MTV's Emmy Award-winning "Made" series makes teens' dreams come true. For this season's finale, Vibrant Design's lighting designer Christopher Landy helped turn Connecticut's Coventry High School into a hip hop performance space beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
After airing the latest slate of episodes where teens made their dreams come true with dedication, hard work and a little help from MTV, the network traveled to the high school to shoot the season finale, "Made: Head to Head Hip Hop Challenge" which featured a competition among three Coventry students. The teens were paired with professional choreographers and taught to be hip hop dancers. Sean Kingston served as one of the Challenge judges, along with Tina Landon and Fonzworth Bentley, and performed a crowd-pleasing set. Andrienne Bailen served as the host.
By creating innovative lighting positions in the Coventry High School Auditorium and specifying an extensive package of moving and conventional lights, Landy was able to convert the everyday space into a dynamic, exciting MTV showplace. "It's fun to go to a location that's not designed for television and overwhelm them with what it takes to make great TV," he says.
Landy and seven of his crew loaded in the lighting package at the high school the day before the shoot. The array of automated lights included 2 High End DL3's, 15 VARI*LITE VL2500 washes and 18 VL2500 spots plus eight VL3000 washes; 18 Coemar LED PARs; eight Color Kinetics' Colorblast 12s and nine 72-inch Colorblazes.
A complement of 30 Source Four 750W Lekos led the conventional light rig along with 20 each Source Four PARs NSP 750W and MFL 750W; five Ministrips; and a pair of Robert Juliat Topaze followspots.
Control was provided by a grandMA console with a grandMA Lite on hand for backup.
Stephanie Morrissey served as MTV's line producer for the show.
About Vibrant Design
Vibrant Design, LLC is an entertainment design firm providing a full range of set and lighting design services to broadcast and cable TV, live productions, corporate events and theater as well as architecture and interior design. For more information, www.vibrantdesign.tv.