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Super WYSIWYG System Serves Back-to-Back Award Shows
For many lighting designers, one major televised award show per season would be more than enough, let alone two within a month-and-a-half of each other. For the team of lighting designer Jean Renaud and his associate designer/programmer, Vincent Colbert, it was a natural opportunity to put a Super WYG 5000 channel system through its paces, as they lit both the 2004 East Coast Music Awards (ECMA's) and the Juno Awards, Canada's version of the Grammy's.
Halifax Canada based Tour Tech East supplied both the Super WYG system for the ECMA’s and technician Roy Mombourquette, who also served as the ECMA's crew chief. "The producers of the ECMA's were amazed when we were able to show them the actual camera shots!" says Mombourquette. "With the aid of WYSIWYG, we were able to demonstrate how many people would have obstructed views because of television cameras or other unforeseen obstacles."
This year’s ECMA's were particularly challenging for the lighting department with six different stages, 12 musical numbers, over 150 moving lights and an extremely tight schedule. Colbert spent six days programming just the songs and house looks so that the limited amount of time in the arena could be spent fine-tuning and lighting the awards portion of the show. "It paid off big time since I ended up with over 300 cues," Colbert says, "and the only touch ups I had to make were those that I had noted while programming". Renaud adds: "I was really surprised by the results, once the rig was at trim, we could see some looks right away from what Colbert had programmed. The producers and I were extremely impressed."
Renaud, Colbert and Mombourquette were also impressed by the level of technical support they received from CAST Software while pre-programming the show. "We encountered a minor discrepancy in WYSIWYG with the VL 3000 spot," explained Mombourquette. "A quick call to Richard Jones at CAST, and he was able to email me the fix in mere minutes. CAST was also very helpful in shipping us more WYG-it units when we realized we only had one Vision 2000 interface in the shop."
The WYSIWYG suite of products continues to give designers, programmers and producers the power to envision their lighting before setting foot in the venue regardless of the size and the type of show. Jean Renaud summarized his experience on the ECMA's: "Since most of the programming was done, it gave us an opportunity to practice the songs during the rehearsals so the lights could be tight with the music. Being well prepared gives you a little free time to change your mind, re-program some songs, and still bring the emotion of the moment to the show."
Renaud and Colbert had such a great experience using Super WYG they specified it as a ‘must have’ equipment item for their next show, the 2004 Canadian Juno Awards. Christie Lites Toronto supplied all the gear for this event.
23rd April 2004
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