JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The spherical set provided by Gearhouse South Africa for Miss World 2008 was sleek, stylish, and very…gray. But the pallid paint color served as a canvas for a team of lighting and visual specialists headed by LD Tim Dunn, using the biggest assembly of Robe’s newest gear to date. Dunn, who first saw Robe’s DigitalSpot 7000DTs and REDWash 3-192s in Las Vegas in October, used 12 of the 7000DTs and 32 of the REDWash units for the pageant, held at the Sandton International Convention Centre on Dec. 13. They were part of a rig that included 230 intelligent lights in all, plus a variety of conventional fixtures.
Dunn worked with set designer Dewet Meyer to create an environment that would help optimize the pageant experience for the contestants, audience, and for the live broadcast by SABC to an estimated two billion viewers worldwide. The 40-meter-diameter set filled one end of the Pavilion.
The event, last staged in South Africa in 1995, also relied upon the design, rigging, structural, lighting, video, set building, power and seating design resources of six Gearhouse Group companies: GHSA, LEDvision, Sets, Drapes and Screens (SDS), In2Structures, GH Power and Havaseat.
To follow the curving lines of the set, some of Dunn’s over-stage trusses were curved at different angles as well. The 12 DigitalSpot 7000 DTs were all hung on one of the mid-stage truss sections. That allowed for focus points covering the set, from the wide steps at the back to the perimeter ramps lined with eight tall fins as they arched upstage. The DS7000s could also focus onto the underside of three large over-stage curved lighting pods clad in gray PVC.
Along with Robe’s newest gear, Dunn also used 56 Robe moving lights in the rig — ColorSpot and ColorWash 2500E ATs and ColorWash and ColorSpot 700E ATs. The 700s were arranged all around the rig, while the 2500s were lined up on one of the upstage truss sections to provide backlight for the stage. More ColorWash 2500E ATs were positioned on two front side trusses, used for audience sweeps.
The DigitalSpots were run on an ArtNet network and loaded with approximately 30 clips of custom video content created by Gearhouse Media’s Marcel Wijnberger and Chris Grandin.
These were run through 116 pixel-mapped i-Pix Satellite LED lighting fixtures ensconced in the set, and were also projected onto the stage and the lining of the lighting pods via the DigitalSpot moving lights.
Meyer also produced video content that was programmed into a grandMA media server and woven into Dunn’s visual mix, triggered from one of the two grandMA full-size lighting desks.
Dunn and crew also lit the set with colors ranging from black and white to sepia to slightly idiosyncratic pastels, and textures and motion shifting the mood from liquid and fluid to sharper stabs of light.
“I’m totally impressed with both the DS7000s and the REDWashes” Dunn said, noting the interplay between the square shape of the REDWashes and the circular beams on the rig. “I wanted to do something different, and they gave me huge scope for dressing all areas of the stage with interesting effects — essential for any live TV environment, and they were rock solid throughout.”
The Gearhouse media team also produced the opening edit and three custom video sections that appeared during the show’s production numbers on an 11-meter-by-4.5-meter Lighthouse high-resolution R16 LED screen, located upstage center and supplied by LEDVision.
The playback footage was routed and fitted to screen via a Barco Encore multiscreen controller operated by Wayne Susman from Gearhouse AV, along with a feed from the lighting department’s MA digital media server and 3 feeds from SABC’s OB truck – one TX from the cameras and 2 from their EVS machine.
Miss World graphics, stings, bumpers, squeezebacks, VT inserts and IMAG footage from 10 SABC camera sources directed by Ian Hamilton, were also output to the main LED screen from the SABC OB truck. Gearhouse AV additionally supplied two side projection screens for IMAG relay to the live audience.
A key objective in both the set and lighting design was ensure that the contestants and other artists onstage didn’t get overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the production. Another goal was to use lighting to create an intimate performance space one minute, and then create a massive visual impact the next.
Yet another consideration, shared by Gearhouse South Africa, was to minimize the environmental impact of the production. Without sacrificing the look of the event, the energy-efficient rig helped Dunn and crew use 30 percent less electricity than the 1995 Miss World event in Sun City, the first of four Miss World pageants where Dunn served as LD. The winner of Miss World 2008 was Miss Russia, Kseniya Sukhinova.
Gearhouse South Africa has made a substantial investment in Robe over the last three years, supplied by South African distributor DWR. DWR also supplied technical support on the digital fixtures throughout the Miss World build-up week at SCC, with engineers Bruce Riley and Nick Britz working closely with the Gearhouse lighting crew, cheifed by Lucky Nkosi.
Gearhouse’s project management team of Jesse Wang, Eyal Yehezkely, Michael Lewis and Lee Reynolds managed the logistics of squeezing 28 truckloads of gear into the venue and building the set in one week’s time. Sets, Drapes and Screens (SDS), In2Structures and Gearhouse SA built the stage and set.
SDS, Gearhouse’s newest company, had a site team of 12 carpenters led by Pieter Joubert and Craig Pretorius, who worked round-the-clock shifts to build the set. Havaseat installed the Periup Arena Seating stands for the live audience.
For more information, please visit www.gearhouse.co.za and www.robe.cz.
