Lighting

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Having successfully developed the children’s TV character ‘Bob the Builder’ during the last three years, HIT Entertainment recently turned to the Lighting Technology Group to supply and install luminaires and grip equipment for its five Manchester studios.

Andy Dodd, sales manager at LTG, worked closely with Joe Dembinski, one of HOT Animation’s directors, on the project. He commented: "It was great to be involved with someone as famous as Bob the Builder. Lighting plays an enormous role in a project such as this and it’s always a pleasure to be associated with such a successful production."

Joe explained his reason for using ARRI products: "I chose ARRI luminaires because of their reliability and performance. Due to their high efficiency and light weight they have proven to be a good choice when working in miniature when space is at a pre

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April 25 saw Fourth Phase London open its doors for the company’s first product demonstration evening. Over 100 people attended the spring barbeque, hosted to showcase the extensive stock held at the new warehouse in south London.

When guests weren’t tucking into burgers and beer, they enjoyed demonstrations by Fourth Phase staff of moving lights, followspots, control desks, WYSIWYG and CAD, plus PANI large format projectors. Well attended by people from across the lighting industry, from theatre to themed entertainment, as well as event organisers, Alan Thomson, managing director at Fourth Phase, declared the evening a success: "This was an ideal opportunity to show people that we have a vast range of rental equipment and allow them the opportunity to try it out for themselves."

(Ruth Rossington)

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Vari-Lite Inc has entered into an exclusive dealer partnership with Lightpower, one of the most respected distribution companies in Germany, which will allow the company to offer its German customers direct local access to sales, service and support of Vari*Lite sales products.

"The partnership is important to us commercially, technically, and also from an image standpoint," said Lightpower managing director Ralph-Jörg Wezorke. "Vari*Lite products are much more than multi-functional lighting fixtures. There is a special feeling about using Vari-Lite, from the products themselves to the quality service and support the company provides. Because Lightpower is an experienced and well-structured sales company, we can extend that level of service into the markets we serve."

Lightpower will offer customers in Germany an outlet to purchase the full line of Vari*Lite for

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XL Video is supplying chart toppers Muse with video equipment including a Catalyst playback system for the next 17 weeks. This is believed to be the first European tour for Catalyst. Muse’s video system utilises High End Systems’ revolutionary Catalyst image processing system, two Barco G10 ELM projectors and a rear cyc.

Muse’s creative designer Oli Metcalfe was so impressed with the demonstration organised by XL Video’s Des Fallon that he immediately recommended Catalyst to the Band. They then visited High End’s Ealing office, and were blown away with the system’s capabilities. XL’s Mark Hughes is rigging the system, and Metcalf is controlling the Catalyst via DMX from his Wholehog II (with extender wing) console. Metcalf is running a wide assortment of video clips and media via the Catalyst including stunning abstract patterns, water effects,

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Hull company Tega has recently completed the installation of sound and lighting at Hull University Union’s new venue, ‘Asylum’. The union building, dating from the seventies, has never had a proper venue for events, and until recently the refectory area was pressed into service. This was far from ideal as equipment had to be removed after every event, and the ceiling height was less than 10 feet.

The long-awaited new venue has been designed by Big Blue and features a large stage, sprung dancefloor, DJ booth and bar area with permanently installed sound and effects lighting. Tega have worked closely with the University on many events in the past, and, as a result of their good support service, were awarded the sound and lighting contract. The main sound system uses the Union’s eight existing EAW KF650 boxes, which are flown above the stage on custom-designed fram

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Europe's most popular boy band, Westlife, is out on the road again, touring Europe and the UK with a show that leaves the girls speechless and everyone else breathing easy, despite the use of heavy fog. That's because Westlife production manager Steve Levitt and co-lighting designer and lighting director Barry Halpin, have chosen to incorporate a low lying fog effect from Jem's newest heavy fogger, the Glaciator. The two Jem Glaciators used for the Westlife tour were supplied by Bandit Lites.

The elaborate show is set in the round, with a stage set-up that features a pentagon-shaped staircase centered around a mid-riser. The challenge during one song was to have heavy fog cascade down the staircase from the top of the set on all five sides. The solution was to place two Jem Glaciators in the somewhat cramped staging area beneath the set, each Glaciator fitted with a ducting adaptor to

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High End Systems has announced the addition of two key new positions to its executive management team based in Austin, Texas. David Parks joins High End in the role of senior vice-president, product development. With his diverse background in engineering, operations and finance, Parks will focus on maturing the organization's development processes, delivery and design for manufacturing. He will partner closely with Rick Thompson, vice-president of operations, in building cross-functional project management teams.

With Parks in place, HES R&D's vice-president of engineering, Mike Wood, takes on the new role of chief technology officer, focusing on the strategic planning, advanced engineering and selection of all new products and technology platforms. Wood will work closely with High End's Product Development Committee, which drives the direction and product selection of the development

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Winner of the 2001 LDI Award for Product of the Year Scenic Effects, and 2001 Eddy Award Lighting Product of the Year, Rosco’s ImagePro is now being launched across Europe. Already hugely successful in America, the ImagePro offers an easy, inexpensive solution for projecting photographic quality images, from the iris slot of an ETC Source Four, Altman Shakespeare, Strand SL or Selecon Pacific lighting fixture.

Projections have already proven to add individuality and effectiveness to an exhibition stand, theatrical production, conference, product launch or film/television production. Anywhere that a temporary projection may be needed is where the flexibility of ImagePro will be indispensable. The image is created on a plastic iPro slide with full colour high quality images printed on high temperature plastic. Rosco has hundreds of images available for immediate use, catalogued on

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Roy Lamb has been Bryan Adams’ production manager for the past three years, ever since Val Dauksts finally decided to wave the road goodbye.

Lamb, himself a contemporary of Dauksts, is rumoured to stick at the job for the love of rock ‘n’ roll and the huge variety of golf courses this career affords him. Which just leaves Adams himself - why does he keep doing it? "This tour has been running pretty much continuously since ‘98, two weeks on, two weeks off," said LD Mac Mosier. "He just loves touring. He said it to the crowd at the last show - I don’t have an album out, I’m not promoting anything, I just enjoy being here."

Beyond my own personal like for the artists’ song writing and his live performance, this proved heartening news. As with Travis, which I’d seen the week before, I polled the audience; for a middle a

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When the Leader Group, Taiwan’s top media post-production company, completed its five-year planning and construction project to develop a Hollywood-style studio facility, it insisted on state-of-the-art technology to achieve optimum filming quality - including the lighting.

The new Leader Asia Pacific Creativity Center (LAPCC) - now the largest facility in Taiwan - has thus been equipped largely with ARRI lighting. The studio is situated on nine storeys of office block, of which three floors have been removed to allow construction of three large stages - the first phase of a project which will see two further studios constructed over the next few years. Leader placed the ARRI order - worth in the region of £750,000 - through Cheng Seng Trading Co Ltd, ARRI’s Taiwanese distributor. The company was granted a special licence which offered reduced import tariffs for ARRI's ran

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Navigator Systems Ltd have come up with a solution which will ensure that companies who own ‘demo’ stock achieve the best possible return on their investment. Following several months of discussions with sales representatives, Navigator discovered that for some keeping track of the ‘demo’ stock had turned into a logistical nightmare. Items such as mixing desks, projectors, plasma screens and lighting consoles had either been forgotten or simply gone missing.

By adding several new features to its rental management software system RentalDesk, Navigator Systems have now made it possible to search quickly and easily for the ‘First Available Date’ for the ‘demo’ item required. Thus, if a company requests a mixing desk for a five-day period in June, the sales rep can check whether it’s available for that period and if it isn't, give the

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As part of the second phase of key changes in the strategic direction of the iLight group, Peter Brooks, co-founder and managing director of Zero 88 Lighting, is to pursue other consultancy interests and charity work. He will, however, remain as a director and shareholder in the group. "I have very much enjoyed building Zero 88 over the years and seeing it become part of a group with a multi-million pound turnover and over 100 employees," comments Peter. "Undoubtedly, merging the company with iLight Limited made good commercial and strategic sense."

It was just 18 months ago that Peter oversaw the successful merger of Zero 88 and iLight after recognising the synergy between the two companies. From jointly founding Zero 88 in 1972, Brooks initially set up a satellite manufacturing operation in Wales before moving the whole company there in 1992. He has been a pivotal

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Dramatic changes are taking place in the middle of Birmingham. Much of the city centre appears to be under construction, and - as increasingly seems to be the case in such projects - the civic redevelopment has been led by the artistic facilities at its heart: the Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre has recently completed a development project that lasted almost two years.

Following a £24 million National Lottery Award through the Arts Council of England and further support from the European Regional development Fund, Birmingham City Council, donations from businesses and individuals and funds raised through appeal, the project has seen practically every part of the building reworked. The foyers were demolished and re-built providing greatly improved access, including lift and disabled access, together with a restaurant and other catering facilities - all wrapped within a design that feel

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The SIB exhibition has a new home and new look. Lee Baldock reports from Rimini . . .

It was clear this year that Rimini’s SIB exhibition has moved away from its past in more ways than one. Most obviously, it has moved from its usual home - the relatively tatty old Fiera - to the gleaming, air-conditioned, marble-clad new Fiera. But behind the simple fact of location, there seems also to have been an effort to make this a more ‘professional’ exhibition, i.e. to cut out much of the nonsense for which SIB has been known and loved for years.

The ‘old’ SIB epitomised the unique Italian discotheque culture, and the show floor was a vibrant mix of promoters, performers, punters and posers, squeezed alongside the lights, lasers, smoke and sound - all generously applied. The show still retains elements of its past: a separate hall contained a vestige of

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Moving Pictures is a new touring exhibition exploring the experience of going to the cinema and watching television, celebrating both the past and present, as well as looking to the future of digital technology.

The exhibition showcases favourites from the extensive collection of film and television material held by the BFI chosen from thousands of films, programmes and production materials. David Atkinson Lighting Design was contacted by Land Design Studio to come up with a cost effective, flexible and dynamic lighting design to cope with the scope and scale of the exhibits, as well as the touring schedule. Land devised a bespoke modular steel system, with the resulting architectural solution having something of a warehouse feel.

As the designers wanted to use colour to define areas within the exhibition, Atkinson chose to use a large quantity of Encapsulite fluorescent fittings,

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Six months on, and it’s the smell that still gets you. It’s worse at night: even if you had somehow not known what had happened at the place now called Ground Zero, you’d know it was something tragic.

It’s a tourist attraction now; they queue for hours to walk up the viewing platform, buy pictures of the burning buildings from street vendors. They look up into the clear blue sky and find the strangest part of the whole experience - that there is now nothing to look at. The long, dreadful task of sifting through the remnants of the World Trade Centre is nearing completion.

Fundamentally, they are looking at an empty hole in the ground and empty space in the air. In downtown Manhattan that, in itself, is unusual; to see the damage to the surrounding buildings, some eerily shrouded, silences the observers. The collapse of the Towers has left a void in many peop

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Software provider Stardraw.com has promoted Rob Robinson to the position of marketing director. According to managing director David Snipp, Robinson's appointment was "a natural progression of his duties and reinforces an already strong management team at Stardraw.com.

"Rob has been doing a great job over the last year," continued Snipp, "and it was a logical step to have executive representation of the marketing function at board level. As well as many years experience in this field, Rob also has comprehensive knowledge of the company, our products and the markets in which we operate."

Robinson’s new role will see him involved in new business development. "In addition to building on the established successes of our existing design and documentation products, I'll be growing the new business sectors which arise from our introduction of new internet

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London-based sound, lighting and video installation and consultancy company, Live Business International, has just added a new member to its team and re-united the duo that ran the sound at the Millennium Dome.

Almost a year to the day after completing his contract at Greenwich, Gerry Logue has joined technical director Roland Hemming to become Live Business International’s technical project manager. Hemming comments: "I’ve been trying to get Gerry on board for ages, but distractions such as his consultancy for the Commonwealth Games and work managing a large video conferencing project have prevented us from working together until now. I'm glad he has finally seen the light and come home."

During his 20-year career, Gerry has established himself as one of the best audio-visual project managers in the industry. He coordinated the sound at Madame Tussauds and Rock

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When The Eagles take flight on their North American summer tour starting at the end of May, High End Systems' new x.Spot HO High Output automated luminaires will brighten their concert path.

Nick Sholem returns to take the reins as lighting designer/director on the tour, and although it's been six years since he was with the group on their 'Hell Freezes Over' stint, he was involved with their recent benefit concert in Los Angeles for the Recording Artists Coalition. "The group was delighted with the design I did for the LA fund-raising show in February," says Sholem, "so they approached me about doing the tour. Steve Cohen was going to be busy, so I said yes, provided I could beef it up in a few areas."

To help him in this, Sholem specified 12 x.Spot HO units with a 2:1 lens. "I saw a demo of the x.Spot HO a few months ago and could see how super bright they

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Coe-tech has announced an exclusive UK distribution dealership with leading Czech lighting manufacturer Robe. Robe equipment is already a familiar name to users of TAS, Futurelight, Sagitter and Movietech since the company has been making the moving light units sold under all these brand names for some years.

Coe-tech MD Ian Brown comments: "We were looking for a new, good quality, range of moving lights to add to our portfolio. Robe fits the bill perfectly, and I jumped at the chance of representing them in the UK." He adds that Robe’s technology and engineering qualities are already tried-and-tested, and that Coe-tech is determined to establish the Robe brand at the forefront of moving light technology. The announcement of the Robe deal is the latest in a series of brand restructuring moves undertaken by Coe-tech. "Our philosophy is to increase Coe-tech’s n

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Stardraw.com has announced that its complete range of ‘shrink-wrapped’ products, comprising Stardraw Audio, AV, Lighting 2D and the recently launched Stardraw Radio, is now available in Italian. This brings the number of language versions up to five with English, French, German and Portuguese already available. All language versions can be downloaded from the Starsraw website.

Thanks to the system architecture employed by Stardraw, translation into any language is a relatively simple task as all of the text in the program is held in an external file that can be edited using any word-processing package, even one as simple as Notepad.

(Ruth Rossington)

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ARRI’s new Pocket Par systems are the ultimate small location lighting fixture, allowing the user to simply choose the wattage, reflector system and accessories required, such as the new Pocket Lite and Pocket Lighthouse.

The low-heat 200W and 400W Pocket Par system represent the latest development in ARRI’s line of high-performance daylight lampheads. Both models have been developed for fast and safe set-up and operation, providing the freedom to supply high quality light output where higher wattage lights were previously required. They are ideal for lighting commercials, interviews or feature films - in the studio or on location - or where space is at a premium. Both models offer interchangeable accessories to make the one light source perform in a variety of ways. The 200W Par has a four-lens set and the 400W Par adds a fifth lens for greater control. Both systems utiliz

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Artistic Licence has launched two new DMX512 splitters: DMX-Split RDM and Rack-Split RDM. As the product names suggest, both are designed to support the forthcoming ESTA Remote Device Management protocol. RDM (officially BSR E1.20) is currently in development by the ESTA Technical Standards Program, of which Artistic Licence is an active participant.

RDM will have a major impact on all areas of lighting control. In essence, RDM allows data to flow in both directions on a DMX512 cable. Existing DMX equipment uses the first three pins of the XLR connector to send control data from the console to the moving lights or dimmers. RDM allows data to return (still using the first three pins) from the moving lights and dimmers. There are many benefits, but most significant is that the console can now ask ‘Who's out there?’. The moving lights reply in sequence, telling the console who

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Exhibition creative lighting design specialists Stage Light Design has enjoyed a busy spring. In Las Vegas, Stage Light’s John Rinaldi and Alastair Crooks were both in action, but not at the slot machines. At the enormous broadcast industry technology NAB show, they designed imaginative lighting for Snell & Wilcox (for designers 2LK) and Quantel (for HBM) stands respectively.

Both clients also wanted to use identical stand lighting at IBC in Amsterdam in October, so the logical solution was to create the lighting design, source equipment locally for the US show, and for Stage Light Design to supply the equipment in September.

The Quantel stand features 80 Source Four PARS, four Source Four profiles and four Martin MAC 2000s, controlled with an Avolites Pearl console. The Snell & Wilcox stand lighting utilises nine MAC 2000s, over 100 Par 64s, Par 56s plus an assortment of other

  1. CDA Lighting up the Ellipse
  2. Dove Systems celebrates 20 years
  3. Color Kinetics’ founder makes MIT list
  4. LM Productions launch communications brand O2
  5. Royal Opera House takes stock of more ARRI fresnels
  6. Lighting Technology Group announces link up with Vari-Lite
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