MIAMI – Production Resource Group (PRG) provided the lighting package and crew for the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show featuring The Who at Sun Life Stadium. Known as one of the most intense 12 minutes in live entertainment – and with no time-outs allowed – it required months of hard work and collaboration. The design team, which included lighting designer Al Gurdon, used The Who's "pre-existing visual vocabulary" as a starting point, Gurdon noted. Gurdon collaborated with Bruce Rodgers, production designer; Lee Lodge, screens/graphics producer; and also with Ricky Kirshner, executive producer, and Hamish Hamilton, director of the NFL Network production.
"I wanted to develop the visual impact of the stage floor itself, and extend that out into the audience in a three-dimensional way," Gurdon said. "I wanted to create a background for camera close-ups and have the audience and the stadium itself be part of the spectacle and the set."
Gurdon's lighting programmer for the event was industry veteran Michael "Oz" Owen. Due to the limited rehearsal time on-site, Gurdon and Owen spent five days at PRG Essential Lighting's pre-visualization studio in London, programming the show.
Owen also worked with Jason Rudolph, video content programmer, to ensure that the lighting and the LEDs in the stage floor were completely synchronized. Owen and Rudolph both used PRG's Virtuoso control consoles. "I always prefer using a Virtuoso," Owen said. "In Miami, I had three; one in the band/stage rehearsal tent, one in the design cabin and one front of house. With PRG, I feel really comfortable because there is always plenty of support."
Rudolph added, "I used the Virtuoso because it made it so easy for Oz and I to sync our cue lists. He could export his cue timings, and I could import them directly into my show and edit them as needed."
PRG also engineered a HTP (Highest Takes Precedence) data merge for the lighting and the video systems. "The merge," explained Rudolph, "was there so that we could control the color blocks either via the media server doing pixel-mapping, or from Oz's Virtuoso console. It gave us more programming options."
In addition to Gurdon and Owen, the lighting team included lighting directors Rich Gorrod, Bob Barnhart and David Grill. Peter Radice provided additional lighting programming. Full Flood Inc. coordinated with PRG on the lighting equipment and crew. The PRG technicians supervised the volunteers who were responsible for setting up the lighting on the field. Several members of the PRG crew have participated in as many as 10 Halftime shows.
Gurdon was very pleased with the results. "We had a very good rig, with no reliability problems at all. You need to know you can rely on things working. PRG was great; I work with them all the time and I find they provide great service and great crews. I always know PRG will deliver; I couldn't ask for more from them."
For more information, please visit www.prg.com .
