NEW YORK – MTV’s New Year’s Eve celebration overlooking Times Square featured a set design by NYC-based AWB Design and Elation Professional’s EPV762 MH moving head LED video panels, supplied by LMG Nashville. Production designer Anthony Bishop of AWB collaborated with LMG’s Ken Gay to create the environment that worked for the live audience as well as for the cameras.
More details from Elation Professional (http://www.elationlighting.com):
NEW YORK – MTV’s star-studded New Year’s Eve celebration wowed TV viewers with its celebrity hosts Snooki and JWoww from Jersey Shore and performances by Ke$ha, Sean Kingston and Ne-Yo, among others. Broadcast from the Viacom studio at 1515 Broadway and featuring a dance club theme, “MTV’s Club NYE 2013” delivered all the glitter and eye candy one might expect from a production overlooking Times Square on the biggest night of the year, with a set design by NYC-based AWB Design LLC.
Production designer Anthony Bishop of AWB created the performance environment, while maintaining the camera-friendliness of the set, through the use of Elation Professional’s EPV762 MH moving head LED video panels, supplied by LMG (Nashville). Although the show had a look and feel of “bigness,” the studio actually proved to be a challenging space to work with due to its small size. Its grid height was a mere 11 ft. 6 inches.
“When you stick six cameras in that studio and shoot it, it becomes all about the grid, and less about looking at where we would traditionally put scenery,” said Bishop. The main issue was “how do I have something scenically there that’s there when I need it, then goes away and doesn’t interfere (with camera shots in the cramped space).”
Bishop called LMG’s Technology Artist Ken Gay, with whom he had collaborated on MTV shows and other projects in the past. “I have always brought LMG to the table because of the respect I have for them. They’re a how-can-we-get-the-job-done type of company. They’ve been around for awhile and have a vast amount of resources and product available to designers that gives us so much freedom.”
LMG recommended the Elation EPV76 MH, a 7.62mm high-resolution rotating LED video panel that has the capability to pan 540 degrees and tilt 265 degrees, just like a moving head light fixture. Measuring a square 19.2 in. x 19.2 in. and weighing 53 lbs., the panels contain 3-in-1 RGB SMD LEDs, which produce 2,000-nit brightness. Each unit features Ethercon in/out for video signal, Powercon in/out for power linkage, and 3-pin and 5-pin DMX inputs for pan/tilt control.
The EPV762 MH panels’ full rotating pan/tilt ability gave Bishop just what he was looking for, from both a spatial and design perspective. “When I’ve got a grid that’s hanging down in camera shot or even polluting the upstage LED wall, I’ve got to be able either to complement it or not compete with it. That’s where the Elation panels came in as really viable option for us – because of the rotating heads,” he explained. When not contributing to the scenic design, the panels could be flattened and essentially “rotated out of view.”
Equally important, the Elation moving head units also provided the a whole range of creative design options for both Bishop and Lighting Designer Chris Landy – a “must” for a show that featured five major acts. “Of course every band had to have own look. The panels gave us this mobility. For most part we provided content as way to change the set. But we designed it in a way so that we could shoot it differently, too.”
Bishop used 22 EPV762 MH panels on the MTV set, and says he would have used more if he hadn’t “run out of room.” The panels were rigged as individual units in two basic configurations. “One we created a proscenium arch over the ceiling that could then flatten out and go away. The other way was as vertical columns, which is how I framed for camera the offshoot shots – the diagonal shots, when you’re looking at the band on the stage. So when you get those really cool side shots of Ne-Yo singing, the Elation units are right there surrounding his head, used basically as a wing unit.”
With the panels in the proscenium arch, Bishop added, “I didn’t put them in straight row — there’s two left and right of center. I worked with the director Brian Campbell who was shooting the show. We had these dancer pods – the dancers were on underlit decks, and I said, ‘You gotta get in there with a steady camera and get those upper shots. I’m giving you all this candy.’ Not only could we shoot the Elation units out in a wide shot, we could also make them go like a ceiling panel and get these nice tight upper shots of the dancers with content behind, and that makes good TV. We could have a nice soft palette going on – we could make it hard, or make it soft.”
In addition to the proscenium arch and vertical columns, there was one more way the EPV762 MH panels were used, which proved a real enhancement to the New Years Eve broadcast. On the studio’s east side is a wall of windows that faces Times Square, explained Bishop. “We positioned one of the Elation units back side, where we were able to spin it out to the MTV platform in the middle of Times Square and have our show content and the MTV logo in it. This allowed us to get throwbacks from the middle of Times Square back up to the studio window.
“I can’t speak enough about the Elation units. Look what we were able to do with them in a small TV studio set. Then think about what you could do with these moving head units on a tour. From a touring standpoint, I’m definitely going to promote using these units. I haven’t even touched what I think I can do with them.”
Photo: Anthony Bishop
For more information about AWB Design LLC, contact awbdesign@me.com
For information about LMG, visit www.lmg.net
