Hosted by Steve Schirripa of Sopranos fame, contestants choose a professional poker player (the Ace) to match wits against from among four doors. Filmed at Cin City Studios in Las Vegas, Face the Ace uses a complement of Martin Professional lighting gear to dress the set in colour and beam effects, including the new MAC 301 Wash luminaire.
Innovative Show Design (ISD) of Lake Mary, Florida handled all scenic and lighting design, production and installation for client Poker Production. Lighting design is by ISD's lighting director/associate artistic director Justin Garrone.
The set design is based on a fashionable, contemporary hotel suite. "We were inspired by the look and feel you find at the Fantasy Suites at the Palms Resort and Casino in Las Vegas," Garrone comments. "The lighting needed to complement the set. Both Poker Productions and NBC wanted this to look and feel like a real suite.
"None of the lighting fixtures could be seen. All the lighting cues and looks needed to be subtle and calm without a lot of movement unless there was big action or a celebration. That is where we could make it look like a game show."
Garrone sought not only a compact LED moving head to fit into the set's tight spaces but needed the fixture to be extremely bright with endless colour choices. He turned to Martin's new MAC 301 Wash, an LED moving head washlight with a fast zoom and 13 - 36° zoom range.
"The zoom feature was our saviour," Garrone commented. "Since we floor mounted the MAC 301 behind the Ace doors, there was little to no room for us to move them back to spread the light. In this position they washed the Ace doors with colour. And since we couldn't move them back to wash the entire door with colour, we just zoomed them out and left the fixture in the ideal position to wash the door with colour and blow out the camera for the Ace walk in."
Adding beam looks to the set are 17 Martin MAC 700 Profiles hung on a half circle surrounding the poker table. "With these we were able to increase the level of excitement and/or anticipation," Garrone explains.
Martin MAC TW1 tungsten wash lights are used for backlighting the Ace, the contestant and the dealer at the table, as well as to backlight the audience with colour.
(Jim Evans)
