LOS ANGELES – Deciding it was time for football to pay music back for entertaining crowds at the Super Bowl every year, The Grammy Half Time Show Pepsi commercial featured football greats such as Terry Bradshaw, Mike Ditka, Deion Sanders and Shannon Sharpe. Visions Lighting was the provider of all lighting, video and staging for the 2:36 minute ad.
More details from Visions Lighting (www.visionslighting.com):
LOS ANGELES – The Grammy Half Time Show Pepsi Commercial aired mid-awards January 26th on CBS. Visions Lighting was the provider of all lighting, video and staging for the 2:36 minute ad that was a stand-out hit for the evening and gained rave reviews. Visions was hired on by Production Company, Holmes Defender of the Faith, with the veteran McG at the lead as Director. Ramsey Nickell, Director of Photography for the commercial, thought Todd Roberts and Visions Lighting would be a great fit to design and provide the elements for the commercial’s set up. Nickell and Roberts had worked together in the past collaborating on several music videos.
The premise for the piece was for football to pay music back for entertaining their crowds at the Super Bowl each year by doing a half-time performance of their own at the Grammys, the biggest music awards show of the year. Football’s greats such as Terry Bradshaw, Mike Ditka, Deion Sanders and Shannon Sharpe starring in the feature only added to the amazing experience for the Visions Team.
Visions Lighting received the call from Nickell on Christmas Eve that there was something big in the works and to be ready. The first meeting was on December 27th to start sketching ideas for the staging, lighting and video which were to match the look and scale of the Grammy Awards, but with a much more conservative budget and an even shorter lead time. The Visions Team got straight to work constructing and preparing the set and gear for the commercial load in at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on January 3rd.
With everything loaded and ready, Visions received a call on January 2nd that a second stage would be added at the request of the Director. His vision of a separate EDM performance area complete with lighting, flown in EDM LED DJ Booth equipped with lasers and cryo jets all in front of a 20’ wide by 40’ high LED screen, came together in a 24 hour period. “I’ve got to say that our team did great rolling with the creative elements of this job,” said Roberts. “It was like, you want that? Sure, we can do that.”
The lighting for the job was designed to multi-task. “We needed a lot of flash and camera candy for the concert show look, but it also needed to be right for filming as no additional television lighting was brought in,” said Brandon Dunning, Manager of Automation at Visions and Lighting Programmer on the shoot. “The entire rig was intelligent without a single dimmer.” For the “candy” shots, Visions provided:
(40) Chauvet Nexus 4 x 4
(78) Elation Platinum Beam 5r/Platinum Beam Extremes
(36) Ayrton Magic Panel 602
(30) 25 Light Matrix Fixtures
The Magic Panels were in a 6 x 6 grid that was raked on an angle over the middle of the stage. The Elation Platinum Beam 5r’s were used on the floor and on (6) ladder frames in between the LED Screens and additionally on (4) trusses flanking the Magic Panel grid. For the stage wash and specials, Visions used a combination of (18) Martin MAC 301s, (24) Varilite 3500 Washes and (16) Varilite Spots. “These were the workhorses that never let me down,” said Roberts. All lighting was controlled by a Grand MA 2 Full console with (3) NPUs and (22) universes of DMX.
For Video on the Main Stage, Visions provided (3) 15’ wide by 28’ high 6mm VisionTec LED Screens. Each was fed by an Arkaos Media Master Pro that was driven by a Grand MA 2 Full Console. Content being shot at a different set at the LA Sports Arena, was edited on site, as well, and brought to the Visions team for immediate playback. “The Arkaos had no problem with the multiple outputs or the multiple layers of high resolution content,” commented Roberts. “I am also really proud of how well the VisionTec 15mm flexible screen and wrap around DJ booth performed for the EDM portion of the commercial.” Visions brought in V-Squared with Touch Designer Software and custom content were used to make the Electronic Dance Music segment featuring NFL Players, Matthew Stafford and Michael Oher, a stand out in the piece. No EDM stage would be complete without lasers. “We brought in Lasertainment to partner with Visions. They have these amazingly small full-color lasers that are really beautiful,” said Roberts, “and put out an incredible beam of color.”
“One of the funniest parts about the shooting, for me, was when production asked if they could use the 20’ wide by 40’ high 15mm screen for the auxiliary EDM shots as a teleprompter for the main stage speakers and performers,” laughed Roberts. “Why not, they paid for it, the world’s largest teleprompter! It worked great!”
Staging is usually not the most exciting production element to write about, but in this case it was. The main stage for the mock awards show was 80’ wide by 52’ deep with multiple height levels on top with a semi-tractor trailer full of LED backlit plexi-front staircases painted white and custom built in just five days. “We were lucky to have access to a friend’s CNC machine to cut out the parts we needed in time enough to complete the job,” said Roberts. The entire stage was finished with high-gloss white Marlite to give it the clean awards look. The first 24’ of the stage also needed to be built with an extra heavy duty capacity as the production would be driving a real Monster Truck on to it. “We accomplished this by adding an extra sheet of ¾ plywood under the Marlite and put an extra leg and screw jack every 4’ along with the Staging Dimensions understructure and it held up great. I have to say that I did hold my breath when we used the gradall to crane the truck on to the stage!” With the extra care taken to support the truck, there was less than 1 inch of deflection.
The EDM DJ booth was built on a 12’ diameter circle stage deck with a 12’ x 12” circle truss supporting it. Visions built a custom speed rail frame to mount the VisionTec 15mm tiles around the circle. The booth was then rigged to (4) high-speed inverted 1-ton motors giving it the ability to rise up and down.
For Special Effects, the Director wanted to have a big reveal for the large LED Screen on the main stage after the Terry Bradshaw performance. A large red, white and blue kabuki curtain was fabricated and Visions set up an 80’ wide kabuki drop. “We rigged the kabuki on 40 FPM high speed motors so we could quickly reset the kabuki between takes,” said Roberts. “We reset that kabuki and fired it off 20 times to get the shot just perfect.” Visions also provided the cryo jets for the EDM DJ booth along with the confetti and cannons. “We fabricated 200 pounds of silver mylar for the shoot which we thought was a lot,” laughed Roberts, “but not when you are shooting the same sequence for hours. We were sweeping it up and reloading the same confetti back in the cannons. I have to say that is the first time in twenty years that I have done that!”
When planning a project of this size and scale and in the time frame allotted, you need amazing people on the team. Only the best would do for Visions and the job was a success mainly due to of the skill and effort of these people.
Production Manager: Todd Roberts
Lighting Director: Brandon Dunning
Master Electrician: Colin Johnson
CAD Drafting: Nathan Jones
Renderings: Gilbert Baghramian
Electricians: Rick Prather, Rafa Avila, Shaun Grout, Aldo Parenti
Video Technicians: Canin Campbell, Jairo Ortiz, Rudy Carbajal, Braedy Benjamins
Video Programmer (Main Stage): Michael Hosanna
Video Programmers (EDM Stage): Max Chang, Arturo Perez
Staging Supervisors: Daniel Baca, Dave DeClark
Lasers: Greg Kearney
The Boston Globe hails, “Pepsi may have given us the best commercial of the Super Bowl a week before the game.” Popcrush.com calls it “hilarious”. Whether you are a football fan or not, this commercial was bound to entertain you! It’s a project that Roberts and his team will not soon forget. “It was a really exciting 10 days for Visions Lighting from getting the initial call to the completion of the project,” said Roberts. “It was really great to work with the entire film crew and NFL greats. It was great to see what our team can accomplish here at Visions and I am looking forward to the next project.” Asked what he will remember most about the project Roberts replied, “It was pretty funny to see Ditka spoofing Miley Cyrus riding that wrecking ball! It was also really fun to get to blow confetti off in the faces of Matthew Stafford and Michael Other. I feel bad that we had to retake the shot about six times!”
Watch for yourself and enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzKRC8Lz6g8
Equipment Highlights:
Lighting:
(36) Ayrton Magic Panel 602
(70) Elation Platinum Beam 5r
(8) Elation Platinum Beam Extreme
(24) VL3500 Wash
(16) VL3500 Spot
(18) Martin MAC 301
(30) 25 Light Matrix
(40) Chauvet Nexus 4 x 4
(54) Elation Opti Tri Pars
(24) Elation Opti Q A Pars
Video
(328) Vision Tec 6mm Tiles
(240) Vision Tec 15mm Flex Tiles
(4) Image Pro HD
(2) Arkaos Media Master Pro
Effects
(6) Cryo Jets
(30) Kabuki Solenoids
(2) Fog Machines
(4) Continuous Confetti Cannons
(8) Double Shot Confetti Cannons
(4) DF 50 Hazers
Staging
(150) Staging Dimensions Quadripple Decks
(150) Sheets of High Gloss Marlite
(66) Staging Dimensions Wonder Structures
(100) Sheets of ¾ Plywood
(10) Custom 8’ x 4’ Plexi Front Stairs
(10) Custom 8’ x 3’ Plexi Front Stairs
(2) Custom 8’ x 2’ Plexi Front Stairs
Rigging
(35) ½ Ton Motors
(50) 1 Ton Motors
(4) High Speed Motors
(10) ¼ Ton Motors
