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Summit Wrestles with Celebs
Summit Steel co-ordinated all rigging elements for sound, set, projection and the games on Granada TV’s current series of Celebrity Wrestling, recorded at Elstree Studios, directed by Russell Norman.
As the Crusaders and the Warriors battled it out for supremacy in the ring, Summit took full control of the air – after being called in at really short notice by production co-ordinator Wes Moore and production manager Amanda George. Summit was contacted on a Thursday for a get-in the following Monday.
The games testing commenced two weeks later, camera rehearsals a week after that and the 10-day recording period a week later still.
Summit’s team was led by Chris Walker. Their brief was to take care of all the above mentioned rigging requirements, liaising with Moore, art director Joshua Grace, games designer Juliet Nichols and games producer Andrew Norgate. Lighting rigging was dealt with by lighting contractor PRG - crew chief Rod Clay.
Chris Walker designed all the games’ rigging and safety systems on site... It was an organic process as the games actually evolved during the testing sessions. There was also a massive amount of risk assessment involved, the bulk of it handled by Summit’s Jay Call, working in conjunction with the show’s H&S consultant David King-Taylor.
Summit installed barrel and Superlite truss to support a series of perimeter drapes and scenic panels, and spreader beams and trusses for 10 points of Kinesys Elevation movement system.
Summit supplied six Kinesys Elevation Lodestars to move the wrestling cage in and out, two for the portcullis entrance and the other two to fly snatch lines in and out. These were 32 mm diameter hemp lines with eyes spliced into them to lift performers out of the crash mats and onto the wrestling podium.
They also supplied rigging for the ‘Wrecking Ball’, ‘Pendulum of Pain’ and ‘Raging Pull’ in addition to rigging and belay systems for a number of other games which were eventually not used in the series.
Summit then rigged another eight regular hoists for flying two projectors and two projection screens and two additional hoists to fly mobile AC units to cool the projectors! They installed 12 regular Lodestar hoists to accommodate the L-Acoustics dV-DOSC sound system designed by Stewart Chaney and supplied by his company, Plus4 Audio.
Other flown objects included two cameras – a hot head and a locked off wide angle shot camera, plus extensive AC ducting across the roof of the studios to cool the audience. They also installed fans on the catwalk to chill the riggers … with over 400 moving lights utilised for the show (LD Al Gurdon) and 300 excited punters, catwalk temperatures soared to over 40 degrees Centigrade!
Chris Walker comments: “The biggest challenge was designing the rigging with such a short lead time; designing the games’ systems ‘on-the-fly’ was a particular challenge. Luckily we have done a number of other shows in the same studio, so I was familiar with the building. I also had a top rigging crew working with me and the design and production teams were a pleasure to work with,”
Summit supplied up to seven riggers during the load in and out periods, and the show crew – which was originally intended to be one rigger plus an automation operator, grew as the show’s rigging detail increased in complexity. Summit’s Kinesys automation system was operated by Toby Rouse, and Chris Walker was joined by a Summit show crew of John Cole, ‘Max’ Maxwell and Steve ‘Nipper’ Fitch.
26th April 2005
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