LONDON – Lady Gaga is now sharing the limelight with a waxen twins at Madame Tussauds attractions in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Architainment Lighting provided Madame Tussauds' show services manager, Simon Morris, with a new LED fixture, the PL1 from Philips Selecon, in time for the December press launch. Morris's brief was to create a high energy, live music atmosphere that would excite the media without compromising the press photographers' ability to capture clear shots of the Lady Gaga figure – "to emulate a photographic studio shoot," Morris said. "Our biggest challenge was achieving the same color temperature as studio flash lighting, while conveying a theatrical and suitably dramatic style.
"The PL1 certainly delivered on its promise. Its fully tuneable, high output, LED light engine can support color temperatures from 3000K to 5600K, plus full RGB color mixing. We set the fixtures to 5000k. After that, it was simply a case of balancing the levels to achieve the desired effect."
Morris used two PL1s for backlight, which illuminated Lady Gaga's telephone hat while creating a dramatic halo effect during the unveiling. The fixtures also helped give dimension to the wax figure's handmade outfit. Additional PL1s provided side and top light to ensure that the figure was evenly lit from all angles.
Morris said the result pleased the team from Madame Tussauds. "Their comments have been proof positive that we met and exceeded the brief," he said. "We will definitely use the PL1s on all future figure launches. The fact that we can control the fixtures' color temperature and keep it consistent, even when dimmed, is a real advantage."
"This marks the first-ever U.K. sale of the PL1," noted Architainment Lighting's sales director, Paul Rees. "They made perfect sense in this application. Simon chose the PL1s because they offer a fully tunable color LED source with a high level output that can easily cut through the moving light output. What impressed him most about the PL1 is that it can maintain the same color-rendering characteristics, even at low light levels (less than 50 Lux). The added bonus of a variable beam (14º-50º), plus beam-shaping barn doors, meant that Simon could keep the lighting tightly focused, sharp and professional looking."
For more information, please visit www.philips.com.
