The FLX, HFX and Fuze lights were used on a 26 October show (recorded for a 2 December broadcast), as well as on a live show that took place on 29 October, which had the best viewer ratings of any Verstehen Sie Spass show in five years. Lighting supply for both shows was by TV lighting production company Cape Cross Studio and Film Lighting of Cologne.
Broadcast from Bavaria Studios in Munich, Verstehen Sie Spass airs twice in the spring and twice in the fall on Germany's ARD television network. Gerdon began designing lighting for the show in 2015. For colour wash across the set, he turned to Elation's new Fuze Wash Z120 LED wash fixture, a single source PAR moving head luminaire with 120W RGBW COB LEDs and 7° to 55° zoom.
"I really like the idea of this fixture and it's something I've wanted for years," he stated, referring to the Fuze's homogenized output and non-pixel look face. "There is no other LED with a single lens look where the LED appears as a wash on camera. There is nothing else on the market like it and just that makes it interesting. It's a unique fixture. But it also has really good colour and the zoom in it is really nice. The pan and tilt movement from fast to slow is also good. This fixture brings the basics and does it nicely."
Gerdon, who sees the value of multi-functional fixtures and the many options they open up, had used another of Elation's hybrid fixtures on the 2016 spring shows, namely the Platinum SBX, which he used for a variety of purposes from backlight to beam effects to big flower looks. "The SBX worked very well on those shows," he said. "The quality and sharpness of the beam was excellent. I chose to use the Platinum FLX and HFX on the fall shows because they are an evolution of the Platinum SBX."
Gerdon's enthusiasm for multi-functional lights led him to try the FLX on the fall shows. "I had heard good things about the FLX and was wondering about things like the light quality," he says of the spot/ beam/wash moving head with 470W Platinum 20R lamp. "The outcome was surprising and I mean that in a good way. In my point of view the FLX is on the same level as some other hybrid fixtures out there and is better than many others. In terms of brightness and colour mixing, it is one step beyond."
Gerdon used 16 Platinum FLX and 16 of Elation's mid-sized Platinum HFX hybrid fixtures on the shows with the FLX's placed on the floor of the set around an orchestra of 60 people and zoomed out completely for greater coverage.
(Jim Evans)
