And the Wash 700 slots in nicely with the trio, the colours achieved are fantastic, good light distribution and it sports a high ratio zoom.

Guardian cult columnist Charlie Brooker is heading up the new C4 show, You Have Been Watching. This eight part series sees Brooker dissecting the week’s TV shows along with three funny and famous guests. Production Designer Cath Pater-Lancucki created a towering set of back-lit stacked TV sets crowned with satellite dishes, giving a distinctively and different feel.

Richard Martin Lighting

The Color Block 2 was trailled by several LD’s on their shows - Lee Allen on Blue Peter, John Ford (for Dave Davey) on Paul O’Grady, Roger Williams on Know It All and Chris Kempton on Jonathan Ross - and they all agreed that the fixture was something they would happily continue to use, so RML took the decision to purchase the fixtures and hire them out as kits. These consist of 5 individual blocks, which can be joined to form a 1.2m strip if required. The product offers modularity and versatility with new single colour RGBA optics, 530 lumens output (almost double the original model) and theatrical grade dimming.

Again by responding to demand RML have also decided to purchase a number of GLP Chromed Impression XL’s.

Following the success of the exclusive 6 month deal RML

LD Will Charles lit the show, and wanted it to feel like an over the top version of Telly Addicts, as Charlie Brooker’s caustic but still affectionate views on television seemed to deserve an equally tongue in cheek look. RML provided the lighting fixtures for the show, which consisted of 20x GLP Chrome Impressions as a ceiling of light above the set, 7x VL3500, and 4x VL3000 Spots for some big fat searchlight beams behind the set. A further pair of Mac 500 were used as backlights, and 8x VL1000TS for tungsten key lights, all operated by Andy Dobbs and Oliver Lifely.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Richard Martin Lighting has invested further in the latest innovations for their hire list by recently purchasing ChromaQ Color Block 2, GLP Impression XL’s in chrome, and Clay Paky Alpha 700's.

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Compiled by Richard Bowles – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

Robe The 50th Robe DigitalSpot DT Series fixture has been sold

by Robe UK, indicating that lighting rental companies in particular are embracing the potential of these digital lighting fixtures - even amidst economically challenging times. Robe UK has sold DigitalSpots to a number of rental companies mostly those in the Corporate market so far, although including STLD Sponsors HSL. What's been impressing people most about the DigitalSpot range is the easy uploading and editing of custom content onthe-fly via any DMX console. Many corporate clients have existing high resolution artwork and branding content, so using a DigitalSpot to decorate a stage or presentational area with this is a lot cheaper and quicker than having custom gobos made - which also narrows the choice of moving light fixtures that can be used.

providing an efficient wash effect from the gentlest of pastels to the richest of saturated colours. The enhanced CMY+CTO system mixes real colour correction quickly and accurately, complemented by a 7+1 colour wheel.

Robe's Plasma-based Robin 300 series of fixtures (previewed in the previous issue of Television Lighting) has won a coveted PLASA Innovation Award. The judges comments included that the opportunity to deploy new technology in the form of the PLASMA lamp has led Robe to perform a ground-up rethink and redesign of the traditional moving light. The result is a fixture that impressed the judges with its quality of light, low power of operation and rich list of features

The innovative new remote hot-spot control, combined with an extremely fast iris, delivers maximum lumen output at any beam angle - an amazing feature that has never been seen before.

As usual, Robe also launched a large number of new products at PLASA 2009. These included further bersions of the Robin 300 range, which now includes Wash and Beam versions.

The flagship AT range has been completed with the ColorSpot 1200E AT Profile and the ColorBeam 700E AT. Also new were three high-powered LED products - the CitySource 96. CitySkape 48 and CitySkape Xtreme.

Projection of gobo images continues to grow in popularity and there is an increasing variety of projectors, from high resolution instruments, like the Dedolight and Phillips Selecon range, to lower optical integrity architectural fixtures. However, the time needed to make gobos continues to fall, driven by customer needs - for example, recently new images were chosen on a West End musical on the morning of the opening night, and they were in use that night!

Rosco

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The production time for full colour gobos has fallen from 10 days to 3 days or less. In addition, Rosco have added a Paris facility to the London and Austin Texas production centres.

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To get the best results with digital image transfer, good quality original images are ideal, but poorer quality images can be cleaned up with the help of Art Software programmes.

Photographic quality can be achieved with over 3500dpi, and half tone ruling of 400 lpi to give high resolution images.

Looking at the Robin 300E Wash in detail - this is a flexible, lightweight, silent unit with an extremely wide zoom of 4° – 40°. The compact dimensions make it easy to conceal whilst

Hi Resolution gobos are needed more than ever because of small gobo sizes used in smaller units, for example just 18mm for the popular Mac-250 has only 18mm. With full colour glass gobos, there are 4 separate glass layers, C.M.Y & K. Rosco have now reduced the CMY layer thickness by 40% which means gobos can be fitted into smaller clearance dimensions. Also the thinner final gobo means that all surfaces are closer to the focal plane of the fixture, so that the focus is on the actual image.

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All coloured glass gobos now have a bezel – this means better registration in the gobo slot, more protection, plus a light seal to stop stray edge light bouncing between the layers - all of this is a far cry from 1960 when Francis Reid started drilling holes in metal cigarette tins and creating dappled light from Pattern 23s!

Although there is the traditional 79 page gobo paper catalogue available, all the gobo designs are also shown on the Rosco gobo website at http://www.rosco.com/gobos, and in addition they are also now available as an App for the iPhone!

White Light When satellite television company Sky realised that their ever-growing staff numbers and hectic production schedules were making it harder and harder to host a traditional staff Christmas party, they invented a completely different alternative: Skyfest, a mid-summer outdoor festival exclusively for Sky’s staff and their guests, running over two days in London in July and for further two days in Edinburgh in September.

Brought in to the project by event organisers The Rouge Partnership, White Light provided a complete lighting service to both the London and Edinburgh Skyfests, including equipment rental, installation, show operation and load-out.

The company was responsible for lighting the main arena, the

main outdoor stage, viewing tents, the drinks tent, and the catering tent. The White Light crew on-site was led by White Light Project Managers Dominic Yates and Richard Stirzaker, with the remaining crew sourced locally to each Skyfest to reduce the environmental impact of staff travelling long distances to the Festivals.

The lighting for Skyfest used a wide range of equipment from White Light’s extensive collection of lighting gear, each product chosen to best suit the varying requirements of the different areas. A particular highlight of the main stage was the kinetic backdrop created from the Illieum Fusion 672 LED panels, which allowed colour, movement and abstract graphics to be played behind the performers – Fusion’s high output rendering the effects clearly visible even before the sun went down.

Visitors the recent PLASA show could not fail to miss the huge White Light Zone in Hall 2 – because it was opposite the STLD stand of course! the area of the PLASA Show occupied by leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light and the companies it distributes in the UK – saw a raft of new products make their debut during PLASA 2009.

On show from Australian manufacturer LSC was Clarity, an new software-based control system which offers seamless integrated control of lighting equipment of all types. This runs on either a PC or Mac with an interface familiar to users of existing lighting controls as well as a host of new techniques for controlling the complexities of modern lighting – moving lights, LED arrays, media servers – even when busking shows live. For those who prefer a more hands-on controller, LSC offers a choice of Clarity VX Wings as well as Clarity QX DMX output devices. Clarity is available now – with trial version of the software available online from www.lsclighting.com.

More LED technology was on show in the JB Lighting JBLED A4 Zoom, a baby brother to the acclaimed, award-

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The full colour Test Card gobo, in a good optical quality projector will show gobo resolution deficiency, but now with the new Hi res gobos, imperfections in the optics used on high quality projectors are starting to showing up. Thinner glass and changes in the manufacturing process and the use of a new tough dense Black (K) layer enables better rendering of pastel colours.

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Compiled by Richard Bowles – sponsornews@stld.org.uk

winning A7 Zoom moving LED washlight. Using 60 Luxeon high-power LEDs as its lightsource with RGB colour mixing plus a CTC control channel, the A4 retains the zoomable beam of the A7, with the beam angle variable from 8-28 degrees. However, with a more compact head design the A4 offers high speed beam movement and extremely quiet operation all in a package weighing just 8.8kg.

Applying LED technology in a different way was Coemar, for whom White Light are now the exclusive UK distributor for TV and Theatre. Coemar’s StageLite LED FX uses the advantages of LEDs to replace traditional cyclorama floodlighting techniques. The new 1500W Infinity Spot XL and a preview of the compact Infinity M range (Spot Wash, ACL), which can use a range of lamp types and powers, were also on show.

XL Video XL Video supplied an HD camera and playback system plus assorted video extras for several acts appearing at Live Nation's three Hyde Park summer festival events - Hard Rock Calling, Blur and Wireless - which all ran consecutively in London's most central greenfield location.

This was project managed by Chris Saunders for XL, who has worked on the event for the last 5 years, ever since it was launched by Live Nation. For the main stage, XL supplied 4x LDK 8000 cameras, 2 positioned at FOH with 86:1 lenses, plus a track and dolly system in the pit with two more cameras which could also be converted into hand-helds onstage, according to the needs of the individual production.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The idea was to keep it as flexible as possible to deal with the dynamic range of headline artists. A GV Kayak switcher was supplied for control, and the daily production of the live IMAG mix was directed by Ruary MacPhie.

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For Bruce Springsteens’ performance, Chris Hilsom directed both XL and Visions cameras for a VH1 recording produced from XL's control room. Throughout the run XL interfaced and worked closely with the Visions OB unit under the control of Live Nation TV’s Mike Kaufman. And during Blur's two shows, XL took feeds from the Visions truck and sent 4 camera feeds to Visions to be recorded as part of a Pulse Films recording of the shows - the TV and live screen operations worked seamlessly side-by-side.

Band extras included supplying Lighthouse R7 screen for Basement Jaxx, Stealth screen for The Killers and Pixled F11 screen for Kanye West. The XL crew also took care of processing and outputting-to-screen all the public information and health & safety announcements throughout the run of shows.

Zero 88 The Zero-88 Orb lighting controller was used for the opening ceremony of the 8th Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE) held in Cyprus in June, and featuring a cast of over 2500 and broadcast live across Europe. Production Designer, Ben M Rogers, chose the ORB to control the Opening Ceremony after receiving a product demonstration at the Pro Light and Sound Show held earlier this year in Frankfurt. He was a regular user of the Frog 2, but was impressed by the restructuring of the control surface into a more theatrical style and the numerous updates and enhancements to the already strong operating system.

These recent developments include a colour picker and a full tracking back-up solution, which was implemented just before the GSSE event. Obviously Beta-testing such an important feature when it comes to reliability was a little daunting, but they ran through a full set of crash and burn type scenarios with the main console in advance of the show, and were able to establish the stability of this feature to the point that they were very happy to have both consoles running in sync for the live show.

The complete lighting and media system was controlled by the Orn and included 40x Automated Fixtures by Clay Paky, 6x City Colours, 26x LED Panels, 148x dimmers, an Arkaos Media Master (eight layers of high resolution video) that provided content to 36 square meters of Martin LC+ LED, and 20 square meters of Color Web 250. In total, the system ran over four universes of DMX including 2 wireless universes using the Show DMX products, and the rest being broadcast using Zero 88 1 universe Ethernet boxes.

In addition to the main ORBconsole, programmed by Zero 88 Product Manager Peter Kirkup, a 24 channel Zero 88 Jester lighting controller was linked to the DMX-in to emulate submasters, which gave live fader control for balancing the key lights balance for the 11-camera TV feed.

Society Sponsors A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd. (Peter Keiderling, Glyn O’Donoghue, David Leggett, Phillip Capstick, Ian Ferguson, Gordon Smith) Centauri House, Hillbottom Road, Sands Industrial Estate, High Wycombe, Bucks. HP12 4HQ Tel: 01 494 446 000 ~ Fax: 01 494 461 024 ~ E-Mail: glyn@aclighting.com ~ Web: www.aclighting.com A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd. North (Jonathan Walters) Hawksworth Commercial Centre, Elder Road, Leeds LS13 4AT ~ Tel: 0113 255 7666 ~ Fax: 0113 255 7676 ~ E-Mail: jonathanwalters@aclighting.com

ADB/LSI Projects (Russell Dunsire, Nick Mobsby, Ralph Jannsens) ADB House, Unit 15, Woking Business Park, Albert Drive, Woking, Surrey. GU21 5JY Tel: 01 483 764 646 ~ Fax: 01 483 769 955 ~ E-Mail: nickM@lsiprojects.com ~ Web: www.lsiprojects.com

Anna Valley (Part of Shooting Partners group) (Mark Holdway, Doug Hammond) 9 Mount Mews, High Street, Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2SH Tel: 020 8941 4500 ~ Fax: 020 8941 0077 ~ E-Mail: louise.lester@shooting-partners.co.uk ~ Web: www.shooting-partners.co.uk

Architainment Lighting Ltd.(Nic Tolkein) Unit 6 Premacto Business Estate, Queensmead Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire HP10 9XA Tel: 01494 471 340 ~ Fax: 001494 442 627 ~ E-Mail: nic@architainment.co.uk

ARRI (GB) Ltd. (Andy Barnett, Tom McGrath, Siobhan Daly, Martin Carnell) 2 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 1LX Tel: 01 895 457 000 ~ Fax: 01 895 457 001 ~ E-Mail: sales@arri-gb.com ~ Web: www.arri.com/

ARRI Lighting Rental Ltd. (Tommy Moran, Mike O’Hara) 2 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 1LX ~ Tel: 01 895 457 200 ~ Fax: 01 895 457 201 Manchester 0161 736 8034 (Jimmy Reeves) ~ E-Mail: mohara@arrirental.com ~ Web: www.arri.com

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

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

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

Blitz Television Services (Jeff Bailey, Ian Jones) 100 Centennial Avenue, Elstree, Hertfordshire, WD6 3SA. Tel: 0870 162 1292 ~ Fax: 0870 162 1212 ~ Mob: 07884 263 218 ~ E-Mail: jbailey@blitzcomm.com ~ Web: www.blitzvision.com

Broadcast Video Forum/VCM Exhibitions (Kieron Seth) Wellesley House, Manor Road, Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex. BN6 9UH Tel: 01 273 836 800 ~ Fax: 01 273 836 801 ~ E-Mail: kseth@vcm.co.uk ~ www.vcm.co.uk

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

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

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

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Society Sponsors Cine Power International Ltd. (Diane Nyiry) Magnolia Lake, Mamhead, Exeter, EX6 8HG Tel: 01 626 888 433 ~ Fax: 01 626 888 435 ~ E-Mail: diane@cinepower.com ~ Web: www.cinepower.com

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

Clay Paky S p A (Enrico Caironi, Ashley Lewis) via Pastrengo 3/B, 24068 Seriate (BG), Italy Tel: +39 335 72.333.75 ~ Fax: +39 035.30.18.76 ~E-Mail: cp.sales@claypaky.it ~ Web: www.claypaky.it

DeSisti Lighting (UK) Ltd. (Bill Smillie, Jon Reay-Young,) 15 Old Market Street, Thetford, Norfolk. IP24 2EQ Tel: 01 842 752 909 ~ Fax: 01 842 753 746 ~ E-Mail: info@desisti.co.uk ~ Web: www.desisti.co.uk

Doughty Engineering Ltd. (Julian Chiverton, Mervyn Lister, Stephen Wright) Crow Arch Lane, Ringwood, Hants. BH24 1NZ ~ Tel: 01 425 478 961 ~ Fax: 01 425 474 481 E-Mail: sales@doughty-engineering.co.uk ~ Web: www.doughty-engineering.co.uk

ELP

(Ronan Willson, Tony Slee, John Singer, Tanaya Philips, Darren Fletcher, Jan Wilson) 15 North Gate, Alconbury Airfield, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, PE28 4WX Tel: 01480 443 800 ~ Fax: 01480 443 888 ~ E-Mail: info@elp.tv ~ Web: www.elp.tv

Essential Lighting Group Ltd. (John McEvoy, Pete Feeney, Martin Lubach, Loz Wilcox, Stephen Craggs) Unit E Imber Court Trading Estate, Orchard Lane, East Molesey, Surrey, KT8 0BY Tel: 020 8335 6000 ~ Fax: 020 8398 7205 ~ E-Mail: stephen.craggs@elguk.com ~ Web: www.elguk.com

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

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

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Lights Camera Action. (Nick Shapley) Unit 30, 8 Taunton Road, The Metropolitan Centre, Greenford, Middlesex, UB6 8UQ Tel: 0208 833 7600 ~ Fax: 020 8575 8219 ~ Web: www.lcauk.com

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

Flashlight Ltd. (Andy Dodd, Rob Williamson, Guy Merchant) Studio House, P1 Unit 13, Heywood Distribution Park, Pilsworth Road, Heywood, Lancs. OL10 2TT Tel: 01706 625 866 ~ Fax: 01706 620 756 ~ E-Mail: sales@flash-light.org.uk ~ Web: www.flash-light.org.uk

GrandPa (Tim Routledge, Pryderi Baskerville) “Inca, Taggs Island,Hampton Court, Middlesex TW12 2HA Tim: 07739 316307 ~ Pryderi: 07802 155414 ~ E-Mail: info@grand-pa.co.uk ~ Web: www.grand-PA.co.uk

Please mention Television Lighting when contacting Sponsors

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

Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd. (H.E.L.L.) (Howard Eaton, Peter Willis) Winterlands, Resting Oak Hill, Cooksbridge, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 4PR Tel: 01 273 400 670 ~ Fax: 01 273 408 900 ~ E-Mail: general@helluk.com ~ Web: www.helluk.com

High End Systems (A member of the Barco Group). (Mark Leahy) 2105 Gracy Farms Lane, Austin Texas 78758 USA Tel: 07919 007 960 ~ E-Mail: mailto:mark_leahy@highend.com ~ Web: http://www.highend.com & http://www.flyingpig

HSL Group Ltd (Simon Stuart, Mike Oates, Graham Ramsdale, Sean McGlone) Unit O, Ribble Business Park, Challenge Way, Blackburn, Lancs. BB1 5RB Tel: 01 254 698 808 ~ Fax: 01 254 698 835 ~ E-Mail: simon@hslproductions.com ~ Web: www.hslproductions.com

i-Pix (Christopher Ewington) Broadstone Mill, Broadstone Road, Houldsworth Village, Cheshire, SK5 7DL Tel: 0161 443 4140 ~ E-Mail: info@i-pix.uk.com ~ Web: www.i-pix.uk.com

James Thomas Engineering Ltd. (Ashley Lewis, Andy Walters, John Hickinbotham, Jane Monk) Navigation Complex, Navigation Road, Digilis Trading Estate Worcestershire WR5 3DE Tel: 01 905 363 600~ Fax: 01 905 363 601 ~ E-Mail: ashley@jamesthomas.co.uk ~ Web: www.jamesthomas.co.uk

Key Light Hire Ltd. (Alex Hambi) Unigate House, Depot Road (off Wood Lane), London, W12 7RZ Tel: 020 8749 7433 ~ Fax: 020 8749 8935 ~ Mobile: 07949 68 68 02 E-Mail: alex@keylight.tv ~ Web: www.keylight.tv

Lee Filters Ltd. (Eddie Ruffell, Paul Topliss, Ralph Young) Central Way, Walworth Industrial Estate, Andover, Hants. SP10 5AN Tel: 01 264 366 245 ~ Fax: 01 264 355 058 ~ E-Mail: ecruffell@leefilters.com ~ Web: www.leefilters.com

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

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

Litestructures (GB) Ltd. (Adrian Brooks, Brent Woods) Unit 55, Lidgate Crescent, Langthwaite Grange Industrial Estate, South Kirkby, Wakefield. West Yorkshire WF9 3NR Tel: 01977 659 800 ~ Fax: 01977 659 801 ~ E-Mail: sales@litestructures.co.uk ~ Web: www.litestructures.co.uk

MA Lighting UK ( Philip Norfolk) 55 Lonsdale Road, London. NW6 6RA Tel: 020 7625 4371 ~ E-Mail: infoUK@malighting.com ~ Web: www.malighting.com

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Lighting Effects Distribution (Ian Kirby, Julie Kirby, Chris Hale) LED House, KPC Business Centre, Canterbury Road, Ashford, Kent. TN24 0BP Tel: +44 (0) 1233 636 688 ~ Fax: +44 (0) 1233 660 204 ~ E-Mail: info@led-lites.co.uk ~ Web: www.led-lites.co.uk

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Society Sponsors Martin Professional Plc. ( Jessica Allan, Matthew Pitman) Martin House, Boxmend Industrial Estate, Bircholt Road, Parkwood, Maidstone, Kent ME15 9YG Tel: 01 622 755 442 ~ E-Mail: jessica.allan@martin.dk/simon.allan@martin.dk, matthew.pitman@martin.dk ~ Web: www.martinpro.co.uk

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

National Film & Television School, Short Course Unit (Edi Smockum, John Houchin) Beaconsfield Studios, Station Road, Beaconsfield, Bucks. HP9 1LG Tel: 01494 677 903 ~ Fax: 01494 678 708 ~ Tel Eric: 01494 731 427 ~ Tel Dee: 01494 731 408 E-Mail: esmockum@nfts-scu.org.uk ~ Web: www.nfts-scu.org.uk

Osram Ltd. (Alison Quinn, Graham Lewis, Jason Hicklin) Osram House, Waterside Drive, Langley, Berkshire. SL3 6EZ Tel: 01753 484 227 ~ Tel Tech Advice: 01753 484 144 ~ Fax: 01753 484 222 E-Mail: photo.optics@osram.co.uk ~ Web: www.osram.co.uk

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

Philips Lighting Ltd. (Stuart Dell, Lee Bensley, Sylvia Van Der Plas) Philips Centre, Guildford Business Park, Guildford, Surrey. GU2 8XH Tel: 07774 122 735 ~ Fax: 01 296 670 956 ~ E-Mail: stuart.dell@philips.com ~ Web: www.lighting.philips.com

Photon Beard Ltd. (Bob Beard, Mike Perry, Simon Larn) Unit K3, Cherry Court Way, Stanbridge Road, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. LU7 8UH Tel: 01 525 850 911 ~ Fax: 01 525 850 922 ~ E-Mail: info@photonbeard.com ~ Web: www.photonbeard.com

Pinewood Group (Simon Honey – Head of Studio Ops., Peter Lawes – Production Lighting Manager, Paul Darbyshire – Operations Director) Pinewood Road, Iver Heath, Bucks. SL0 0NH Tel: 01753 785 200 ~ Fax: 01 753 656 103 ~ E-Mail: simon.honey@pinewoodshepperton.com ~ Web: www.pinewoodshepperton.com

PLASA (Ruth Rossington, Norah Phillips)

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

The Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) is a trade association representing companies and individuals who work within 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: 01 323 524 120 ~ Fax: 01 323 524 121 ~ E-Mail: ruth@plasa.org ~ Web: www.plasa.org

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PRG Europe Ltd. (Paul Weaver, Yvonne Donnelly, Terry Lee,) 20/22 Fairway Drive, Greenford, Middlesex. UB6 8PW Tel: 020 8575 6666 ~ Fax: 020 8575 0424 ~ E-Mail: greenfordinfo@prgeurope.com ~ Web: www.prgeurope.com The Cofton Centre, Groveley Lane, Longbridge, Birmingham, B31 4PT ~ Tel: 0121 766 6400 ~ Fax: 0121 766 6150 E-mail: birminghaminfo@prgeurope.com Unit 3, Beddington Cross, Beddington Farm Road, Croydon, Surrey. CR0 4XH Tel: 020 8665 8500 ~ Fax: 020 8664 8819 ~ E-Mail: croydoninfo@prgeurope.com

Primarc Marketing Ltd. (Ian Major, Bob Peach, Kevin Everett) Unit 8, Wycombe Road , Wembley, Middx. HAO 1HR ~ Tel: 020 8900 8535 ~ Fax 020 8900 2232 121 Loverock Road, Reading, Berks. RG3 1DZ ~ Tel: 01 189 596 777 ~ Fax: 01 189 505 964 ~ E-Mail: primarc@aol.com ~ Web: www.primarc.co.uk

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

Please mention Television Lighting when contacting Sponsors

Prolyte Products Group (Peter Draaisma, Marina Prak) Industriepark 9, 9351 PA Leek, The Netherlands.

Tel: +31-594-851515 ~ Fax: +31-594-851516 ~ E-Mail: pdraaisma@prolyte.com ~ Web: www.prolyte.com

Pulsar Light Of Cambridge Ltd. (Andy Graves, Paul Mardon, Snowy Johnson) 3 Coldham’s Business Park, Norman Way, Cambridge CB1 3LH Tel: 01 223 403 500 ~ Fax: 01 223 403 501 ~ E-Mail: andy@pulsarlight.com ~ Web: www.pulsarlight.com

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

Robe UK Ltd. (Ian W Brown, William Jones) 3 Spinney View, Stone Circle Road, Round Spinney Ind Est., Northampton, NN3 8RQ Tel: 01 604 741 000 ~ Fax: 01 604 741 041 ~ E-Mail: info@robeuk.com ~ Web: www.robeuk.com

Philips Entertainment Marssteden 152, Enschede 7547 TD, the Netherlands.

Web: www.seleconlight.com

Schnick-Schnack-Systems GmbH (Thomas Werr, Nick Cooke) UK Office, 8-11 Willow Walk, Orpington, Kent, BR6 7AA Tel: 0844 800 4395 ~ Fax: 0844 800 4396 ~ E-Mail: nick.cooke@schnickschnacksystems.com ~ Web: english.schnickschnacksystems.com

Roscolab Ltd. (Kees Frijters, Michael Hall, Ron Knell, Steve Ramos) Blanchard Works, Kangley Bridge Road, Sydenham, London. SE26 5AQ Tel: 020 8659 2300 ~ Fax: 020 8659 3153 ~ E-Mail: marketing@rosco-europe.com~ Web: www.rosco.com

Sony UK Ltd. (Daniel Robb, Jane Green) The Heights, Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey.KT13 0XW Tel: 01 932 816 368 ~ Fax: 01 932 817 014 ~ Neil: 07774 142 724 ~ E-Mail: Jane.Green@eu.sony.com ~ Web: sonybiz.net/uk

Specialz Ltd. (Dave Smith) 1 Althorpe Street, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. CV31 1NQ Tel: 01 926 745 366 ~ Fax: 01926 745 344 ~ E-Mail: info@specialz.co.uk ~ Web: www.specialz.co.uk

Sylvania Lighting International UK (David Hogan) SLI Lighting Ltd, 46 Otley Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD17 7SN Tel: 01274 532 552 ~ Fax: 01274 580 632 ~ E-Mail: sales.office@sylvania-lighting.com ~ Web: www.sylvania-lamps.com

The Hospital (Anne Marie Phelan) 4 Endell Street, London, WC2H 9HQ Tel: 020 7170 9112 ~ Fax: 020 7170 9102 ~ E-Mail: annemariep@thehospital.co.uk ~ Web: www.thehospital.co.uk

The London Studios (Amber Piercy, Dave Clements, Dave Stevens) Upper Ground, London, SE1 9LT The London Studios is a unique production complex situated on London’s Southbank that boasts fantastic studios, post and lines facilities.

With first rate service and an abundance of techincal expertise and talent to compliment the superb facilities and equipment The London Studios is a one stop shop that will give your programme the quality that audiences admire.

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

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

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Please mention Television Lighting when contacting Sponsors

TMB (Paul Hartley, Bill Anderson, Andrea Van Caspel) 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. (Tony Kennedy, David Wilson) 31 Hamilton Drive, Cambuslang, Glasgow G72 8JQ Tel: 0141 641 2343 ~ Fax: 0141 641 2342 ~ E-Mail: tony@tekniquesystems.com ~ Web: www.tekniquesystems.com

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

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

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

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

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SPONSORS DIRECTORY

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

Zero 88 Lighting Ltd. (Graham Eales, Claire House) Head Office: Usk House, Llantarnam Park, Cwmbran, Gwent. NP44 3HD Tel: 01 633 838 088 ~ Fax: 01 633 867 880 ~ E-Mail: sales@zero88.com ~ Web: www.zero88.com

The STLD interactive Sponsors Directory has been available for sponsors use for over a year now. It is proving a very useful tool to 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 sponsors@stld.org.uk. with the name and e mail 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

Society Committee Secretary Sponsor News + Website

Chairman

Stuart Gain

07774 161 996

Treasurer

Mike Le Fevre 07956 305 662

Richard Bowles

07973 152 682

richardbowles@stld.org.uk

chairman@stld.org.uk Sponsors Liaison + Diaries

Bernie Davis

treasurer@stld.org.uk

Sponsor Liaison +Membership

Exhibitions

07762 562 434

07720 446 921

07860 662 736

members@stld.org.uk

sponsors@stld.org.uk

paulmiddleton@stld.org.uk

Publicity

Magazine Editor

07973 745 583

07811 256 283

Advertising Sales

Iain Davidson

Andrew Harris

John King

07860 759 294

iaindavidson@stld.org.uk

publicity@stld.org.uk

Paul Middleton

Robert Horne

Diary

johnking@stld.org.uk

Rick Dines

Website

Lee Allen

Ian Hillson

07711 088 964

leeallen@stld.org.uk

rickdines@stld.org.uk

ianhillson@stld.org.uk

Mark Fowler

07780 707 169

John O’Brien

07920 274 769

Archivist

Nick Mobsby

07717 170 288

07785 233 073

4 Woodlawn Grove, Woking, GU214EF Picture courtesy of Chris Capstick

nickm@lsiprojects.com

johnobrien@stld.org.uk

Index of Advertisers

ARRI Cirrolite ELP ETC

BC 33 9 27

Grand-PA I-Pix Lee Filters Photon Beard

19 17 IFC 30

Philips Pulsar White Light

13 21 35

Television Lighting Autumn 2009

markfowler@stld.org.uk

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Society of Television Lighting and Design Membership Application form

Society of TELEVISION LIGHTING and DESIGN

www.stld.org.uk AIMS The Society provides a forum that stimulates a free exchange of ideas in all aspects of the television profession.

It promotes discussion on techniques and the use and design of equipment.

Professional meetings are organised throughout the UK and abroad.

Technical information, news of members and their activities are published in the Society’s magazine.

The Society has no union affiliations and is therefore recognised as a valuable platform for open discussion and demonstration by Production, Management and Industry.

The Society is financed by members’ subscription and industrial Sponsorship.

FULL MEMBERSHIP Those who are or have been engaged in the direction and design of the creative aspect of television ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP Those whose occupation is directly associated with the creative aspect of television lighting or design.

STUDENT MEMBERSHIP Those proposed by a Full Member or a recognised Course Leader. Only valid for the Student’s training period.

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES

full Member and Associate Membership £45 Affiliate (Student or overseas) Membership £25 Sponsors please contact Sponsor Liaison UK Tax relief is given on the subscription rates.

Subscription not subject to UK VAT. New applicants joining after April pay half the above rates.

Please complete the form overleaf and return it to: STLD Membership Secretary Robert Horne April Cottage Church Road Scaynes Hill West Sussex RH17 7NY e-mail: members@stld.org.uk • website: www.stld.org.uk

Who’s the Daddy?

The BabyMax M18 has arrived

www.arri.com/d-21

ARRI is proud to announce the M18, first offspring of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science, Scientific and Engineering award winning ARRIMAX 18/12 presented February 7, 2009.

Baby weighs 20lbs, looks just like daddy, and is already proving extremely capable and bright.

Lensless ARRIMAX technology New 1800W lamp technology using existing 575/1200 cables Virtually the same size as a 1200W lamphead but more than 70% brighter Unique EB1200/1800 with CCL and ALF Runs from most domestic sockets world-wide 2008 ©A.M.P.A.S.® Scientific and Technical Engineering award to Erwin Melzner for the overall concept including the optical and cooling systems; Volker Schumacher for the optical design; and Timo Müller for the mechanical design of ARRIMAX 18/12 lighting fixture for use in motion picture production.

ARRI (GB) Limited 2 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 1LX For information about our new baby, please contact: sales@arri-gb.com or telephone +44 (0)1895 457000

www.arri.com