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Lighthouse Screens an Award Winner
Awards events provide several of the annual highlights of the UK performing arts industry and Lighthouse screens have enjoyed a high profile at two of the most recent, the Brit Awards and the TPi Awards.
14th February 2007 saw the Brit Awards take place at London’s Earl’s Court. With the event happening on St Valentine’s Day, Lighthouse’s heart-shaped screen was naturally a star of the show.
Broadcast live on ITV 1 to an audience of millions, the 12 panels x14 panels Lighthouse R16 screen with measurement of 12.72m wide by 10.64m high dominated the BRITS’ stage while a second, rectangular R16 screen, measuring 12 panels x 9 panels (12.72m wide by 6.85m high) was positioned stage left, upstage of one of the two performance areas.
The screens and control system was supplied by XL Video. Featuring a mixture of live camera footage, VT play-ins and graphics, control for the screens was provided by XL’s new portable production unit, based around a Grass Valley HD Kayak mixer and GV LDK 8000 high definition cameras, three of which were used on the production. Ten further HD feeds from broadcasters CTV were also fed into the system, which was used for the live stage IMAG mix.
Credit for those who work behind the scenes in the production industry was rightly being given out a little earlier in the month, when the TPi Awards was held at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith, where Lighthouse Technologies sponsored the Favourite Video Services Company category which was won by XL Video.
Making its debut on the production, video specialists The Picture Works was keen to make an impact at the event, which was being staged ‘in the round’. A total of 80 Lighthouse 16mm panels were arranged as four 5.08m wide by 3.04m high screens, plus a central Lighthouse R6 6mm screen, measuring 3.80m wide by 3.40m high.
A further 1.90m wide by 2.40m high 6mm Lighthouse screen was provided in the event foyer, showing a loop of the previous year’s covers from Total Production, the event’s parent magazine.
The screens for the main awards production showed a mixture of live camera footage (from three remotely-controlled pan/tilt and three handheld digital cameras) and awards nominee’s graphics. Control was via Lighthouse LIP-KX processors and the system included a matrix, which allowed any feed to be shown on any screen.
With video director Richard Shipman and Digital Insanity duo Richard Bagshaw and Kate Perring at the helm, the Lighthouse screens spent the evening wowing the usually blasé audience of industry professionals.
“We wanted to provide something visually different, but with it being in front of all our business colleagues we were under a certain amount of pressure,” laughs The Picture Works owner, Robin Wealleans. “Ensuring that every member of a 1200-strong audience could see in a room with pillars made for a challenging build, but I was delighted with the result. The screens looked fine, I was very happy.”
Adds Mark Cunningham, Total Production editor and TPi Awards creative director: “The combination of the extremely high quality of the Lighthouse screens, the expertise of The Picture Works and the creativity of Richard Shipman and the Digital Insanity team resulted in a world-class production for the TPi Awards this year. We are very grateful for Lighthouse's support.”
photos JM Enternational
17th April 2007
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