Robe Esprites join SA Family Feud
- Details
The popular American Family Feud show has been syndicated worldwide to over 50 different countries and is one of the longest-running and most popular TV games shows, having started in 1976. Since 2010, it’s been hosted successfully by Steve Harvey.
Blond Productions, based in Midrand, is a busy South African rental company specialising in supplying lighting, video and audio production to the television, film and commercial sectors.
They asked Josh to come onboard working with Mauritz Neethling as his associate LD and collaborated on a joint pitch with scenic specialist Dream Sets and set designer Michael Gill to present a full technical / creative package to Rapid Blue.
Once their bid was selected, a collective decision was made to use the Esprites which arrived just in time from Robe’s SA distributor DWR to make the show for which lighting was programmed and operated by Ryan Lombard, who also designed the lighting system.
Some basic style guidelines from the American show were applied to the lighting and Josh also drew inspiration from previous iterations as a formula that had worked well over the years, which included keeping a similar colour scheme. To this, they added some original and innovative aesthetic flourishes making the presentation appropriate for these two African editions.
The two series were shot over a four-week period with up to three episodes recorded per day.
A Prolyte trussing structure was set up in the studio to ground support the set elements which were very geometric and ordered, with a network of trusses flown in the roof to provide lighting positions.
The Esprites were used for all the front light - their high CRI and accurate shuttering was exactly what was needed from those positions.
Forty-eight LEDBeam 100s were utilised for rear up-lighting of columns and other set pieces and for back-lighting the audience; 24 LEDWash 300s provided general front and back light; 24 CycFX 4s were positioned for back light onto the contestants.
Ryan operated all the lighting using a grandMA2 light console which also fed the set video and graphics via a VPU into a disguise P3 media server.
The technical director was Rudi Boetha and the executive producer was Kee-Leen Irvine.
Blond also supplied an L-Acoustics sound system to the series which is currently airing on E.TV on Sunday Evenings in South Africa.
