HSL continues its relationship with Granada TV Studios in Manchester and lighting designer Tom Kinane with the supply of LED and digital lighting for the latest series of singing games show “Don't Forget The Lyrics” presented by Shane Richie.
The project was managed for HSL by TV specialist Sean McGlone, who comments, “Its great the show has come up to Granada TV for this series, and once again its been a pleasure working with Tom and his team!”
The supply included 56 JTE PixelLine 1044 LED battens and 36 PixelPAR 90s, 44 i-Pix Satellites and Pulsar ChromaStrips, plus Source Four Zooms, PAR 46 4-way and 8-way ACL bars and 4 A&O 3K Spaceflowers used for powerful aerial effects. HSL also supplied a WholeHog III lighting console and a wing being used by digital and moving light programmer, Max Conwell.
The set was designed by Patrick Doherty and based on a giant karaoke machine look, with several distinctive LED elements, including three curved scrolling LED banners made up from Barco MiStrip. There was also a high resolution LED screen centre-stage at the back, with a low res surround, and two large Barco MiPix frames flanking both sides of the set.
The PixelLines were utilised to outline and delineate the outer edges and shape of the set, and the ChromaStrips to line the interior walkways, adding a bit of extra kick. Kinane wanted to include several different LED lightsources to compliment the strong LED set elements.
Most of the LED was driven from a Catalyst digital media server supplied by Ross Williams and programmed/operated by Chris Plant, with all the generics run from Granada's Studio 12 in-house Galaxy lighting desk by Taras Kochan.
The show included a live band to back the contestants as they strove to recall the lyrics from the recesses of their memories for a top prize of £250,000.
The biggest challenge for the lighting and visuals team – with 3 episodes a day in the shooting schedule – was to have enough different song looks programmed, ready and waiting – for when the songs were chosen.
For the 8 songs per show, at least 20 – 30 different options were needed to cover all possibilities – of slow, medium and fast tempos from a myriad of genres – rock, hip hop, ballads, etc. Once the song was declared, they had about 5 seconds to decide which looks and programmes to use!
“It's a good fun show to light,” says Kinane, “And a nice tidy rig. Sean at HSL has looked after us very well and ensured we've had everything we've needed as usual”.
Don't Forget The Lyrics is directed by Stuart MacDonald and produced by John Ireland and Peter Usher for RDF TV, and will be aired on Sky.