Elation lights Super Bowl sportscast booths
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Multiple stages scattered around LA provided pre- and post-game coverage while promoting the city and shows for client Comcast. This was the fourth Super Bowl in which LDG has been involved and was Size’s second time working a Super Bowl. Having used conventional fixtures at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis four years ago, he says their inflexibility led him to request more moving lights for this year’s plot. ““That’s what drove the design concept of a moving light rig. At the Minneapolis Super Bowl, we were forced to do a lot of last minute re-focusing - inefficiently wasting time and requiring additional crew. In LA, I wanted to be able to make
Size turned to technology services provider Creative Technology part of the NEP Group, for a solution. CT’s Christopher Hibbard had introduced the Fuze Profile CW to Size a couple of years before on a presidential event. “It is a very practical fixture and the price point is excellent,” says Hibbard of the LED framing fixture that CT’s Chris Wasilauskas and Ian Dobson had worked closely with Elation to develop.
“The bright sun was our major concern so I needed some firepower,” the designer explains. “We used the Fuze on several stages but then raised the base illumination with softlights and chose the KL Panels, which I have found are very efficient and very bright.” “We thought we needed to raise the intensity level but were all pleasantly surprised that the Fuzes did such a great job.” Arc source luminaires were also employed on several stages.
Some 70 Fuze Profile CWs were used across all the stages for key and fill lights (Creative Technology stocks 200 of the fixtures) with 21 KL Panels used for wash and eye lights. Stages with Elation lights included the Main Stadium Stage, the Stadium Clicker Stage, the Telemundo Stadium Stage, Lakeside #1, Lakeside #2 and the Tailgate Stage. At night, one of the lake stages was also used for Olympic coverage.
Another important fixture used across many of the Super Bowl stages was softlight illumination. Chris comments that many of the more popular softlights in use today are too bulky and with more broadcasts happening in smaller spaces with limited ceiling heights, a more compact form factor is often required.
“The KL Panel has a really nice profile, short and contained that allows it to more easily fit in a tight space. Even with the barndoors on the form is quite small.”
Elation was delighted to contribute to a successful Super Bowl production in its home base market of LA and is grateful for the cooperation with CT and LDG. Size concludes, “Over the years, we’ve come to find that Elation has raised the bar on technology and quality of product and I’m happy to use the fixtures. Many designers who didn’t know the lights until the Super Bowl were pleasantly pleased and we were even surprised how great they performed.”
