Starmania 21 gets new look with Martin Pro
- Details
Starmania is an Austrian televised musical competition that was originally broadcast from 2002 to 2009 on channel ORF 1. This year, ORF decided to bring the show back as Starmania 21, with a fresh cast of contestants and a new panel of judges. Taking the opportunity to give the revived show a fresh look, the producers hired lighting designer Roland Greil, who designed a lighting rig using a variety of Martin LED fixtures and creative video elements.
“The young talents on Starmania performed all kinds of music, from early 20th-century Austrian folk music to the newest chart hits and everything in between,” said Greil. “You want to give every song the right look and feel. Your fixtures need to be versatile enough to do this, because you’re still dealing with budget constraints. You can’t have 300 lights for rock and roll and 300 lights for modern hits.”
Greil’s lighting design included 48 Martin MAC Aura PXL wash lights, To supplement these, Greil added 35 MAC Viper Wash DX fixtures for additional wash illumination. To highlight the performers, Greil selected 68 MAC Viper Performance fixtures, taking advantage of an innovative ‘Follow Me’ system, which automatically follows the performers’ movements like a traditional follow spot.
To produce synchronised effects, Florian Wieder, the production’s set designer, and Greil created a dynamic, illuminated background for the stage using 134 VDO Sceptron 20 and 132 VDO Sceptron 10 LED battens, accompanied by 264 Martin VC-Grid LED pixel tiles. For the more intense moments of the show, Greil incorporated Martin VDO Atomic Dot CLD hybrid fixtures.
To control the show’s large and complex lighting rig, Greil used the Martin P3-300 System Controller.
“For Starmania, we wanted something that offered a greater level of control,” said Greil. “The P3-300 enabled us to easily use the VDO Sceptron 20 and 10 as classic light fixtures, and instantly switch to a video mapping mode when needed. The video integration was really helpful for the whole show process.”
