Rotolight for London’s ‘first fully 4K’ studio
Rotolight’s ANOVA LED Floodlight exclusively lights Celebro Studios, claimed to be London’s first fully 4K studio. Sitting in the heart of London just metres away from Oxford Circus Tube, Celebro is a new purpose-built studio offering potential in capture and delivery of 4K media. The 2000 square foot TV and film studio boasts a range of high tech gear, such as robotic 4K TV cameras and fibre optic networking — and is exclusively lit by Rotolight’s ANOV A Bi Colour V2 LED Floodlights. Celebro Studios uses 11 Rotolight ANOVA V2 Bi colour 50º and 110º beam angle units.
Chief executive Wesley Dodd has used his experience to ensure London’s first fully 4K studio lives up to expectation. “The studio is purpose-built for broadcast, digital and web streaming, and represents a significant investment in what we see as the future of TV. A lot of broadcasters, publishers and NGOs are looking to make TV-standard programmes that might not necessarily be broadcast in the traditional way and may instead be streamed over the internet.”
Dodd and his team first came across the Rotolight ANOVAs on the third series of a recent BBC production, when they required a versatile lighting source in the studio. “We purchased the ANOVA Bi Colour units for our BBC project, as we experienced a lot of mixed light and due to the nature of the show we needed equipment that would speed up workflow as we didn’t have a great deal of time to film with a fast turn around between scenes,” said Dodd.
The Bi Colour ANOVA units can be electronically (either locally, wirelessly or through DMX) set to accurately reproduce any colour of white light, from candlelight through to full daylight, in 10 degree Kelvin steps of 3150K – 6300K maintaining perfect colour temperature across the whole dimming range, which makes colour correction a very simple task when matching to ambient light, ideal for the Celebro Studio.
“We chose these lights for portability, versatility, quality and the coolness,” said Alex Kerns, Celebro Studio Manager and head of Finance. “We have a dedicated air con system for the studio. The lights emit no heat; when designing a studio you have to think about the comfort of the users, the crew and the talent. The less you have to fight the heat, the better. They are cheaper to run as well, they are so much more efficient than traditional lighting systems, which keeps the electricity and air con bill down.”
The production gallery is enabled for both HD and 4K mixing and can provide live programming for virtually any output, boasting bi-directional HD link to the BT tower and fibre optic IP networking. Not only is the studio networked but so are the ANOVAs, utilising the built in WiFi Control with the Rotolight Magic Eye iPhone/iPad app.
The ANOVA was recently put through its paces by former BBC Research Engineer and colour science expert Alan Roberts, developer of the Television Lighting Consistency Index (TLCI), fast becoming the industry standard for gauging the quality of broadcast lighting. The ANOVA Bi Colour V2 placed in the top category with a score of 86: according to the TLCI scale a score of 85 or higher as achieved by Rotolight is regarded as ideally suited for professional television/broadcast use with “errors so small that a colourist would not consider correcting them.”