The 9th Annual Channel O Music Video Awards held in November 2012 at the Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown, Soweto, comprised of a Mega Dome structure and an enormous lighting plan.
A professional group of companies and individuals put the event together. Television production company, Don't Look Down Convergence Agency, were responsible for producing the event for DSTV while AV Unlimited supplied the full technical. The dome structure in which the event was held was supplied by IN 2 Structures, part of the Gearhouse Group of Companies. The set designer was Garrith Castelyn from AV Unlimited and Dreamsets were involved in building the stage. For the fifth consecutive year, Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier was the lighting designer.
"It was a big design from a lighting point," explained Joshua Cutts. "The brief was to create a black negative space and to use the lines of the dome to create a rib type feel. Basically we lined the entire structure with LEDs to create a 'skeleton' structure."
Due to the scale of the dome this was not the easiest thing to do. The dome is roughly 35m wide, 80m long with a leg every 6m. "We used 170 x LED fixtures, each was patched as three different fixtures. Just to control the rib side, I had to control 510 fixtures."
From a control point, Cutts used AV Unlimited's grand MA2 light and NPU with the MA on PC Command Wing as back up. Lighting would control this show.
Cutts created a timecode loop. The grandMA pushed 'play' on the video servers, which then sent a time code signal back to the lighting desk and triggered all the cues for that song. "Once I pressed play on the desk I could stand back and watch... it was many nights of programming.
"I drew the whole rig in 3D to help with programming," said Cutts. "Out of the 10 performances, seven were fully automated. I did busk on three songs for fun... I had to have some fun."
From a control point of view the show was seamless. "I had control of the Coolux servers and for the first time I was allowed to see thumbnails of all video clips because of the new MA software release."
The lighting rig was diverse with a variety of manufacturers used for this event.
The stage was trimmed with LED moving lights. High-End Studio Pix and Robins were used to colour the audience. The Robe 700s Colour Beams were used for beamwork in the venue. The faithful Philips Vari-Lites were used for stage wash while the Powerbanks created the rib effect.
"As a LD you often have many discussions and preconceptions of what the show is going to look like" said Cutts. "For once it was perfect and just how I imagined it."
