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Gold Medal Performance from PRG Europe
NBC Universal offered unprecedented coverage of the Torino Winter Olympic Games from its purpose built TV studios in Turin this year. Helping to ensure that NBC Universal could effectively broadcast live, 24 hours per day, was lighting equipment supplier PRG Europe.
PRG Europe’s client, New York based Lighting Design Partnership (LDP), already Olympic TV veterans, contracted the company to provide lighting for all four of its temporary studios in Italy. These included NBC Studio’s 1 and 2 plus the Palavela and the Palasports Olympico, which serviced the ice-skating and the hockey respectively.
Lighting designer Steve Brill, owner of LDG, knew that whatever he designed artistically would have to be backed up by reliable equipment in the best of condition. After some deliberation he chose PRG Europe. LDP has previously won an Emmy for its contribution to NBC’s TV lighting in Athens.
The 24/7 coverage, often live and broadcast over both conventional and Internet media, demanded technology, equipment and people in peak condition. With much of the material being broadcast live from NBC Studio 1 and 2 they could not afford for anything to go wrong.
Due to the relentless schedule and the need for robust equipment, Studio 1 and 2’s lighting kit consisted mainly of conventional fixtures. These included numerous Arri Fresnels – 150W – 1K, various Arri softlights 1 and 2K, ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, plus a large number of Color Kinetic Color Blasts. Avo Art 4000 dimmers in the main studios and ETC SmartPacks in the smaller venues took care of dimming, whilst two ETC Expressions in Studio’s 1and 2, and two Zero 88 Alcoras in the remote studios provided programming and control. PRG Europe also supplied all the grip kit - and there was plenty of it!
Much of the TV specific kit came from PRG in the USA and specifically from PRG’s New Jersey branch. Craig Bennett, project manager at PRG Europe, elaborates: “The beauty of PRG is the global resource. As a company we hold a massive rental inventory, which we share in order to make the equipment available for our clients locally. It happened that our TV and grip equipment was in New Jersey as this is where the resource is utilised the most.”
Bennett went over to New York to help prep the kit in association with freelancer, Timothy Maloy, who provided a common link between PRG’s New Jersey branch, LDG and PRG Europe. For continuity he would also be working for NBC onsite in Turin.
“This was never going to be simple logistically and we had to allow for this. Certain bits of kit are known by completely different names or descriptions in the UK than they are in the USA,” Bennett explains. “The kit that had been shipped over to the UK from PRG New Jersey had to be systematically unpacked, checked and labeled by PRG Europe staff, after which the kit was passed to the NBC crew at PRG Europe’s Croydon facility. It was then split into studio allocations, repacked accordingly and sent out to Turin on two 40ft trucks.”
Prior to this, in October 2005, PRG Europe sent 20 cases of pre-cable out to Turin. This included soca runs and TRS, which was to be laid under floors etc, as the studios were being constructed. Also since much of the equipment came from the USA, up to 400 16A to US 2p and G adaptors had to be manufactured. This was carried out both in house and supplemented by custom made supplied by TMB.
Additional equipment required by LDG during the Games was supplied from the UK, for reasons that Bennett explains: “At PRG Europe we like to maintain tight control over the condition the client receives its equipment in. We try not to sub-hire if we can help it, but if we do kit is always filtered through our warehouses first, allowing our technicians to prep the gear to our preferred standards. We offer 24-hour service for emergencies, so if a problem does arise we are on hand to help instantly. PRG Europe offers unlimited equipment and resources to its customers all over the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. We can usually get any piece of kit to a client within 24 hours of their request and sometimes sooner,” enthuses Bennett.
30th March 2006
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