Is Eleven Monitors a Bit Much?

I’ll be honest here, I was getting ready to go through the Friday Flickr Lighting Porn Pool when I noticed a couple of additions to the other pool I have setup on Flickr, the Lighting Consoles Setup Pool.  I was strolling through the awesome console photos people have uploaded and one struck me, the one above.  A month or two ago, I asked, how many monitors is to many on a lighting console? Apparently 11 was just right for this Virtuoso from PRG.  This is just one of the six, yes 6 desk that were setup at Eurovision song contest 2010 at Oslo Norway. This setup really makes it feel like you are at the helm of the Star Trek Enterprise!

AMAZING!

Keep adding the console photos to the pool, they are lookin good!  Learn more about Eurovision at the productions web site, www.m-m-pr.com.

Kezia LED Fixture – NAB 2010

It seemed that NAB was just like LDI, the trade show of LEDs, but hey, why not, they are only getting better.  One of the booths that I was told over and over again to see as well as a personal invite was PRG Distribution.  In the PRG booth was a company and fixture that I have never heard of, Gekko Technologies.  From looking over their web site, www.gekkotechnology.com, Gekko makes LED lighting solutions for the TV, Film and Photography markets.

Gekko was showing off two of their latest products, the Kezia 50 and 200. They are designed for shooting on location or in the studio with the ability to go from 2900k, 3200k, 5600k and 6500k. The fixtures can be ordered with a white optimized array of a wider saturated color ranger well suited for theatre and architectural markets.

The fixture operate on 90-264 volts  with 50 watts power draw on the Kezia 50 and 190 watt power draw on the Kezia 200. What is impressive is the light output on the fixtures.  At 12ft, the Kezia 50 outputs 42 foot candles while the Kezia 200 outputs 60 foot candles.

To learn more about the Gekko Kezia 50 & 200, visit their web site at www.gekkotechnology.com.

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ChamSys, Arkaos & PAID Internship Interviews @ PRG’s Booth – OH MY

I just got a note from PRG Live, Production Resource Groups Facebook Page, that they will have a wealth of new products in their booth, 1360, at USITT this week. Make sure to stop by and take a look at ChamSys MagicQ 100 Console connected to Arkaos Media Master all being run off my computer of choice, a MacBook Pro.

PRG will also have a PRG Commander console on hand to demo.  The Commander is an automation console for scenic elements and show control.

PRG’s Internship Coordinator Rich Rubin will be on hand interviewing for Summer 2010 internships. These are paid internships in lighting, audio, video, scenic, systems integration, operations, finance and engineering. North American sites may include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Toronto, NY Metro area facilities, Orlando, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

If you are attending USITT, make sure to stop by and see some cool consoles and products and hey, why not try and get an internship while you’re there!

PRG & the Super Bowl Halftime Show

More and more Press Releases are rolling in from this years Super Bowl Halftime Show.  Again, this is something I normally do not write about he.  But this years Super Bowl Halftime Show featuring The Who was spectacular!  If you watched the Halftime Show, I am sure you were like me and wondered how they put this all together.  PRG (Production Resource Group), just issued a Press Release that goes over some of the details that Lighting Designer, Al Gurdon did to create such a wonderful Halftime Show. More from the PRG Press Release:

When the legendary rock band The Who took the stage at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami, FL for the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show, it was the culmination of months of hard work and collaboration. “The Who is an iconic rock band known partly for a very distinctive and recognizable visual style,” commented Lighting Designer Al Gurdon. “There is a pre-existing visual ‘vocabulary’, which can inform and support the design approach.” Production Resource Group (PRG) provided the lighting package and crew for the Halftime show, one of the most intense twelve minutes in live entertainment.

Gurdon, Production Designer Bruce Rodgers and Screens/Graphics Producer Lee Lodge collaborated on the NFL Network Production with executive producer Ricky Kirshner and director Hamish Hamilton, translating that vocabulary into an integrated, cutting-edge design. “I wanted to develop the visual impact of the stage floor itself, and extend that out into the audience in a three-dimensional way,” Gurdon explained. “I wanted to create a background for camera close-ups and have the audience and the stadium itself be part of the spectacle and the set.”

Gurdon’s lighting programmer for the event was industry veteran Michael “Oz” Owen. Due to the severely limited rehearsal time on-site, Gurdon and Owen spent five days at PRG Essential Lighting’s pre-visualization studio in London, programming the show. Owen also worked with Video Content Programmer Jason Rudolph to insure that the lighting and the LEDs in the stage floor were completely synchronized. Owen and Rudolph both used PRG’s Virtuoso® control consoles. “I always prefer using a Virtuoso,” Owen said. “In Miami, I had three; one in the band/stage rehearsal tent, one in the ‘design’ cabin and one front of house. With PRG, I feel really comfortable because there is always plenty of support.”

Rudolph added, “I used the Virtuoso because it made it so easy for Oz and I to sync our cue lists. He could export his cue timings, and I could import them directly into my show and edit them as needed.” PRG also engineered a HTP (Highest Takes Precedence) data merge for the lighting and the video systems. “The merge,” explained Rudolph, “was there so that we could control the color blocks either via the media server doing pixel-mapping, or from Oz’s Virtuoso console. It gave us more programming options.

In addition to Gurdon and Owen, the lighting team included Lighting Directors Rich Gorrod, Bob Barnhart and David Grill. Peter Radice provided additional lighting programming. Full Flood Inc. coordinated with PRG on the lighting equipment and crew. The PRG technicians supervised the volunteers who were responsible for setting up the lighting on the field. Several members of the PRG crew have participated in as many as ten Halftime shows.

Gurdon was very pleased with the results. “We had a very good rig, with no reliability problems at all. You need to know you can rely on things working. PRG was great; I work with them all the time and I find they provide great service and great crews. I always know PRG will deliver; I couldn’t ask for more from them.”