LONDON – Summit Steel helped with a red carpet event for The Back-Up Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin. The event took place at the Vue Cinema, Leicester Square, London. Summit was asked by production company Premier PR to "float" a double-sided screen 4 meters in the air outside the cinema on the northeast corner of Leicester Square. This allowed the crowds of fans waiting outside, gathered on both sides of the road, to see celebrities arrive for the screening.
Summit's team starred project manager Jay Call. He has worked on two previous events for Premier PR in Leicester Square, both which involved hanging a single sided LED screen in a similar floating fashion, with no visible lifting frame or support structure.
For those projects, Summit provided an L-shaped ground support with the horizontal at the back at 7 meters high linked with 2 uprights and verticals at the front which were about 1 meter higher than the final trim height of the screen. A T-piece was attached over the tops of the verticals, with hoists run over that and then down to pick up the screen, which was usually achieved using the 2 points coming off the uprights.
The screen was then raised to above 4 meters in height. The crew made use of a 3-foot-by-16-foot Steeldeck unit with 4 meter high legs inserted below as a support structure for the screen. After the screen was lowered into the Steeldeck unit, it was braced back to the trussing, fixed in position, and the lifting frame and T-piece detached – leaving no trace of the rigging.
This time, with the screen being double sided, the operation was more complex.
Call decided to use one of Summit's SmarTmast 3s instead of the usual 30.5 cm truss as the tower – making the width of the mast narrower than the screen. The cross piece of the SmarTmast was extended upwards with the addition of a 52 cm section of truss on top, forming the T-piece, so the screens could be rigged back-to-back on both sides of this, then moved up into position and the Steeldeck positioned below, and so on.
When the screens were secured in position on the SmarTmast, the T-pieces were removed via a cherry picker, the Steeldeck was dressed, and there it was, seeming to hover, weightless in the air.
The two 16-foot-by-9-foot screens were made from Barco OLite modules and were supplied by Creative Technology. Starlight Design did the dressing and finishing.
The build schedule was hectic – the Summit team of three needed to start work at 6 a.m., and the screens had to be in position and ready to go by 1 p.m.
The show started a little after 6:30 p.m., and the crew was able to start the de-rig as soon as the movie was rolling. There was a brief pause in tear-down while the VIPs exited the building after the screening, after which they resumed and were clear by the stipulated time of midnight.
For more information, please visit www.summit-steel.co.uk.
