The 25th edition of Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day ‘Funny For Money’ TV broadcast has so far raised a record amount of £75 million-plus for charities in the UK and Africa and was watched by millions of people across the UK.
Brought in by content creators, Framestore Labs, and working in the main studio at London’s BBC Television Centre, QED fielded their range of Christie high-brightness 3-chip DLP projectors, including eight Roadster WU20K-J WUXGA DLP projectors, six Roadster HD20K-J HD projectors and five WU12K-M WUXGA projectors.
QED director Paul Wigfield, says: “From our previous work for BBC there were no doubts about our ability to deliver such a complex technical project, but the big guarantee that we needed to provide the BBC concerned the projector reliability – there was no way in which any of the projectors could be backed up – and so we provided all the reasons why we trusted Christie projectors to deliver.”
TV production designer, Rudi Thackray’s twisting and curved stage set design provided an ultimate projection mapping challenge, and the solution required the projectors to be rigged on individual triangular truss sections. The fourteen Roadster WU20K-J and HD20K-J projectors were flown above the stage and the five Christie WU12K-M projectors were mounted underneath the stage, with everything blended to form the continuous canvas for lighting and graphics.
Using a combination of 0.67:1 and short throw HD zoom lenses, the WU20K-Js and HD20K-Js were flown over the stage at a variety of unusual angles, with the WU12K-Ms positioned under the stage, firing upwards and through it in order to hit the underside of the bridge. The WU12K-Ms were selected for their compact size, high brightness and incredibly quiet operation. “Being situated in such close proximity to the presenters’ microphones meant that near silent operation was imperative,” Paul Wigfield observed.
QED’s custom precision rigging design enabled all the projectors to be positioned amongst the huge lighting and sound rig in the roof whilst keeping within the specified trim height. QED’s unique fibre-optic distribution system fed all 19 projectors with individual DVI signals and Ethernet control along with full output preview monitoring on all channels.
