Brazil - Lighting designer and DOP Alexandre (Alê) Augusto created the lighting scheme for the latest series of The Masked Singer in Brazil, with his rental company, Spectrun Design e Iluminação, supplying the lighting equipment and production.
The fifth season of the popular music TV show was recorded at Banijay Studios in the Guarulhos area of Sao Paulo, and Alê collaborated closely on the design side of this project with another of Brazil’s leading lighting designers, Serginho Antonio. Both are keen users of Robe moving lights and LED products.
Prominent on Alê’s lighting plot were 20 x TetraXs – the first in Brazil, as Alê also likes to be a bit of a trailblazer with new tech when possible – rigged on a shaped and automated truss which moved in and out to create different architectural looks in the studio.
He used MMX WashBeams for key lighting the judges and six of Spectrun’s 24 new Paintes which replaced bulkier spotlights – from another brand – as ‘deck candy’ on the floor behind the artists, and often visible in shots.
Alê has lit The Masked Singer since it started in Brazil, but the 2024 series was the first in this specific studio.
Alê and Serginho worked with set designer Ludmila Machado and director Marcelo Amiky to create Brazil’s own look for The Masked Singer franchise. Alê, Ludmila and Marcelo regularly work as a creative triumvirate, and have designed some of the highest-profile shows on Brazilian television.
Lighting needed to be big, fitting to a sumptuous glossy-floor production with plenty of theatrical twists. Flexibility was the cornerstone of the lighting design for Alê, who endeavours to make each series look different and within that, each of the individual artist performances.
Time is always the challenge with this show, with four weeks of recording sandwiched in between eight rehearsal sessions to produce the 12 episodes, from which one winner emerges from 16 finalists.
“Combining the moving lights (including others on the rig) with the automation, enabled a set of completely unique structural looks to be achieved for each performance.”
Positioning the TetraXs on a moving truss meant Alê could get far more out of the fixtures than them just being effects in their own right. He leaned into the potential of the pixel and flower effects and the continuous pan: “This gave me so many choices – it was really incredible,” he enthused, adding, “it is a very special fixture.”
The Paintes – also recently delivered by Robe’s Sao Paulo-based distributor HPL – were on the floor, set up close to the many LED screens that made up the set structural elements.
Used for back lighting the artists, they were in shot much of the time, so he had really wanted something compact and ergonomic for the role. “Painte is perfect, and packs such a nice punch for its small size,” he stated.
The MMX WashBeam is a fixture he likes very much. Ten were rigged to come in from the front with three from each side to nicely key the judges, with the framing shutters being extremely handy here as some of the fixtures were around 30m away.
Alê worked on programming the show with operator Kelton John, also known as “Ere”. The pair have worked together on it for two years. Taking on the DOP role as well as lighting designer meant that Alê looked after the key lighting, while Ere took care of programming all the moving and effects fixtures.
Other recent jobs for Spectrun’s Paintes have included lighting the 21st edition of the Red Bull BC One World Final breakdancing championships staged in Rio de Janeiro, an event which also featured two Robe iBolts, and the Prêmio Multishow 2024 (2024 Multishow Awards) at the Riocentro venue, also in Rio de Janeiro.
