The launch season of new Romanian TV talent show The Ticket premiered in September and is being recorded at Castel Studios just outside Bucharest. It is produced by Imagic and Antena 1 and lit by lighting designer / DoP Dan Andrei and lighting director Marius Matyas, using a large Robe moving light rig, which is owned by the Antena TV Group.
The show highlights the talent of the performers and the quality and professionalism of their stagecraft, which gets rated for creativity, entertainment value and audience engagement, judged by both a panel of celebs and the public, who vote – via an app – on the ticket price they would theoretically pay to see this act live. Each of the 14 rounds finishes with a winner who goes through to the finale in December.
It is a high energy, dynamic environment, explained Marius, who works closely on the show with Dan. The acts can vary greatly from a children’s choir group or a pop band, to a group of popular scientists finding the most efficient way to create a waving toilet roll effect using wind machines, so there is a lot of fun and plenty of craziness!
To light such a show, it is essential to have a good choice of highly flexible light sources on hand, so Dan and Marius were very happy to be working with the Robe products.
On the rig are 24 x Spiider wash beams, 18 x T1 Profiles, 11 x BMFL Blades, 12 x LEDBeam 150s, 22 x LEDWash 600s, 18 x LEDWash 800s, and 48 x Pointes, plus two rows of 16 x MegaPointes at the back … among other fixtures.
A slick spherical stage set has been created by Peter Talea, including stylish bamboo frames and a large, curved LED screen at the back, with the live audience seated in front also in a round configuration, and this provided the starting point for the lighting design. Dan started with the initial creative concept and Marius then fine-tuned this in WYSIWYG. They both developed the look from there and started pre-programming the basic building blocks.
“We work with Robe products a lot as Antena 1 has them in stock,” explained Marius, who is now a freelance lighting designer / director, but had previously worked full-time for the broadcaster for 24 years. In the last two years, Antena 1 has steadily increased its Robe stock, which was delivered by Romanian distributor, Senia Music.
Spiiders, LEDWash 600s and LEDWash 800s were positioned in the overhead rig for general stage washing and applying colour to the set, with Dan commenting that the colour mixing was “excellent,” together with the range of colours.
The BMFL Blades were used for back lighting, punching through in front of the LED screen with additional power and effects when needed, supported by the Pointes rigged on ladders at the back.
The other lights are around a central circular overhead truss, semicircular trusses upstage and two horizontal trusses at the front shaped with mirrored curves following the front and back contours of the stage. Dan describes the style of lighting as “mainly bright, bold, colourful, and a bit quirky,” but the key was being able to switch from that to being dramatic, moody, and theatrical when needed.
The T1 Profiles were used for front and key lighting. “We really appreciate their high CRI, the flat, even beam field, the quality and consistency of the light, and of course all the camera-friendly features,” he noted.
Marius has been working regularly with Robe products for around 4 years. Before Antena 1 bought their own, they would regularly rent them in as needed. While they don’t have any on this show, he lists T2s and FORTES as among his favourite Robe fixtures, in addition to the T1s and BMFL Blades.
“They all look good on camera, and its obvious that Robe has put some thought and innovation into the design and feature set, referencing the environments in which they will be used.”
The weekly episodes of The Ticket are filmed over 3 days and broadcast on the Saturday. The shoot days are long overall, but the amount of real time that Dan and Marius get to decide the lighting treatment for each contestant is only around 20 minutes, so they have to think sharply, decisively and ‘on their feet’. They use the same lighting rig for each episode, but there is some resetting in between.
Chief LX for the series is Alexander Sora (Axl), and the stage manager is Eddie (Edi) Balteanu. The Ticket is being directed by Zoran Caramazan and produced by Imagic and Antena1. Mona Segall is the general producer, Robert Lionte is the executive producer, and so far, the show is enjoying great success.
For more info, you can visit www.robe.cz
