Projects Department assisting Pinewood TV studio creation

Professional lighting services consultancy Projects Department has designed and installed a new and improved lighting infrastructure that is helping to convert a Pinewood soundstage into a fully functional television studio.

The Projects Department-supplied infrastructure includes the lighting grid, lighting barrels, distributed IgbT silent dimmers, Non-Dim relay packs, a DMX network and electrical distribution system provided by Photon Beard.

Pinewood’s new TV Three measures 16 x 14 metres and will be the most recent addition to its television production studio facilities, which already includes Television One and Television Two. The expansion is designed to address existing and forecast demand for UK television production facilities at Pinewood.

Pinewood director of broadcast Paul Darbyshire comments: “The existing infrastructure of the soundstage we wanted to transform was not strong enough to take the load of the professional lighting grid we needed for television production. Projects Department produced a design that not only enables us to handle the lighting grid but easily reposition its fixtures for any production requirement.”

Projects Department recommended that Pinewood add I-beams running the length of the studio on each side to anchor additional structural elements on each wall. Projects Department was then able to design, size and install a series of six, 14-metre, heavy-duty, studio-spanning trusses that spread the lighting fixture load to the reinforced side elements.

The company also supplied and installed a series of standard 48mm lighting barrels with customised ‘roll over’ brackets to allow full movement of a roller trolley along the full length of each barrel.

TV Three’s electrical distribution system, which feeds half of its socket outlets from a UPS source and all others from standard mains power, was also designed by Projects Department.  Because of ancillary space limitations, conventional dimmers could not be used so Projects Department supplied Photon Beard’s IgbT distributed dimmers, which can be safely installed directly into a lighting grid without fear of the electrical or audible noise. The package also includes Photon Beards DMX Non-Dim Control pack, which is part of the company’s ‘silent’ dimmer range, a new generation of dimmer that eliminates the heavy, noisy chokes of conventional triac dimmers.

Projects Department also recommended Photon Beard’s DMX-controlled Non-Dim Relay Pack, which enables individual sockets to be controlled from a lighting desk and not only be reduced to their minimum output, but be completely powered down. The Non-Dim package designed specifically for Pinewood’s TV Three is now available as a standard Photon Beard product.

The final part of the design process was to supply and install a highly flexible DMX network that would easily handle four universes of DMX and cater for a multitude of individual DMX controlled devices. XTBA rig-mounted smart splitters were used to provide an opto-isolated DMX supply from each DMX universe which can then be further distributed via additional splitters, thereby ensuring that DMX is available at every point required.