More details from Chauvet Professional (www.chauvetlighting.com):
NEW YORK – It was an unseasonably cold mid-August morning, but the thousands gathered at Rockefeller Plaza didn’t seem to mind, as the red hot Today Show Toyota Summer Concert Series rolled on through its fourth month with a dynamic performance by Platinum recording artist Neon Trees. Included in the crowd were Berenice and Albert Chauvet, the co-owners of Chauvet Professional. The Chauvets were on hand not only to enjoy the music, but also to take in the performance of the Nexus 4×4, their company’s COB LED panels, which have been in the forefront of LD Peter Greenbaum’s lighting design for the popular early morning TV concert series.
There are 12 Nexus panels on the Today Show Toyota Summer Concert Series rig. Greenbaum uses the fixtures as set pieces, eye candy, colorizing lights and “lighting frames.” The LD calls the panels “amazingly versatile,” noting that they “not only do a lot of things; they also do a lot of things extraordinarily well.”
Greenbaum, who owns Illumination By Design in addition to being the lighting director of the Today Show, used two Nexus panels downstage at the Neon Trees concert to engage the audience (live and on TV). He also positioned six panels as facing on a mid-stage riser and hung four Nexus units overhead upstage.
“The Nexus has performed well for us all summer long,” said Greenbaum. “The colors it produces have been amazing both on camera and to the live audience. What I really like about this fixture is that it doesn’t simply produce colors, it captures the subtleties and nuances of every single color, conveying its various shadings. This makes the light very engaging. Our color at the Today Show is orange, and we love the way the Nexus displays very rich and subtle oranges and reds.”
Also coming in for praise from Greenbaum was the output of the Nexus. “This is a very bright, intense light, which is very important to us, since we’re broadcasting outdoors during the day,” he said. “We run the panels at 10 to 13 percent, and we always have ample brightness.”
For their part, the Chauvets were excited to see the Nexus panels on the stage of a popular network television program illuminating the performance of a superstar group. “We were humbled, honored, and grateful to Peter,” said Albert Chauvet. “We felt we had created a very special tool when we introduced the Nexus, but seeing it onstage the way Peter used it really drove home this point. We’re glad that a product that began as a dream on our part is a part of something that has been entertaining so many people.”
For more on Illumination By Design visit www.illuminationbydesign.net.
