Scharff Weisberg Teams With Broadstreet And Michael Stiller To Toast The Diageo Golden Bar Awards

Golden BarScharff Weisberg provided lighting support to Broadstret and Michael Stiller Design for the Fifth Annual Golden Bar Awards hosted by Diageo, the world's leading spirits, wine and beer company. The awards honor US distributors and brokers across Diageo's brands -- which include Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Guinness and Beaulieu Vineyard -- for excellence in the marketplace and the key role they play in their communities.

Broadstreet, a marketing and communications agency developed and designed the event in New York City's landmark Museum of Natural History. "Pulling off the show this year was very challenging," notes Michael Stiller who has partnered with Broadstreet in previous years to provide lighting design for the Golden Bars. "We had one day in the museum's Hall of Ocean Life--the room with the enormous whale--to put together the whole thing. We had to have a simple and elegant set but wanted as much variation in the lighting as possible. For me, this project said 'LED.'"

Scharff Weisberg was selected to furnish an LED heavy rig, including 100 iColor Cove fixtures. "We didn't need so many moving lights; we weren't doing conventional ballyhoos so much as creating a sense of motion and excitement for each award by changing and chasing colors on the set," Stiller noted.

The all-white set, designed by Eddie Knasiak, consisted of two side pieces which incorporated screen surrounds with 6' curved horizon "ground rows," and a center element to back the stage featuring a bas relief theme logo whose shallow sculpted form was only visible in the shadows cast by the lighting. "We lit the set from the side, overhead and from below with the LEDs to create different colored drop shadows as a relief to the white on white logo," Stiller explains. "Treating the screen surrounds and keeping light off the video is always a challenge, and one that usually requires us to use a bunch of conventional fixtures with color changers or moving fixtures with shutters--solutions that were too time consuming or too expensive. So I had the idea to have the scenic shop integrate the iColor units into reverse coves in the surrounds themselves. When the scenic elements were built, the color-changing lighting that framed the video imagery was already there."

Mark Baltazar, CEO of Broadstreet and Creative Director of the project wanted the event to to progress through a series of colors reflecting a set of signature colors in the graphic design for the project. Stiller achieved this by designing each signature color with matching LED light. "In each section we treated the white surfaces in a complementary color. It was all about changing the color of the lighting from section to section," Stiller points out.

Stiller gives kudos to Scharff Weisberg for helping pull off the effect. "They worked very closely with me to get it right the first time," he says. "And Scharff Weisberg was very responsive on site to get us what we needed to make any adjustments we required."

Scharff Weisberg's equipment "is always in good shape," Stiller adds. "We knew we could count on them to do the best they could for what was, in the end, an ambitious show with a tight budget and short timeline."

Broadstreet, www.broadstreet.com, creates exceptional experiences that engage, inspire and influence business and consumer audiences through meetings and events, video, digital and print media and performance improvement.

Michael Stiller Design, www.michaelstiller.com, creates lighting and media-based lighting designs for the theatrical, architectural, television and motion picture communities.

Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications, firms with extensive histories in the presentation and staging markets, recently announced a co-ownership agreement. While continuing to operate independently the two companies work together strategically to provide clients with state-of-the-art audio, video and lighting equipment and services. With a strong presence on both coasts Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications are able to deliver a large array of cost-effective services on a national level. For more information, call 212-582-2345 or visit our website at www.scharffweisberg.com. For more information on Video Applications, visit www.videoapps.com.