MILAN, ITALY – Among the long-running entertainment programmes that state owned Italian public service broadcaster RAI hosts, "Domenica In" (Sunday In) is by far the oldest: 35 years of non-stop editions since 1976, when the absolute novelty of a six-hour continuous live entertainment show was introduced to Italian television. Clay Paky provided a majority of the lighting effects for the Italian broadcaster. The rig includes about 120 intelligent lights consisting of Alpha Spot HPE 1200s, Alpha Spot HPE 700s, Alpha Spot HPE 300s and CP Color MHs, as well as numerous Clay Paky CP Spots as general accent lighting. All the lighting equipment is supplied by PR Electronics.
The Director of Photography Fausto Carboni told us about the set lighting: "It was designed to adapt to three different programmes: ‘Domenica In', ‘L'Arena' (the arena), which is an integral part of ‘Domenica In' but has different hosts and a different set, and ‘A casa di Paola' (at Paola's house), which instead has nothing to do with the other two, but which is recorded in the same studio (Nomentano 4). This studio sharing between productions has made it necessary to come up with a flexible lighting design, able to combine with the different sets and adapt to all the different shooting angles and director's requirements."
Marco Calzavara's set is a circular wall fitted to a motorized rotating platform without end-stop, which closes partially onto itself during "Domenica In" and "L'Arena" to increase the space available considerably. In this way the whole Nomentano 4 studio can be used for the two Sunday programmes.
"The circular wall consists of hinged aluminium panels with hundreds of steel bells inside. Each bell houses a halogen lamp. Light can therefore shine from the wall or the wall may reflect the illumination from the motorized lights," said Carboni.
