S+H contributes to Best Christmas Ever
- Details
The show, a Christmas special, was hosted by Alexander Armstrong with a live audience on D Stage at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, and was produced by Remarkable, part of the Endemol Shine Group.
Armstrong invited celebrity guests to his winter lodge to discuss their favourite elements of the season, and a member of the audience had the chance to win a Best Christmas Ever hamper. A house band played popular Christmas tunes, with some of guests joining in for a sing-along.
Josh wanted a twinkly festive feel for the show and to suit the environment - a cosy fireside chat scenario with a wintry forest scene visible through the windows of the lodge!
The brief was to provide a warm, cosy and festive set for Armstrong to present his evening Christmas fun with a selection of interesting and entertaining guests. The theatrical scenery evoked winter lodge style tones and textures - lots of warm wood and decorated Christmas trees inside, juxtaposed against a winter night with frosty trees outside.
The RGB starcloth enhanced and accentuated these atmospheres, and the product was used both as a back layer through the lodge windows, and to wrap around the back of the audience for the reverse camera shots.
“I wanted to make the whole studio, including the audience, twinkly - both like a night sky and like snowfall,” explains Josh. “Utilising the RGB star cloth meant we could have lovely blinking stars visible through the set and around the audience, or the starcloth pixels could be gently animated to look like snowfall.”
He used the starcloth’s ability to change colour to shift the vibe and energy for the music performances!
The show was directed by Simon Staffurth. The series producer was Charlotte Brookes and the executive producer Tamara Gilder.
Josh was busy over the festive period. He also designed the set for Help the Animals at Christmas, a star studded three-and-a-half-hour telethon fundraiser for Channel 5 hosted by former Strictly star Susan Calman and Cold Feet actor John Thomson. The show was staged at HQ1 Dock 10 at Media City in Manchester for production company Daisybeck Studios.
Broadcast on 21 December, it was the first ever Channel 5 telethon and helped raise nearly £700,000 for five animal charities to help rescue and rehabilitate needy and abused animals.
Once again Josh called on S+H to provide some specialist cloths for this, in the form of warm white Pea-light starcloth used as a 360° wrap around the studio.
(Jim Evans)
