The return of Sharon Osbourne to the judging panel has been the big news in front of camera, but there have been some significant changes behind the scenes too, with a new lighting director (Tom Sutherland) and a new crew chief (Craig Broughton). "It's been fantastic to be asked by the producers to step up to the role of LD," admits Tom Sutherland. "I've been board operating on the X Factor auditions over the last four years and I programmed the live shows last year, so I feel as though I know the show inside out."
Through account manager Barry Denison, working closely with HotCam, ELP supplied the lighting and rigging equipment for the latest round of auditions which took in venues around the country including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff. And it's these varied UK locations which set the production lighting agenda.
This time the main look of each audition room was much fresher and lighter than the windowless hotel rooms of old. This meant packing much more lighting gear into a compact area. Having a big window backdrop behind the judges also helped. But when is window not a window? Answer - When it's a 16m x 4m videowall supplied by Anna Valley displaying an urban setting for each city location.
"The challenge was to make it look as 'real' as possible," remarks Sutherland. "The brightness of the screens in the background meant that I had to have enough punch up front. And that's why I opted for a boxed truss solution which allowed plenty of 'get-out-of-jail' fixtures to re balance brightness as required."
Sutherland used an assortment of ELP fixtures including: 2.5kw Arri soft lights, Par 36 Chrome Cans to downlight onto the window effect video wall; Pulsar Chroma Batten 50s to provide a blue glow on the truss. Battens nearer the judges were nudged up to give a blue kick and texture to the panel; ColorBlaze LED fixtures were used to skirt the foot of the set and direct wash light upwards; And finally ELPs range of handy battery operated uplighter kits provided a bright filling around the room which as quick and easy to deploy.
ELP also supplied all the rigging hardware for head rigger Dave Morrell and his team to create the 12ft SuperTruss ground support structure which could be raised or lowered to fit the variation in venue ceiling height. ELP's 0.5m truss blocks provided the crew with enough height adjustment options.
As crew chief Craig Broughton explains: "We needed a quick turnaround system which would work in any hotel style location. We only had a short time window to set up ground support before the other departments came with set, video screens and cameras. The SuperTruss system was ideal."
Broughton was in charge of a team which included electrician Simon Carris-Williams and rigger Joe Gee.
(Jim Evans)
