Atomic Lighting of Lititz, Pennsylvania, the exclusive lighting equipment supplier for the second consecutive year to the Latin Grammy Awards, recently provided the show with 50 Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures.
Latin music's most prestigious awards telecast, the 12th Annual Latin Grammy Awards was telecast live on Univision Network on Nov. 10 from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Since its debut on Univision entirely in Spanish in 2005, the show has consistently increased its ratings worldwide; it is also one of Univision's highest rated shows as well as the most watched and highly regarded awards event by Hispanics.
Atomic's vice president of operations Brett Puwalski, who has served as the show's gaffer for the last five years, introduced lighting designer Carlos Colina to the Sharpy at the Premio Juventud awards show on Univision last summer. "He loved the tight beam and how bright it was for its small size," says Puwalski. "Carlos has said he can never have enough of them."
Colina deployed the Sharpys on trusses over the stage to create beam looks and also placed the fixtures around the audience to illuminate shots for commercial bumpers.
Sharpy is a 189W moving head with an unprecedented brightness usually achievable only with far greater wattages. Tipping the scales at just 16 kg, Sharpy produces a perfectly parallel, laser-like beam with an incredible output of 5,100 footcandles at 65 feet. Sharpy is also groundbreaking in the purity of its beam, which is sharply defined and free of any halo or discoloration around the edges. It offers an interchangeable color wheel with 14 fixed colors and an interchangeable gobo wheel with 17 fixed gobos, allowing users to change the shape of the beam and create an array of spectacular mid-air effects. Sharpy features new, high-performance electronics and can perform rapid and extensive pan-and-tilt movements.
Puwalski reports that Sharpys are "definitely the hot light to use right now. But people are finding them hard to come by since they're constantly in use." He notes that "Clay Paky pretty much innovated the beam light, and Sharpy is by far superior to similar fixtures on the market. For a fixture that small and lightweight, Sharpy performs like a lamp that's way brighter."
Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky Area Manager for North and Latin America, adds, "We're very pleased with the way our lights have been used for the Latin Grammy Awards. Atomic Lighting has always been a great customer and continues to find innovative applications for our lights."
John Daniels and Darren Langer were the lighting directors for the Latin Grammy Awards; Alex Flores, Dave Hunkins and Mike Smallman the lighting technicians; and Felix Peralta and Kevin Lawson the lighting programmers.
A.C.T Lighting is the North American distributor for Clay Paky.
Headquartered in Seriate (Bergamo), Italy, Clay Paky SPA has a history of designing and manufacturing innovative professional show lighting. The company was founded in 1976 by entrepreneur Pasquale Quadri who anticipated the enormous impact the evolution of technology would have on the show and entertainment worlds.