Although the trim was 27ft, the set height was just 20ft, and the point of focus was only 10 to 15 feet away in some places. The 10- 60° zoom range on the VL3000 Spot luminaires provided Dickson with the smooth beam spread he needed. Because the show was televised live on CBC, Dickson also needed fixtures that would provide good skin tone colours. The ability of the VL3000 Spot luminaires to "get the green out" was another attribute that made it valuable during the production.
"The variable CTO is nice, but in television, we also need that variable minus green," Dickson explained. "With most fixtures you can get close with colour temperature, but you've got that green spike you want to get rid of. The real deal-maker is how much light magenta you can dial in to get the green out. The VL3000 fixtures allow you to do that. The VL3000 Spot is what the VL7 was trying to be years ago."
Part of the design requested by the NHL was for Dickson and programmer Steve Plotkin to create a look so that the floor of the John Bassett Theatre looked like an ice skating rink with gashes where the skates had cut into the ice. The soft focus Glacier custom gobo in the Series 3000 fixtures were used to create that effect.
In addition to the 24 VL3000 Spot fixtures, Dickson's automated lighting rig also included six VL2000 Spot luminaires and six VL1000 TS fixtures. All of the Vari*Lite automated luminaires were provided by Q1 Production Technologies.
(Lee Baldock)
