"I received a phone call from The Pop Factory Production Company on Monday asking me to provide the lighting for a S4C shoot of the programme Dechrau Canu on the following Wednesday," says Routledge, "I had been working with Hawthorns over the last twelve months so I knew, even though the timescale was tight they would pull out all the stops to help me."
St. Asaph Cathedral, North Wales is the smallest Cathedral in Britain, so with space at a premium Routledge had to design an exacting lighting configuration to achieve the 360 degree lighting effect he required, whilst keeping as much of the lighting out of shot as possible. "Following a swift site visit, and a sketched design I put the call in to 'Rigsby' the hire manager at Hawthorn Monday afternoon, told him what I needed and by 11o'clock Tuesday morning the Hawthorn crew were onsite installing the lighting rig."
Rigging points were non-existent at the venue so using Hawthorns self-supporting heavy duty truss base plates, Routledge created ground support legs of truss to 4m to support the flown LX. The trusses were then wrapped in white material to help them blend into the background. A large quantity of floor pars, 8-lites and studio 2k's were utilised to create the crisp classic look the show required. City colour units were placed outside the church for both exterior links and also backlighting through the windows to keep a daylight feel at all times. The show was controlled by Routledge's own GrandMA Console.
The shoot was a success and Routledge is now currently planning further productions for the Welsh based Production Company. "I can't thank Hawthorns enough; nothing is ever a problem for both the team back at base and the onsite technicians."
(Chris Henry)
