Color Block 2 Leaves its Mark on the 2009 Juno Awards

Lighting Designer Alex Nadon used 40 Chroma-Q^® Color Block 2™ LED fixtures to provide scenic effects lighting for the set design of the 2009 Juno Awards. Held at General Motors Place, Vancouver, the annual event is one of Canada’s most prestigious award ceremonies. This year’s show was hosted by comic sensation Russell Peters and attracted over one million TV viewers. Award presentations were interspersed with memorable performances by 11 different artists, including Bryan Adams, Nickelback, Sam Roberts, Simple Plan, Sarah McLachlan, The Stills, Divine Brown, City and Colour, Crystal Shawanda and Great Big Sea.

This year’s set design by Peter Faragher featured a massive multi-tiered stage pushed out into the audience and surrounded either side by ten foot high psychedelic-painted vine leaves. On-stage, the set featured two 70 foot wide video screens suspended across the back wall, a 28 foot high presentation stage video screen and three giant flown cubes that integrated three-dimensional video and an enormous lighting truss within the cubes.

LD Alex Nadon and event lighting equipment supplier, Christie Lites Ltd., considered various compact LED fixtures to uplight the giant vine leaves. Having specified a quantity of Chroma-Q Color Web™ visual effects panels to flank both sides of the stage, they decided to check out the new Color Block 2 fixture from the same LED range. Alex used 40 units to uplight the vine leaves in a range of tints that enhanced their psychedelic-painted colors and gave the impression that the leaves themselves had changed color.

Alex commented about the fixture: “Where do I start? The Color Block 2 is the first LED product that when turned on gives me a pure white without adjustment. As a result, the unit looks as good coming towards the camera as it does going away from it. With most LED products, I worry about seeing the light source because it does not match the color scheme. With the Color Block 2 though, it’s so accurate that I actually want to see it. It flares as good as it lights. From a designer’s perspective I do not have to compensate anymore, as I usually do with other LED fixtures.”

The Color Block 2 fixture’s exceptional 2nd generation feature set redefines LED lighting. Its radically increased color palette enables users to create a much wider range of vibrant bold colors and subtle theatrical hues. Large RGBA LED cells mix beautifully for single color output, resulting in less camera glare. The beam optics have a soft asymmetrical quality carefully crafted to give an immediate perfect color blend for uplighting surfaces, yet retain a soft Fresnel-like edge for direct illumination. In addition, the fixture is bright enough to uplight a 20 foot set and provides a smooth, theatrical grade dimming experience, whilst retaining the instant strobe-like control of intensity normally associated with LED technology.

Alex continued: “The beam shape is predictable. Instead of a splash, it has a defined shape that is far easier to predict when I design, therefore making it easier to match my design with reality. The dimming is far less mechanical than other LED fixtures and it blends nicely with conventionally dimmed fixtures. All the control modes make it usable as a scalpel rather than a hammer. Also, the small size means you can pack them tighter, making them a softer source.”

In addition to the Color Block 2 fixtures, Alex used two 65 square foot long vertical strips of Color Web 250 (10” cell pitch) LED panels to provide low resolution visual effects either side of the stage. Higher resolution Color Web 125 (5” cell pitch) panels were draped over the backstage seating to fill in dark spots behind the presentation stage when viewed cross-shot on camera. Artistic Licence is the designer and manufacturer of Color Web, which is exclusively distributed in North America by A.C. Lighting Inc. and worldwide by A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd.

Alex commented: “I’ve used the Color Web before, so I knew what to expect. It provided a very fast set up and was easy to feed with video from the Vixen media server via Art-Net. It’s always a problem with large TV shows when you end up with emptiness in some shoots. The Color Web is the perfect tool to have in your back pocket to fill those empty shoots, since it can be deployed and programmed very quickly. Its flexibility makes it very easy to marry to other forms. Also, it can be deployed in a non-grid fashion for interesting effects. With the large viewing angle, it makes it very good for multiple angle shoots.”

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