The recent edition of
Polish Idol featured a distinctive filmic styling emanating from the visual
influence of LD Artur Szyman, one of the country’s leading lighting and scenic
designers, who was assisted by 96 x Robe Spikies and 80 x LEDWash 800s among
other lights on his plot.
Artur has been an LD for 17
years and was a renowned film and TV DoP for 10 years before that. He’s known
for taking creative risks and delivering new and invigorating designs, and for
this show – returning to Polish national TV prime time after a 13 year break –
his mission was to ensure that the lighting and scenography worked consistently
from all camera perspectives.
This approach informed
every aspect of the lighting, video and scenic design, bringing a cool
cinematographic ambience to the studio.
A reasonably open brief by
producers Freemantle Poland meant it didn’t have to be an exact replica of
anything that had gone before, and the opportunity to design both set and
lighting brought a slick, streamlined default visual harmony to Studio 1600 of
the Polsat complex in Warsaw.
“It’s a big space, and so I
wanted a multi-layered set but with lots of transparent elements that could be
through-lit. I definitely didn’t want any solid walls,” he explained.
The headroom at 9.5 metres
was relatively low so a spherical and curved layout was adopted to maximise the
space. Artur examined this from all camera angles. He anticipated their moves,
their static positions, their viewing angles and elements like Steadicam paths so that director Konrad Smuga would be able to get all the shots he needed
from every angle.
Eighty-two of the Spikies
were positioned on ladders either side of the oval shaped upstage LED screen,
effectively forming a wall which could be twinkling one minute, full of solid
razor-sharp beams or bursting with flower effects the next. The other 14 were
stationed around the back of the stage.
Artur is a “big fan” of
this product, and having these neat, lightweight little fixtures at his
disposal offered plenty of options for the multiple new songs that had to be
created each week.
He thinks the LED sources
of the Spikies match the LEDWash 800s well and all are uniform for the
cameras. The LEDWashes were dotted around the studio on different roof trusses
and were used for lighting the set and audience, for texturing and illuminating
the main screen surround as well as back-lighting the judges. “They are a great
very solid all-round wash light,” he comments.
The Idol series’ lighting
equipment was supplied by ATM, a leading Polish rental company and the first
one to invest in Robe’s Spikie, which was launched last year.
LEDWashes have been well
established for some time in the Poland market by Robe’s highly active
distributor Prolight, and now all the major rental houses have a stock of
LEDWash 800s, and they are universally popular for TV and stage shows.
Artur started using Robe in
around 2010 / 2011 when the game-changing LEDWash 600 hit the scene and started
getting specified on TV shows. He thinks the quality of the products is
excellent and having Robe on a spec adds value and a level of gravitas to any
production.
He’s always looking for
fixtures which are new and that have unique features and will specify a show
according to what is best for the design rather than always sticking with a
particular manufacturer however, Robe is a brand now featuring regularly in his
work, and he appreciates givens like reliability, robustness, quality
engineering and low noise, etc.
The biggest challenges in
lighting this series of Polish Idol were the intricate layering of lighting and
scenic for the camera, a technique that brought a lot of depth and dynamics to
the end result. With the series being back after a lengthy break, there was
much expectation how the production would look as well as how the contestants
would perform!
Artur worked alongside a
talented FOH team for the Polish Idol project including assistant LD Michal
Wlodkowski; moving light and main console operator Robert Iwanski; white light,
LED tape, moving prop programmer and pyro firer Michal Dobek. He commissioned
Piotr Szablinski to produce bespoke playback video which was stored on a d3
media server operated by Marcin Staszewski.
http://www.robe.cz
Photos : Louise Stickland
