Road Test: Strong Technobeam, page 40 - PLSN.com

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NEWS
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS
American Gladiators
Returns with Bigger Rig
American Gladiators flaunts the power of its bigger lighting rig.
LOS ANGELES — It may be just a TV show,
but American Gladiators returned to NBC in
January with a super-sized gear list, including
close to 200 Vari*Lite VL2500 moving lights and
1,500 LEDs, with lights and video controlled by
a scalable grandMA from MA Lighting.
The show, now hosted by Hulk Hogan
and Laila Ali, originally premiered in 1989.
A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of
the grandMA in North America.
“For the new version of the show the producers
wanted a spectacular, immense arena
feel,” said lighting director William McLachlan.
“Scenically the space is so large, it covers a
huge footprint. So we needed a substantial
rig just to cover the area, let alone create a
signature look.”
“The show is just enormous, it’s really
hard to imagine,” said master programmer
Benny Kirkham. “With about 1,500 LED fixtures,
it’s like a very big rock ’n roll concert.
Look in any corner of the building and you
see 200 to 250 lights.”
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and an applicant can receive benefits to
retake an exam if they do not pass.
Reimbursement is applicable to any
candidate who took the exam after November
1, 2007, and those candidates
McLachlan and lighting designer Oscar
Dominguez wanted to update the look from
the original show. “We use video as a way to
move, breathe color and bring intensity across
rig. We wanted to use the rig to explore and
design the space and treat the light plot like a
canvas. So the grandMA was a natural choice
to turn the changes in the rig into colors on
a canvas and create a really different feel of
movement and color.”
Each competition has its own distinct
lighting requirements, unified by the need
to visually amplify each victory and each
defeat. “Scenically they were all so different,”
McLachlan said. “We really had an opportunity
to carve out a large surrounding look,
animate it and bring it to life.”
With the scope and scale of the LED and
effects lighting, using the grandMA offered
“a huge advantage,” Kirkham said. “A lot of
things I was working with had to have adjustments
on the fly. But the editing capabilities
of the grandMA are quick and foolproof. Its
applications for controlling groups of light
are great, and having remote focus was great
for the lights I was controlling.”
“We rely on the desk’s bitmap feature for the
LED portion of American Gladiators, and we’re
very happy with it,” McLachlan said. The grand-
MA, he added. “is a very viable solution for large
TV shows, and it fills some very specific needs.”
“It doesn’t hem you into one kind of programming,”
Kirkham said. “You can use it for
any type of show, small or large. It’s very scalable
and very flexible.”
Veterans Administration to
Reimburse ETCP Application Fees
who are eligible have one year from that
date to seek a return on their investment
in acquiring their ETCP Certification, according
to ESTA.
Candidates can apply to receive this
benefit if they are eligible for one of the
following: the Montgomery G.I. Bill (also
called the MGIB or Chapter 30), VEAP
(also called Chapter 32), or Dependents
Educational Assistance (also called DEA
or Chapter 35). Veterans generally have
10 years after discharge from active
duty to use the benefits.
Those veterans who have never
applied for VA education benefits will
need to do so. For veterans, they can
find that application, VA Form 22-1990,
at www.gibill.va.gov. Eligible family
members need a different form, VA
Form 22-5490. Forms may be requested
by calling 1-888-GIBILL-1. These forms
may also be completed online and may
be submitted at the same time as the
request for reimbursement.
Interested candidates can contact
Meredith Moseley-Bennett, ETCP Certification
Coordinator, by email at certification@esta.org
or call 212-244-1505
for more information.
The exams are available for computer
based-testing and a candidate can
make arrangements to take the exam
at any of 190 testing centers around
the U.S. and in Canada. For candidate
handbooks, applications and eligibility
requirements visit http://etcp.esta.org.
14
PLSN MARCH 2008