Robe hosts Amsterdam studio & TV workshop
- Details
The one-day event was the brainchild of Controllux’s Romec Berendsen and was hosted at Allard Studios in Amsterdam, reaching a capacity attendance of 35 comprising gaffers, DoPs, lighting board operators and technicians active in the film, television, and commercials sectors.
The idea was spawned following a Robe factory tour that Romec had conducted in the Czech Republic, with gaffers from all around the Netherlands. The idea was to collect everyone in the familiar surroundings of a studio and introduce products with which some would be familiar and others not, so they could experiment with a range of different Robe technologies and interact and exchange experiences and knowledge with each other.
Also involved in developing the idea were Robe product development specialist Dave Whitehouse and key account manager for Europe Jeroen van Aalst, who was a sales and project manager for Controllux when the idea was first floated.
Dave brought his experience of running Robe’s successful theatre workshop events to the table, although dealing with camera environments is completely different. While there is some crossover in products that are very versatile and designed to work in both like the T-series range.
“We knew some basic ingredients related to the format from the theatre workshop, but the recipe is very new, and none of us had too many advance expectations, but we were all very curious about who would attend and what they wanted to gain,” stated Dave.
During the first part of the session, Dave’s talk highlighted the different products, their features and all the aspects related to product design that are happening in the background. This was followed up by a practical session in the afternoon, where all attendees could get hands on with the equipment and try out some different scenarios.
Colour theory was a critical aspect for everyone, so this tended to lead the topics which included colour rendition and colour mixing of the products as this was seen as more critical in cinematic environments, rather than the feature counts for each fixture.
Quality of the light was another ‘hot button topic’, as was how utilising different Robe Transferable Engines can affect those characteristics of the luminaires.
A ‘what if section’ featured products like the TetraX 360-degree rotating LED bar which is a popular multi-purpose product often found in studios and a favourite with music shows.
A comprehensive list of products was available and discussed starting with the iFORTE, iESPRITE and iPAINTE moving lights, the T1 and T2 Profiles, the TetraX, the omnipresent Spiider LED wash beam and the very handy and compact LEDBeam 350.
The Robe team boosted their own knowledge about the specific data that’s most important to lighting professionals working in studios and OB sites. “We had input from many individuals that was super useful,” commented Jeroen, which in turn offered valuable insights into their needs and wish list, related to studio and cinema lighting and visual applications.
In addition to the information exchange, the event had a convivial and constructive social atmosphere.
