In cooperative effort between SBS, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, the royal couple and the charitable Bikuben Foundation, their Highnesses presented the annual Crown Prince Couples Awards at the Joan Sutherland Theatre, the first time the awards ceremony has been held outside its native Denmark since its inception in 2004.
The awards were established by the Bikuben Foundation as a wedding gift for the royal couple and celebrate Danish excellence in arts, culture and society. The creative teams behind the television series The Killing and Borgen received the Cultural award, while violinist Rune Tonsgaard S°rensen and singer-songwriter M° aka Karen Marie °rsted both received the Rising Star award for young musicians. Volunteer organisation Natteravnene (Night Owls) received the Society award for their work with young people. Australia's Gurrumul and Diesel performed alongside 2013 Rising Star winners and past winner Oh Land, while Julia Zemiro co-hosted.
Lighting director Gavan Swift was tasked with bringing the ceremony in on top of current show-in-residence South Pacific. The Sunday before the show saw the crew stripping out part of the musical's set, bringing in a semi-trailer full of extra lighting from Chameleon and setting up a "black box" TV studio environment with trussing and black masking.
Gavan chose to run the show from a Jands Vista L5. A long time user of the Vista platform, he knew the desk had the usability and features he needed to build a show with such a tight schedule. "The Vista is my go-to-console for any kind of live concert or event-style lighting" said Gavan. "I ran the Helpmann awards on Vista for five years, and I've used it on gigs like APEC and Concerts in the Domain."
With no pre-programming time, Gavan came in at 7am on the morning of the ceremony, exported a CSV file from South Pacific's ETC Eos and imported the patch into the L5. He plugged the Vista into the theatre's Ethernet network and had complete control of South Pacific's channels. Rehearsal started at 9 AM, and Gavan began with no cues built.
"The lighting was the set" explained Gavan. "Because we created a black box environment, the lighting became the background for all the camera shots." With the combination of time pressure and with the lighting doing dual duty as set, the Vista L5's ergonomics and speed of workflow were integral in getting the show up to international broadcast standard.
"It's the timing features of the console that are a huge drawcard for me," Gavan continued. "The ability to select something, contract the time, spread out the fanning of it and have moving light effects in an instant rather than having to type in delays or inventing timing numbers. It's much more intuitive, quick and easy to create the right look for these kind of shows."
It was also Gavan's first time using the Vista v2 software. "I'd had plenty of experience using the original Vista, but I'd never used v2 at all," Gavan confessed. "I walked in on the day and made it work. I was very impressed by the improvements to the console and the improvements to the overall interface."
(Jim Evans)
