The Brownlow Medal Count is the most prestigious annual award on the Australia sporting calendar. Staged at the Palladium Ballroom in Melbourne's Crown Casino complex, the 2009 Brownlow dinner was attended by over 1000 sporting celebrities and VIPs and broadcast live on Australia's Channel 7 TV.
Clifton Productions supplied a large array of equipment to this year's event including Robe moving lights and Anolis LED fixtures which were used on stage and throughout the venue.
The event's art director was by designer Mal Nichols of Mal Nichols and Associates. The design elements had to be 3 dimensional to allow lighting and texturing to be a back drop to the talent, says Nichols. So the lighting was required to be flexible and allow for subtle changes within the presentation incorporating the background.
In the Atrium of the Crown Casino 10 x Robe REDWash 3●192s, 8 x Robe ColorWash 1200 ATs and 4 x Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs were used to highlight the general area and the guests as they strolled up the red carpet.
Lighting Designer Rob Coia says This year's telecast was a great success for Channel 7 at the end of a huge year in AFL Broadcast. It was the first time that I had used the new Robe REDWash LED fixtures that Clifton Productions now have as part of their inventory. I was very impressed with the performance, I used the REDWashes to dress the walls and columns in the Atrium for the red carpet arrivals, to provide colour and shape for the background surfaces which appeared in most of the camera shots.
He continues saying that they worked "Especially well" in the Atrium, adding that while they usually experienced difficulties getting the dark walls in this area to read on camera, this year it was the "best look so far", replete with rich and bright colours!
Richard Grenfell, who knows the Red Carpet space very well, programmed the lighting and created a great balance between people's faces and the walls. "The REDWashes have an incredible light output, as well as a vast array of colours, from full chroma saturation through to more subtle pastels" says Coia, concluding, "I found it a great tool for the task, particularly when available power is limited.
In the main Palladium room used for the dinner, Robe moving lights were used to create the ambient room looks, and for set and stage dressing. Forty-eight Robe ColorWash 700E ATs, 44 x Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs, 4 x Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs along with another 18 x REDWash 3●192 fixtures in total were utilised.
We are really happy that the REDWashes have been added to our stock and the feedback we are getting from clients is amazing!" comments Clifton's system tech Aaron Humber. It was vital that the Robes provided an even coverage across the large area as there were a plenty of wide camera shots during the broadcast.
The ‘RED' in the REDWash is short for Red Emitted Diodes, a unique LED lighting concept developed by Robe.
The Brownlow lighting was controlled by two grandMA full size consoles, operated by Alex Saad and Andy Edis. A third house grandMA was run by Andrew Killengray, hooked in to the 140 scanners used as table pin spots and all the house 'architectural' LED fixtures.
It was a substantial system that proved to be extremely reliable.
As early as Round 20 in the vote count, Geelong's Gary Ablett Jnr had an unassailable lead and finally won the 2009 Brownlow Medal polling a total of 30 votes.