JOHANNESBURG – Blond Productions are supplying Robe fixtures, other lighting gear, AV and sound for the Big Brother Africa All Stars Series, which is keeping tabs on 14 Big Brother reality show personalities from the first four series of the program. The Big Brother house and studios are at Sasani Studios in Balfour Park. It's the third time that Blond has supplied technical services for the Big Brother shows, produced by Endemol South Africa for DSTV Africa. Peter Rieck designs lighting for the studio that hosts the opening and finale episodes, plus the weekly eviction shows. Dewet Meyer designed the set.
The studio is a small space, narrow and tall, and the lighting needed to be flexible and multifunctional, with every single fixture having to work hard and be dynamic to get the coverage needed. The brief included making the studio into a warm, inviting and "real" environment for the audience and on camera – rather than a clinically and harshly illuminated standard TV studio look.
The 12 Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and 24 Robe Scan 575XTs are positioned on an overhead trussing rig, which fills the ceiling of the studio to provide lighting positions across the whole ceiling to target the stage, walkways and audience.
The ColorSpot 700s are used to light all of the entertainment and performance areas in the studio, with their punchy beams providing perfect camera-candy for wide shots. The Scan 575XTs are primarily used for side and back lighting over the audience.
Twelve ColorSpot 250E ATs are stationed on the floor – along the back of the stage and catwalk – and used for some beamwork and for creating depth and background interest. These effects are particularly pronounced on the jib shots as the camera swoops around the studio from its elevated position.
Blonde's Christiaan Ballot noted that the company has been using Robe products for four years, since they first invested in the brand in 2006 to help light the first series of Big Brother in which they were involved. Their Robes have all been supplied by South African distributor DWR and are in constant use on a variety of shows and events serviced by Blond.
"They are extremely reliable," said Ballot, adding that they have never had any technical problems with any of their Robe units throughout all the three series of Big Brother that they have lit.
He credited the Scan 575XTs for their speed and dynamics, which are well-suited for TV style effects, and he also had good things to say about the gobo selection in these and in the 700s.
For Big Brother All Stars, the design uses gobos to create unusual beam effects rather than for traditional onto-surface projections.
Peter Rieck is controlling all the lighting from a grandMA full size console.
A big change for the studio rig in this series is its energy consciousness – an element that Blond pushed for. LED wash lightsources are used extensively on the rig and for set illumination, and this has reduced the overall power consumption and enabled them to dispense with about 200 PAR cans from the previous series.
Blonde is also supplying its new 12 mm pitch SMD LED screen, which makes a large curved centerpiece to the side of the main stage area. This is used for displaying logos, graphics, VT play ins, a camera feed from the OB van from outside the building, covering external action, and so on, and it also receiving feeds from within the Big Brother House.
All the graphics and pre-recorded VT material for the screen are stored on a new MA Lighting media server, purchased by Blond – also from DWR – for this series.
For more information, please visit www.robe.cz.
