To catch up with a long-standing client and friend, Green Hippo's Mercedes Stevao-Boase and Stefanie Mueller made their way to Elstree Studios at the end of January 2015.
The latest Celebrity Big Brother season had reached its halfway point and the pair went to meet up with loyal HippoExpert Russ Grubiak.
Russ is a Lighting and video programmer specialising in TV and he has been involved in a long list of TV shows over the years.
With the recent release of the brand new Hippotizer V4 product range, Russ was one of the first UK programmers in the industry to get his hands on two pristine Hippotizer V4 Karst units.
Currently his equipment includes three Hippotizer V3 GrassHoppers and two Hippotizer V3 HD plus the latest additions of the 2x V4 Karsts, which saw one of their first outings being loaned to Digital Insanity for the world premiere of Kingsman - The Secret Service.
Russ uses a range of other equipment on a regular basis such as his Vector Compulite and Hog 4 consoles from which he controls most of his shows. With his 'fluency' on Hippotizer and any auxiliary gear, Russ creates versatile and visually striking set-ups to cope with all his clients demands.
This last season, saw him concentrating on X-Factor, The Royal Variety Performance, 8 out of 10 Cats and Celebrity Big Brother plus works with designers Oli Richards, Dave Davey, Nigel Catmur, Gurdip Mahal, and Chris Rigby.
ITV's dating game show Take Me Out has been broadcast for seven seasons so far and the show, hosted by comedian Paddy McGuinness, uses plenty of lighting and video cues throughout. Not just for design purposes but equally as part of the competition. For the programme Russ uses two Hippotizer HD units and a total of four outputs.
Hippotizer's VideoMapper and PixelMapper components both come into action, with VideoMapper running the majority of the set-up. The Hippotizer servers control the 15mm screen at the top of the stairs with video chases running up the staircase. Additionally the LED above the female contestants, 2 large screens at the back and the strip of PixLED F30 LEDs behind them are all controlled by Hippotizer.
On Channel 4's 8 out of 10 Cats, a comedy panel show, Russ uses one artnet universe from a Hippotizer GrassHopper to control the RGB ChromaQs behind and amongst the panellists and the video output to send backgrounds behind the panel.
And most recently, with the current season having just seen Katie Price crowned winner of this year's competition, Russ has been working on Channel 5's Celebrity Big Brother. Utilising everything from MiTRIX tiles on the front of the Big Brother House to MiStrip and PixLED F30 LED fixtures running along the catwalk, up the stairs, and around the 'eye' stage door, Russ controls all the content from one Hippotizer GrassHopper output.
Additionally with many hours working at weekends and evenings Russ appreciates Green Hippo's technical support team who have been there to help him at the last moment if needed.
Excited about the new developments in Hippotizer V4 Russ comments, "I'm looking forward to having a proper play with my new Karst unit. V4 is bringing some exciting changes especially the flexibility of playing back 4K on the DisplayPort output as well as the two additional DVI outputs for larger HD content."
Russ has already got projects lined-up for this year, including Comic Relief, where Hippotizer will control a large screen and LED cubes on stage, which might just give him a chance to test out those new V4 Karst units.
(Jim Evans)
