"The studio set was designed by Peter Bingemann, who is a joy to work with," says Noad. "He built walkways and staircases backstage and raised the whole stage 2.5 meters so we could back light the walls of the set without obstructions. We collaborated with Tony to finalize how the thing should be shot." The set construction was carried out by Steel Monkey.
Noad continues, "Because the set has walkways on two levels against the back wall for performers and entrances, I knew we had to back light the set to achieve any saturation of colour or movement and still keep separation from the performers on stage. We only had a 4 metre throw from the studio walls to the set, so to back light the set we used 30 MAC 2000 Performances and 30 MAC 600 NT washlights."
"I specified the Performances for the animation wheels and the shuttering system. We used these along with some custom gobos, which gave us a whole library of looks to play with. My original plan was to use a mixture of lighting and video effect projection for the back wall projections but I couldn't afford it so the MAC Performances gave us the most options for the money."
The overhead rig consisted of MAC 2000 Profiles and MAC 600 NTs for stage and audience cover. "I like the CTC function on these for use with TV cameras," Noad states. He also used other automated lights around the proscenium arch for colour and gobo effects. Beneath the stage a variety of MAC 600 NTs and RoboColor Pro 400 colour changers were used to uplight a Perspex show logo, which included Martin Exterior 200s built into 12 Perspex chairs that came up through the stage floor during a voting sequence in the show.
"To uplight the steelwork around the set and on either side of the proscenium arch I used Exterior 200s," says Noad. "I'm a big fan of these because they look great in shot!" There were also approximately 120 Pulsar ChromaHearts built into the set and floor, as well as long and short throw truss spots in the rig. All told, Darryl incorporated a total of 32 MAC 2000 Performances, 32 MAC 2000 Profiles, 90 MAC 600 NT Es, two MAC 600 Es, 24 Exterior 200s and 25 RoboColor Pro 400s.
"Because of the 100% commitment I got from Andy Martin and his staff at AFM Lighting during the run up to the show, and the use of his facilities to test every element of the rig before we went into the studio, we knew it was going to work. In hindsight, the one area I didn't spend enough time on was the control side, so Sven [lighting programmer and moving light operator Sven Pedersen] had a nightmare for the first few weeks running the 2 Hogs."
(Lee Baldock)
