Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Streaming Home for Christmas in Belgium

24/01/2021

Streaming Home for Christmas in Belgium posted: 24/01/2021

The Belgians definitely didn't let the pandemic dampen enthusiasm for the festive season, and while it was different in every sense with a lockdown in place and none of the usual round of parties and celebratory shows theatrical musical producers Deep Bridge created a special streamed Home Edition' version of their 2020 Christmas Show, with appearances and special Christmas collaborations from a host of celebrities and music stars, all presenting unique festive musical moments.

The event was recorded over three days at Deep Bridge's HQ in Antwerp with lighting designed by David Smeets of event design and production company The Creative Factory, (TCF) based in Meerhout.

David specified Robe moving lights including T1 Profiles, Spiiders, LEDBeam 150s, Tertra2 LED bars and BMFL WashBeams all of which were supplied by rental company L&L Stage Services.

The action-packed artist line up included a star-studded cast of Belgian singing and dancing talent.

The challenges of the project included an incredibly tight turnaround time - just 10 days from when the idea germinated to the stream being recorded across 10 different locations at the Deep Bridge HQ including offices, dressing rooms, corridors, and foyers as well as their dance studio and rehearsal room and outside the building.

That meant that any lighting kit must be portable, versatile, low power and - for the exterior scenes - able to deal with a bit of wind and rain!

David and his team frequently use Robe products in their work which includes theatre, music, and touring shows and in the more recent months since the pandemic, there's been a steady flow of livestream / broadcast recording production work.

Deep Bridge's fabulous 15-piece house band was used for backing all the vocalists. For logistical reasons and for Covid-compliance - which restricted the amount of people allowed in the building and in the filming areas at any one time - these tracks were pre-recorded in the studio, with the singers then going live-to-track playback.

The 24 x T1 Profiles were deployed on the floor of the various spaces or rigged on wheeled stands which could easily be moved around. T1 Profiles were picked for their output and colour mixing they easily and authentically reproduce the vivid colours needed for TV work and are also ideal for front and key lighting due to their excellent range of CT whites, explained David. In addition to many other refined advanced features, they also consume very little power.

The 24 x LEDBeam 150s were perfect for their small size, zoom, colour mixing and ideal to light the smaller spaces like dressing rooms and corridors. They are compact, light and portable enough to be used literally anywhere, enthused David who also ran them as a set of linked up-lighters daisy-chained through one unit's power supply, as well as for back light, camera candy and even wall washers. They are a must-have on a project like this! he stated.

David included 18 of his current favourite Robe products, the Spiider LED wash beam. I use Spiiders on EVERY show I do, he pronounces, reckoning they are the most versatile fixture with their central flower effect, individual LED ring control and excellent zoom which means they can work equally well as a beam or a wash luminaire.

The eight BMFL WashBeams were used for the outside shots, primarily for illuminating the building and gobo projections, while the Tetra2s were utilised on the floor in the walkways and corridors as an effect. It was the second time that David had used these on a show.

All the lighting was run via a grandMA3 console programmed by Stijn Vanholzaets and operated by David assisted by Christophe Hellinckx making up a talented and fast-working FOH lighting team.

Enforcing the social distancing rules and ensuring that the site was fully Covid compliant meant that everyone needed 4 square metres of space around them, something that presented both logistical and psychological conundrums for artists and crew!

For example, to stage a 15-piece band with this in mind ... you need a large space, explained David, and they have to very quickly get comfortable with playing together whilst being much further apart than normal.

All the lighting was operated blind' by observing the action via screens as the control position was in a sectioned off room behind walls and with no direct line-of-sight.

We needed some time to ensure that everything looked just right for the 3-camera shoot, but we also all had to work fast and ensure it was a safe working environment for all. As always with our industry, the technicians, crew, and the artists all learnt and reacted very quickly to make it happen.

The Christmas Show Home Edition was available as a pay-per-view for 2 weeks over the festive period and has proved extremely popular.

David and the TCF team have been lucky enough to have a steady trickle of work for the latter half of this year, mainly streaming and TV shows, but it's enabled them to stay afloat and working at least some of the time, getting other companies and freelance crew involved as much as possible.

Like everyone, David is glad to see the back of 2020 and is looking forward to the industry getting a chance to recover and start re-building as vaccine programmes roll out across Europe and further afield. TCF already have some theatre tours on the calendar for the second half of 2021 and everyone has their fingers crossed that this will go according to plan.
LINK: https://www.live-production.tv/news/shows/streaming-home-christmas-bel...
See more stories from liveproduction

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr Tzvi Gerstl CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/07/2026

Cobalt Digitals blueCORE Wins Futures Best of Show Award...

Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr Tzvi Gerstl as CEO as Company Enter...

Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...

02/07/2026

Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiatives

Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...

02/07/2026

Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Documentary Development

Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...

02/07/2026

Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables

Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026 0 Comments An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...

02/07/2026

Boston Conservatory's Soire Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships

Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...

02/07/2026

How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat

How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might thin...

01/07/2026

Broadcast Management Group Appoints Kathy Samuels as Director of Creative Services

Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has announced the appointment of Kathy Samuels ...

01/07/2026

Shade Launches Custom Objects and Automations

Shade has announced Custom Objects and Automations, a platform expansion releasing June 29, 2026, that adds database and workflow automation capabilities direct...

01/07/2026

FOR-A America Adds Two Regional Sales Leaders

FOR-A America has announced the addition of Jaz Wray and Fernando Cruz to its U.S. sales team. Both report to Ernie Leon, Senior VP and Head of Sales and Strate...

01/07/2026

NBC Sports To Present All 15 MLB Games Nationally on July 4 Weekend Star-Spangled Sunday'

NBC Sports will air all 15 MLB games nationally on Sunday, July 5, across NBC, P...

01/07/2026

Clear-Com Upgrades Wireless Communications for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune

Clear-Com has announced a wireless communications upgrade for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, deploying FreeSpeak II and FreeSpeak Icon systems across both prod...

01/07/2026

England Deploys Sony STATSports Live GPS Tracking at FIFA World Cup 2026

England's performance team will use Sony's STATSports APEX GPS tracking system to monitor player physical data in real time during FIFA World Cup 2026 m...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Appoints Neil Hillier as CEO

Adder Technology has announced the appointment of Neil Hillier as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Hillier succeeds Adrian Dickens, who transiti...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Splits Into Two Companies: Bitcentral and ViewNexa

Bitcentral, Inc. has announced a strategic transaction creating two separate companies. The Production and Playout business will continue as Bitcentral, now own...

01/07/2026

DAZN48 Creator Initiative Draws Global Participation for FIFA World Cup 2026

DAZN has announced results from DAZN48, its creator initiative for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Launched in April 2026, the program received thousands of applicatio...

01/07/2026

IDEA To Induct Daktronics Sarah Rose Into Hall of Fame

Sarah Rose, VP, global services, Daktronics (NASDAQ: DAKT), will be inducted into the Information Display and Entertainment Association (IDEA) Hall of Fame at t...

01/07/2026

Gravity Media Delivers Distribution and Streaming Services for World Economic Forum in Dalian

Gravity Media and the World Economic Forum's production team provided broadc...

01/07/2026

Insight Productions Launches Insight Storm, a 53-Foot Esports Broadcast Truck

Insight Productions has announced the launch of Insight Storm, a 53-foot mobile broadcast unit built for esports production. The truck is built around a Ross Vi...

01/07/2026

ESPN Announces America 250 Content Initiatives Across Platforms

ESPN has announced several content initiatives marking America's 250th anniversary, as part of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Celebrates America pro...

01/07/2026

At Cosm, FIFA World Cup 2026 Is a Coming-of-Age Moment as Shared Reality Becomes Bucket-List Entertainment

Eleven production kits, REMI workflows, and cloud distribution bring 40 World Cu...

01/07/2026

SVG Regional Sports Production Summit Draws Industry Leaders to Denver for Deep Dive on Evolving RSN Landscape

The conference also discussed the opportunities offered an industry that is endu...

01/07/2026

Mountain West Launches MW+ Streaming Platform Powered by Kiswe

The Mountain West Conference has announced the launch of MW , a direct-to-consumer streaming platform powered by Kiswe. The platform will carry live Mountain We...

01/07/2026

Tracktion unleash Waveform 14 DAW

New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...

01/07/2026

The Crow Hill Company release Brackish Pads

Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...

01/07/2026

Sweetwater & Andertons launch Darkglass Anagram Limited Edition Guitar Essentials

Exclusive run of limited-edition modelling pedals Sweetwater and Andertons M...

01/07/2026

Call for NFVF funding applications to attend Film Festivals and Markets taking place from 01 August 2026 - 31 October 2026

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the ca...

01/07/2026

FCC Plans to Auction 160 MHZ of Midband Spectrum

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

CBS Miami Launches Hope 4 Venezuela' Relief Effort

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Riedel, SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive Integration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Gray Media to Buy American Spirit Media's TV Stations

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Cascade PBS Launches App Solution Provider 'Local Public

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camerabag collection for modern hybrid creators

Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camera bag collection for modern h...

01/07/2026

Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition

Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition Brie Clayton July 1, 2026 0 Comments Volunteers use ATEM Mini Pro, Blackmagic Desig...

01/07/2026

Riedel, SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration WithSimplyLive Integration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

PlayBox Technology Publishes State of Broadcast Infrastru...

PlayBox Technology has published State of Broadcast Infrastructure 2026, an in-depth industry research report examining the technologies, operational challenges...

01/07/2026

Jigsaw24 Appoints Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media a...

LONDON, UK, 1 JULY Jigsaw24 has appointed Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media and Entertainment, reinforcing its continued investment in helping broadcaster...

01/07/2026

Content Vault Partner with XMA to Distribute Universal Fi...

Content Vault, the patent-pending secure content distribution platform protecting high-value media from disclosures, theft and unauthorised access, today announ...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Announces Strategic Evolution to Create Two F...

Bitcentral, Inc. a leading provider of enterprise software and digital media solutions for news, sports and entertainment broadcasters, as well as streaming pla...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Names Neil Hillier as CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

IBCAP Opens New Anti-Piracy Lab in Denver

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

FCC Plans to Auction 160 MHZ of Mid-Band Spectrum

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

CBS Miami Launches 'Hope 4 Venezuela' Relief Effort

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Groundbreaking First Nations Screen Business Accelerator launched through national partnership

Groundbreaking First Nations Screen Business Accelerator launched through nation...