Darryl Noad was the lighting director for the high profile Endemol-produced series recorded at Elstree Studios for Channel Four. Stage Electrics' project manager was Simon Baker.
The studio element of the rig consisted of 19 Martin Professional MAC 2K washes, used for the regular bi-weekly broadcasts. Sixteen PixelLine 110ec's were also supplied by Stage Electrics to the Little Brother chat show.
The weekly show's exterior rig included 15 MAC 600 NTs in inflatable domes, 8 MAC 2K profiles, 4 MAC 2K washes and 16 JTE PixelLine battens under-lighting the stairs. These were used extensively to light and project graphics and gobos onto the wall of the Big Brother house which formed one side of the exterior compound, and also illuminated the evictees walkway.
The show's generic lighting was supplied by Park Royal-based Film & Television Services, who also dry hired four 48-way Avolites ART2000 dimmers from Stage Electrics to power their kit. Baker and his team worked very closely with Film & TVS's Malcolm Bray and Adrian Portinari.
Stage Electrics added ten 2K Space Cannons for the finale, five were located on the house roof and five outside the front entrance to the stage. Twenty MAC 300s were rigged around the front lip of the Orbit stage and 3 extra PixelLines were added to the front of the house. Four 2.5k City Colours placed on floor-based flight cases were used to flood the side of the George Lucas Stage building, for the high crane, wide camera shots of the whole site.
All intelligent lighting was programmed into a WholeHog II by Pryderi Baskerville, and operated by Greg Fairfield.
(Jim Evans)
