Lighting for the 10 part series - due for screening in the autumn - is designed by Tom Kinane. The set was designed by Richard Plumb, and Svend Pedersen worked closely with Kinane in programming and operating all the LED, digital lighting and moving lights. Another important element of this visual equation was BBC vision controller Jim Murphy, and HSL's project manager was Sean McGlone.
Hosted by Dale Winton, the show features two teams led by Anton De Beke and Darren Gough. Each team has three lycra-clad celebrities who have seven seconds in which to jump through a tracking wall with variously shaped holes - or end up head-first in a swimming pool.
For Kinane, the installation of the swimming pool into one end of studio TC8 at BBC's Wood Lane facility meant the loss of 6ft of headroom, which in turn affected the way he lit the set elements and action. Richard Plumb came up with a set design incorporating 10 large scenic chevrons, and wanted to use an LED back cloth from the outset for displaying people's names, other text and assorted graphic backgrounds. Kinane and Pedersen recommended the SoftLED, having worked with it - and other options - before.
All the LED and moving lights were controlled via Pedersen's Wholehog 3 which was triggering the Catalyst media server storing all the content. Kinane comments: "Working with HSL's Sean McGlone has been a pleasure as always. He's delivered everything that was promised and was also extremely helpful in setting up demos so we could all see the results of using different types of LED before making the final choices."
(Jim Evans)
