20/08/2024
At Limelite Lighting we’ve had the privilege of lighting some incredible events for live broadcast, and now we can add to our portfolio the Paris Olympics 2024.
Over a five-week period, we were the exclusive studio lighting supplier for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), who own the international rights and distribution of the Games. They required multiple studio space for their live coverage across Eurosports, TNT Sports, Max, CNN and Discovery+.
We delivered a complex lighting, rigging and controls package for WBD’s six studios where they would broadcast live throughout the UK, US, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Poland, France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands. Working in shift patterns our crew in the UK and Paris worked supported 18-hours of records each day.
The venue for the studios was the open roof top of the Hotel Raphaël in central Paris. The logistics of building an intricate lighting rig on a roof top in Paris, posed a significant challenge. Working with White Productions we built the lighting rig upon the streets below, then crane-lifted it seven stories onto the hotel’s rooftop.
Once in situ the Limelite crew rigged the power and remaining lighting equipment according to the creative vision of Lighting Directors, Chris Hollier and Andy Cottey, who worked with Limelite’s Gaffer, Matthew Mountier. The lighting specification included: 140 x Martin Mac XIP, 12 x Cream Vortex, 7 x Aperture LS 1200d, 140 x Showtec Cameleon Spot Q, 80 x Prolights LumiPix 15IP, 60 x Astera 8way AX5 TriplePAR, plus large volumes of set LED.
Kudos to our Network Technician, Joe Peal, who was instrumental in developing a reliable and complex network from Paris to the WBD’s live vision gallery in the UK – a mere 250 miles away!
Despite its challenges, the project was a huge success and the crew behind the scenes deserve a medal for their commitment. Thank you to Limelite’s crew: Gaffer, Matthew Mountier; Paris Operators, Ed Railton and Frankie Francis; Gaffer, Phil Parsons; Sparks, Chris Earle, Alan Read, Rebecca Maskell and Dave Harris; Network, Joe Peal; London Operators, Dan Street, Shaun Burnet, Andrew Law, Louise Lesley, Seb Williams, Drew Bristow and Tom Dyson.
