It's the third time that Blond has supplied technical services for the Big Brother phenomenon, produced by Endemol South Africa for DSTV Africa, and lighting for the studio that hosts the opening and finale episodes plus the weekly eviction shows is designed by Peter Rieck. The set was designed by Dewet Meyer.
The studio is a small space, narrow and tall, and the lighting was required to be flexible and multifunctional, with every single fixture having to work hard and be dynamic to get the coverage needed. The brief included making the studio into a warm, inviting and 'real' environment for the audience and on camera - rather than a clinically and harshly illuminated standard TV studio look.
The 12 Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and 24 Robe Scan 575XTs are positioned on an overhead trussing rig which fills the ceiling of the studio to provide lighting positions across the whole ceiling to target the stage, walkways and audience.
The ColorSpot 700s are used to light all of the entertainment and performance areas in the studio. The Scan 575XTs are primarily used for side and back lighting over the audience.
Twelve ColorSpot 250E ATs are stationed on the floor - along the back of the stage and catwalk - and used for some cool beamwork and for creating depth and background interest in all shots.
A big change for the studio rig in this series is its energy consciousness - an element that Blonde really pushed for. LED wash lightsources are used extensively on the rig and for set illumination, and this has reduced the overall power consumption and enabled them to dispense with about 200 PAR cans from the previous series.
Blonde is also supplying its new 12 mm pitch SMD LED screen, which makes a large curved centrepiece to the side of the main stage area. All the graphics and pre-recorded VT material for the screen are stored on a new MA Lighting media server.
(Jim Evans)
