The prime-time Saturday show, MC'd by Gerry Scotti, featured 29 singers aged between seven and 15 from singing schools across the country, competing for a trip to the US for a study vacation under the wing of top international producer David Foster. The entrants sang solo and together, as well as duetting with some of Italy's top pop names, accompanied by a resident 33-piece band.
The show's impressive set, designed by Marco Calzavara occupied a third of Studio 20, one of the country's largest TV studios located at the Mediaset production centre on the outskirts of Milan, and featured a huge curved Lighthouse screen, which was reputedly the screen with the highest resolution ever mounted in a TV studio and fed with a single signal.
Video and lighting contractor EVR Media of Udine installed a Lighthouse LED screen made up of 698pcs R10 SMD 10mm panels with a configuration of 7680 pixel (horizontal) and 576 (vertical). The screen was flown from a custom-built structure forming a sort of semicircular shell round the band and the performers and positioned in such as way as to enable a camera to run along below it for eye-catching upstage coverage.
The high resolution was possible thanks to the generation of graphic signals, realized by specialist firm Clonwerk and processed by the EVR Media team with two Vista Spyder, 344 video processors and 22 Lighthouse Interface Processors, suitably calibrated and fined tuned as far as size, colorimetria and brightness were concerned.
The setup was conceived by the set designer and director. Technical aspects, structural installation modifications and signal management were managed by Mario Prataviara from EVR, assisted by Davide Pontarini. Structural metalwork was by OCM Costruzioni Meccaniche and CATE costruzioni meccaniche.
(Jim Evans)
