Katana takes central stage at Music Quiz TV show

Music Quiz, the music show hosted by Amadeus on RAI 1, has just ended. KATANA, the new DTS dynamic LED bar, was the hero of the broadcast lighting design.
KATANA is changing the big shows and television studios with his innovative ‘blade of light’, an exclusive projection that adds spectacularity and dynamism at every show.

Sandro Carotenuto – DoP of Music Quiz and other Rai successful TV shows, as Made in Sud, describes the lighting project:

“The idea that I developed – keeping the elegant style of Rai 1 prime time shows – was to play a lot with the colors and the aerial effects of the RAPTOR and especially of the KATANA. KATANA has a very bright beam. The projections are very concentrated, as sharp as true ‘blades’, and this allows to create stunning aerial effects, never seen before.

Outside the ‘arena’ created by the set designer Trixie Zitkowsky, we installed 30 KATANAs vertically, creating a whole pixel-mapped array of bars, or using them – during musical jingles – as swinging light ‘blades’. With a minimum of haze you can create moving ‘fans’ that draw sharp colorful projections, cutting the scenic space in two.
KATANAs were also on the main stage ground and on the top, projecting very dynamic intertwined beams, really impressive.

According to the set design – beautifully created by Trixie Zitkowsky as a typical arena with 25 meters’ diameter – it was natural to think in terms of concentric circular trusses, each of increasing diameter (5 to 25 meters), and hung at different heights.
The central circle – smaller and lower, housed the RAPTORs working in opposition to the outer circles (also equipped with RAPTORs) that pointed toward the center of the arena and upwards.
The two intermediate trusses were dedicated to light up the audience with the massive use of NRG 1201 moving heads (about 70 units), that guaranteed a bright and uniform illumination.
Around the led-wall sides, four groups of RAPTORs were aiming on stage.

The whole project was very exciting, for the quest of original solutions, and also for the dynamic and intense work that put a strain on the people who shared with me this adventure: Pasquale Casaburo the electrician’s foreman who oversaw and managed the huge and complex electrical system; Marco Pirone, Luca Alvino and Nicola Arienzo talented console technicians who contributed to obtain a great result with their skills and their desire to experiment.”