Bakerlite.co.uk
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Bakerlite.co.uk
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Cyprus 2000 Continued Saturday
Another warm sunny day. Starting slightly later than usual, the guys did some useful stuff in Studio1, Chromakey and black cyc lighting. After lunch, we moved into Studio 3. Oh boy, what a disaster area. Saturday is the day that Studio 3 spreads its wings, shoves aside the unlightable drama sets, and gets set for its weekly live light ent. show, all two hours of it. Most of the set which is fabricated out of shiny aluminium discs on an equally shiny aluminium set that lives there from week to week, so it was my intention to observe a watching (and noting) brief on this my first Saturday so that we could ‘Blitz’ the show the following week with ‘improvements’.
Iannos, the young and keen, (but not trained or experienced) production electrician, who looked after all the shows in Studio 3 was rigging and setting the overhead lamps with the help of a-n-other, to a formula that owed more to floodlighting a football pitch than to a lighting plan. It would be easier to say what was right rather than what was wrong.
There were too many soft lights and too much of it, (several were on stands around the mouth of the set), lighting levels were very high (2000+lux) and very uneven. Barn dooring was poor; there was no colour light on audience or musicians. No backlight, no floor light. Need I go on? My heart was back in my proverbial boots. Was a two week course going to be anywhere near enough? The answer was a resounding no, but I decided that there just had to be a noticeable improvement in lighting on some of their shows, and this had to be one of them. Iannos told me that there were never any lighting changes, they were neither asked for nor expected. Bear in mind also that the lighting desk had no view of a monitor or communications to the CCU operators or the director who are all in the OB van outside. The dimmer laws were all set to linear, and it came as no surprise to find out that all lamps were driven fully all the time. Fortunately, that was easily resolved. The brand new ADB dimmers had a multiplicity of dimmer laws that were software controlled. And one law was actually labelled BBC! And, lo, that was the one chosen. As head of lighting in CyBC that week, it was my prerogative. (An engineer spent all of Monday morning re-programming every dimmer in the studio to the ‘BBC’ law.) The cameras were reasonably modern Hyperhad chipped cameras operated on a drive in basis from the O.B. truck, which looked remarkably similar to the unit that I worked with in 1986. Looking around the interior of the van confirmed my fears. It was the same one, and although the 1” VT’s had been upgraded to Beta, much of the rest of the kit had not changed at all. One look at the monitors in vision control made my heart sink into my proverbial boots. How could any sort of picture quality be achieved or maintained with such obsolete kit? CyBC do plan to have permanent galleries installed in the near future, maybe things will be better then. I think that this was the lowest point of my trip when I realised the extent of interwoven problems at CyBC. It was all rather like a ball of knotted string. How and where could I start? I decided that there was little I could do to improve the situation there and then, but resolved to ‘sort’ next weeks show. Ashley Lewis of Martin professional lighting had given me a contact on the island with whom I had spoken regarding moving heads, an area that I knew CyBC were keen to move into. What I wanted to arrange was a demo of suitable (affordable) units such as MAC 500 and 600’s, followed by a trial a week later. Because my contact, Andreas, was extremely busy installing kit in discos across the island, his only time window was that day, so it really looked as though it was going to be a case of cart before horse. The ubiquitous white van arrived (at least Cyprus has a good reason for using white vans) and Andreas and his assistant gave us a demonstration of a mix of MAC 250’s and 300’s on and around the periphery of the set.
I was really unhappy about using them in the show at this stage until I had had a go at sorting the many problems of the fixed rig out, but the majority opinion was to use them on the show that evening. I decided that it was best for me not to interfere too much with the lighting for that evening; I would go and watch the show off air in my hotel. So I did, and it was not good. Nobodies fault, just another knot in the string. Enough to drive a man to drink. So I did. Sunday Was cold and wet! This was my one free day. Typical! I spent with Zacharius, one of my Cypriot friends who ‘got out’ of the CyBC at a similar time to my ‘escape’ from Auntie. His wife and family entertained me royally at his house in the country.
After a long and splendid lunch, I was to come across another BBC Pensioner over wintering in Larnaca harbour in his boat, Eclipse. Some of you will know Geoff Titterton, an ex LD from BBC Wales who is part way through a round the world tour, which he estimates will take ten years. He was, to say the least, a little surprised when I knocked on his hatch and asked if there was any chance of a cup of tea! There was, and we had a good chat together.
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