South Africa chooses its finest artists

Every year thousands of predominantly Afrikaans speaking South Africans embark on a two hour drive from Johannesburg to Sun City’s Superbowl to attend Huisgenoot Skouspel where some of the best Afrikaans artists are heard and the most popular artists of the year are honoured. This year was no different as fans either stayed at Sun City for the weekend, or commuted on the day, to see their favourite performers on one stage during October 2013.

The production strongly embraced a theatrical feel, with carefully selected songs and nostalgic video content stirring emotions. A combination of fixtures were used to create clean looks, as lighting designer Joshua Cutts painted in colour. For lighting control he used 1 x grandMA2 light, 1 x MA onPC command wing, 2 x MA VPU plus (Video Processing Unit) and 1 x MA NPU (Network Processing Unit).

Cutts from Visual Frontier has lit Skouspel for the past seven years: “I used Gearhouse Splitbeam once again to supply the lighting fixtures and the crew. It’s always great working with them because they are helpful and do things properly. I don’t even have to be on site to set up. I give them the plan and only have to arrive to start programming.” The MA NPU was sub-hired from MGG Productions.

To manage the MA network the expertise of Marcel Wijnberger was called in. “This is the one time I completely get to choose my control system,” said Cutts. “That is why I made MA my showcase solution. It’s where I feel the most comfortable. All MA coponents speak the same language and the show runs effortlessly.”

The show used two MA VPU, one main and one back up. Wijnberger elaborates, “I had to use servers with HD SDI input so I could input live camera into the server. This allowed Joshua to put camera images on any of the surfaces.” The surfaces included a large LED screen (Duo LED 18 mm supplied by LEDVision), placed at the centre back of the stage, and two smaller screens on either side near the front of the stage deck. For advertising purposes, screens were hung on either side of the performing area.

“I enjoy working with MA and how the products work in synergy together,” said Wijnberger. “Everything ran smoothly. The content was provided by the client and my work was basically setting up and ensuring it all worked properly.”

Travis Yeatman and Paul Modise were sub-contracted as senior lighting engineers. Philip Kruger from Philip Kruger Consulting was working as spot caller.

Used equipment:

<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>1 x grandMA2 light
<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>1 x MA NPU (Network Processing Unit)
<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>2 x MA VPU plus (Video Processing Unit)
<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>1 x MA onPC command wing