Anolis technology for Powerball

11B_Powerball_400_web-300x200PowerBall, the lottery game which is already a hit in the UK, Australia, Greece, US and New Zealand, recently saw its first South African live draw. The show, produced for SABC at the Red Pepper Studios, had lighting designed by MJ Event Gear and innovatively made use of Arclink 3 RGB technology from Anolis, Robe’s sister architectural LED company.

Lighting Designer Francois van der Merwe from MJ Event Gear designed and ran the show. “The whole experience has been great: a great client, a great show and I’ve enjoyed the studio work,” he said. While the Martin and Strand lighting equipment was supplied by Red Pepper, something extra was required. “We were looking for an LED with a punch and an even spread, something with a 170? angle, no double shadows and an even light,” explains Francois. “We couldn’t have used any other product besides the Arclink 3 RGB.”

DWR Distribution’s Duncan Riley gives further insight. “I had a meeting with Cecil Barry from Red Pepper Studios in Linden and Derek Bardenhorst, who showed me Michael Gill’s (from Michael Gill Designs) set design. Cecil had a vision that the whole set should be done to change colour at any given time via a control desk as programmed by the LD.”

Duncan went back to the drawing board and spent almost a day researching, trying to find a LED product. “One call to John Saunders, business development manager for Anolis, and he came up with a solution. The product that would work was the Arclink 3 RGB from Anolis. We did a demo with the product in Cecil’s office and then again later in the studio. It was then that we knew that we had found the right equipment for the project.

The Arclink 3 RGB  is basically 3 x K2 LEDs on a PCB, the size just a bit bigger than an ice-cream stick. The 170? beam spread constitutes to the LEDs not casting shadows or reflections within the light boxes. Adds Duncan,”Cecil had insisted that each LED be individually controlled via its own DMX address. Once the sample was approved by Michael Gill, it was all systems go.”

With only a week to deliver and install, the deadline was met by DWR’s Bruce Riley, Easy Moeketsi and Nick Britz. The two day installation was just in time for Francois from MJ to start his plotting sessions, who had individual control of the 170 LED RGB units thus allowing him to program all the matrix effects he possibly could.

“While most of the spec came from the client and Cecil Barry, we aimed for a nice clean, yet colourful, cut,” says Francois, who also trained the Red Pepper team to run the show.

This was the first time that anything like this had been done in South Africa and Duncan would like to extend a special word of thanks to Cecil Barry and the Red Pepper team, to Michael Gill Designs and of course to Francois van der Merwe would did an outstanding job.