The company's senior lighting director, Roy Newman, was first alerted to the LED X-Chip and Ayrton Moduled 318 on the stand of Lighting Effects Distribution at a trade show, and knew they would be ideal for his purposes. "The company was clearly a one-stop shop for LED effects," he noted.
"One of the main reasons for preferring LEDs over tungsten was the rapid turnaround between various programmes, and of course the infinite number of colours instantly available." The lack of maintenance and gel changing, he commented, had been another determining factor.
"What I wanted was a solid, powerful LED that could illuminate large areas - and I chose the Moduleds because they were very compact and they have their own gel frame, with varying diffusion angles."
It was the adjustable beam angle that had particularly attracted the lighting designer. "The standard 13° optics can be upgraded to a 42° angle with the aid of an optic filter, which would deliver the type of diffusion we were looking for," he said. He arranged for the Moduled - which contains three independent matrix-clusters each equipped with 18 Luxeon high-powered LED's - to be demonstrated at ITN in London before placing an order for 50.
"The plexiglass panels were treated with frosting, and these were lit from behind and in front with Moduleds to create multiple diffused colour washes," he said.
The number of units required was determined by the size of the studio; the Moduleds themselves have to hold their own against two massive ceiling suspended light boxes and two large Barco video walls. The key lighting was achieved with Selecon Acclaim Zoomspots.
ITN Consulting worked alongside specialist studio companies Jago Design and Scena - and it was the latter who purchased the X-Chips for use in six vertical and horizontal light boxes, measuring 8ft x 1ft and positioned at the back of the set. These formed a vital part of Jago Design's concept for out-of-focus light boxes, which deliver any colour combination required.
Lighting Effects Distribution provided an engineer to install the Moduleds and X-Chips; these were programmed in pairs, as there were only 250 DMX channels available on the ETC Express lighting console.
At the conclusion of the project, Newman said: "Skai are delighted with the flexible LED system we installed, which has enabled them to achieve rapid turnaround between their various programmes."
(Chris Henry)
