Good times for Strike

03 November 2010

MTN’s i-Phone launch   Strike Productions are moving full steam ahead, the company having changed ownership almost a year ago with Leah McCrae at the helm and key players in management ensuring one successful event after the next.

Kurt du Preez joined the group three months ago as lighting designer and having a glimpse at the Strike Group on Facebook, the photos are a testimonial to fantastic work achieved.

“Things are cooking at Strike,” commented Kurt. “There have been some fundamental changes, the company has done a lot of soul searching and for me Strike has become like a family, though very professional.”

Three teams run events. When times are tough the office guys (the third team!) do the gigs themselves and there have been various highlights within a short period.

Leopard Creek

Kurt’s first gig for Strike was spending 16 days at Leopard Creek in Malelane on the southern border of the Kruger National Park. “I was sitting in the Kruger Park while the World Cup was happening in Johannesburg,” he recalls. “It was great!” Working with professionals in the industry, high profile guests and a performance by legendary John Foggerty (CCR). “It was a full concert and a full Mac 2000 rig controlled by Gary Sam on a Hog,” says Kurt and laughs, “All the Robe fixtures were being used on events for the world cup soccer.  ”

iPhone4

MTN   MTN’s iPhone4 launch was held on September 22nd  at Gallagher Estate, Hall 3, Midrand. “The event proposal changed numerous times in a short space of time but we had to make it work and within budget,” said Kurt. The event has been described as awesome. MTN’s logos and “yellow” theme was prevalent, with large screens and video projection around a block. “The concept, was a cube of visual effects with a DJ in the centre. “The technical challenge was maintaining the correct projector distance while having all the other technical gear, like sound and lighting, in the way.”   MTN   Lighting included 12 x Robe 700s, 12 x Robe 2 500s and 32 x CitySkapes. “The Cityskapes are fabulous and we fight over whose going to use them,” said Kurt. The light output from these units is phenomenal. An Avolites Tiger Touch was used for control while the PowerCube reduced cabling and made the set up easy and compact.”     Discovery Annual Awards   Discovery Awards   The Awards were held at Theatre on The Track, Midrand. Kurt once again used 12 x Robe 700s, 4 x Studio Colors, LED parcans, a Tiger Touch, PowerCube and lots of plasmas.   “The stage was to have two elements, an ‘awards look’ in the morning and a ‘game show look’ in the afternoon,” Kurt describes. “There were 12 drapes hanging off the fly bars to hide the vertical trusses for the afternoon. I used a truss in the theatre stage area as the fly bars only have 200kg loading and it is always better to rig lighting on a truss that can handle more weight. I had  6 Robe 700s on the floor to give me a ‘Weakest Link type look’. I also had LED cans in all the trusses and use LEDS to light the drapes hanging down.”   Discovery Awards  

KTV Young Stars

If anyone flicked channels to see the KTV Power Edition on October 9th, a superb lighting show complimented the KTV Young Stars competition, where Gino Swanepoel (14) was named overall winner. The show was set up at M-Net’s Studio 4. “It was quite tight, but for the size of the function, it looked very professional,” said Kurt. “The client was impressed.”  Load in was at 6am with the show starting at 9am and included 6 x Robe 700s, 4 x Robe 2 500s, 18 x CitySkapes and a TigerTouch.

KTV Young Stars   “There are a number of major launches happening,” said Kurt. “It’s nice to be designing, rendering and being in the planning stages of an event.”

It seems that whether it’s lighting a marquee or creating something big, Strike are bringing passion to the table.“It’s about making the little things count,” ended Kurt.