The live BBC telecast saw a much publicised reunion between Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow of Take That onstage for the first time in 15 years, and the star-studded line up also included Tom Jones, Alesha Dixon, Alexandra Burke, Katherine Jenkins, James Blunt, Enrique Iglesias, The Saturdays, Pixie Lott and many others including the band of the Coldstream Guards.
Chris Saunders project managed for XL and also designed and spec'd the show's production video elements. He comments, "It was a hugely prestigious event to be involved with for an excellent cause. The H was a very ambitious set piece to construct and needed precision and immense attention to detail when it came to applying the video - but the results were well worth all the effort."
The elegant curved H was designed by Misty Buckley as part of the set, and formed a pros arch framing the stage. It was built out of structural flats by Steel Monkey, and XL's team led by Paul Barry spent 10 days at their premises in Bristol, fitting 650 Barco MiStrip pixel strips to these, which were then carefully transported to site and wired up in situ.
Onstage, XL supplied 336 panels of Pixled F15 LED screen, arranged in 14 upstage surfaces, seven panels wide by two high which served as a dynamic digital backdrop to the show. Either side of stage for IMAG footage were another two screens, made from 9 x 7 panels of Lighthouse R7 high resolution LED.
Content for the H and the onstage screens was created by Miguel Ribeiro and stored on a media server,
The XL 4 camera HD PPU utilised Thomson LDK 8000 cameras - two positioned at FOH with long lenses and two in the pit on track-and-dolly. The mix was directed by Ruary MacPhie using a GV Kayak switcher, and he took in 8 HD feeds from the BBC, including VT playbacks and selected camera TXs.
XL also ran a Video On Air computer based hard drive system for playing back videos, and managed an ongoing text donation system.
The show's creative director was Kim Gavin, production manager was Steve Nolan of Chromatic and executive producer, Graham Pullen for Live Nation. Lighting was programmed and operated by Tim Routledge and supplied by PRG.
(Jim Evans)
