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BEIJING — With more than 2,300 DMX controlled fixtures and more than 22,000 people taking part in a multimedia gala orchestrated by director Zhang Yimou, the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games set all kinds of records. But a record-setting budget for lighting was not one of them. It was “less than that of the Doha Asian Games,” said LD Sha Xiao Lan.
Sha noted, however, that “many well-known manufacturers and suppliers promised they would do whatever they could to provide whatever we needed.” One of them was Martin, which set its own record for the largest number of automated lights used for a single event, with over 1,100 used, including the company’s MAC 2000 Wash and MAC 2000 Wash XB fixtures.
Along with the budget, a key challenge for Sha was to come up with a lighting design that would please a global audience, and work on HDTV. “Westerners prefer elegant pastel colors. Chinese are fond of strong highly-saturated color,” Sha said. For HDTV, “we needed the lighting fixtures to be highly uniform in color temperature.”
Although Sha didn’t have the authority to make the final decision on which brand would be used, his opinion was a factor, and he considered the Martin MAC 2000 Wash to provide “the most uniform color wash I’ve ever known. We used about 1,200 MAC 2000 Washes in the Opening Ceremony,” he added. “About 90 percent were used to wash the performance area, the ceiling of the stadium and the audience,” he said. “We also used 110 Washes to backlight the audience.”
Nuances of color were important enough to Sha to specify different uses of whites and ambers for the Opening Ceremony’s many scenes.
“If you watched carefully enough you noticed that the white color in the Chinese Landscape Painting scene was different from the white color in the Movable Typography scene. In the Road of Silk scene we used the amber color to simulate the atmosphere of deserts and in the Rites and Music scene we used the royal golden hue to create an atmosphere of the Imperial Palace,” Sha said.
“During the Tai Chi and Zheng He Fleet scene we used highly saturated deep blue,” Sha added. “Without the Martin MAC 2000 Wash, none of the above would have been possible. The wash effect of the MAC 2000 was so perfectly uniform; light from the 1,200 units was just like light from one single unit. And the saturation of the MAC 2000 was fantastic as well. Remember when Lang Lang and the little girl began to play piano together? The colorful light was just like an impressionistic painting.”
Another important consideration, of course, was the visual experience of millions of TV viewers, with estimates ranging between 1 billion and 4 billion worldwide. Australian Paul Collison was in charge of broadcast lighting for the Opening Ceremony. One of his biggest challenges was the scale of the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest.
“The performance area is huge, and when you add the audience in as a background, you have almost a full square kilometer of surface area to light,” Collison noted. “Even though the show, at times, is orientated to one side, the cameras can be pointing in any direction. We are very aware that every area of the stadium is a part of the show.”
Collison also credited the Martin gear for its performance and reliability, in particular, that of the MAC 2000 XBs. “They have been great,” Collison said. “They are bright. Really bright. They sit in perfectly well with the other 900+ standard MAC 2000 Washes. We have used them out wide on the level 3 balcony position to get some extra kick in from the sides when the performances are orientated towards the VIP/on camera side. They also have a slightly longer throw to the center of the field from that position.
“All of the Martin fixtures have performed well under trying conditions,” Collison added. “High humidity and high temperatures are hard on lighting fixtures. Not to mention the huge amount of dust that we encountered through the final stages of the construction of the Bird’s Nest. I’m sure these fixtures have seen more dust over the last four months than most vacuum cleaners see in a lifetime! Despite this the fixtures are still working well. We have a much lower fault rate with the Martin fixtures than any others in the system.
“Personally, this has been an amazing experience,” Collison added. “Even though culturally China is very different from many other countries I have worked in, the level of knowledge and willingness to learn has been quite refreshing. Everyone I have come in contact with on this project has been friendly, caring and above all most professional. I’d come back to China in a heart beat to work on another project…if only for the fantastic food!”
Collison also praised Martin’s support team. “Martin’s commitment and support has been exceptional and certainly helped to make this project run smoothly,” he said, of the crew headed by Martin’s product and application specialist Claus Jensen.
Mark Ravenhill, vice president of television and theatre lighting, and Søren Storm, managing director of Martin Singapore, were also instrumental in securing Martin’s participation in the Olympic Games.
“We are honored to again play an integral role in the staging of the world’s most prestigious sporting event,” said Christian Engsted, Martin Professional CEO. He credited Martin’s “extensive global reach” for enabling the company to meet the quantities of gear needed for the Olympics. “Our support network provides 100 percent on-site backing throughout the course of the event,” Engsted added.
Beyond the Bird’s Nest, 800 Martin fixtures were used for the opening ceremony at the Olympic sailing event site in Qingdao. Martin gear was also used for several on-location TV studios, including NBC’s The Today Show and Mexico-based network Televisa.
Source PLSN September issue.
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headline talent and production services for facilities,
corporations and associations. In addition, Sonder sits on
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