The battle for Sunday night television viewing in Australia is heating up with Channel Seven´s $2 million quiz show Deal or No Deal, challenging ratings leader Channel Nine on its most successful night of the week. Deal or No Deal is a clever, ambitious and expensive attempt to level the score.

Show Technology of Australia delivered Martin Professional’s new MAC 250 Krypton to the studio, one of the first installations of its kind for the new and improved 250W fixture.

Hosted by Andrew O´Keefe, Deal or No Deal offers contestants the chance to win $2 million, the largest cash prize ever offered on Australian television. The new game show is a big, wacky production with hundreds of contestants, huge prizes and an amusing presenter. Fast paced and suspenseful, the show is reeling in viewers.

The concept is straightforward. To win the $2 million, contestants have to survive elimination quizzes through a combination of general knowledge and good fortune. There are also prizes of $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000 up for grabs, with a total prize pool of $4 million on offer every week.

Cooperation
Martin’s Australian distributor Show Technology sent their Professional Products Manager, Andrew Winslade, to Melbourne to discuss show requirements with Lighting Designer David Tidy and Channel 7´s Lighting Supervisor Rob Coia. Then Tim Hall from Resolution X and Andrew Winslade worked out a solution with David Tidy to suit Channel 7´s requirements.

Show Technology dealer Resolution X was contracted to supply the lighting fixtures, control and studio infrastructure. Resolution X and Show Technology worked closely together to ensure the success of the project. From confirmation of the job until final installation was amazingly only five weeks.

In that time Resolution X made and installed a complete new set of data cables, supplied a brand new power and mains distribution and supplied brand new Powerlock cables, as well as new data splitters. Not to mention installing the lighting fixtures and control!

New infrastructure installed
The show is filmed every week at Channel 7´s Melbourne Studios where, until this production, the only moving lights in stock were Goldenscan 3´s. There was no DMX infrastructure in the studio and all of the patch outlets on the fly bars were hard wired to dimmers.

"Obviously that was no good for us," said Tim Hall, managing director of Resolution X. "It meant that a whole new infrastructure had to be installed as well as the moving lights. Every moving light in there now runs back to our own distribution so there is nothing running through the house."

With such a tight time frame Tim admits every component of the job was done only just in time. "Every part of that five week process was done just in time and yet nothing was delayed with everything happening when it should."

MAC 250 Krypton
David and Tim decided that the new Martin Krypton moving head would be an ideal fixture for the show. However the fixture was so new he nearly had to steal them off the production line. Both Show Technology and Martin went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the Kryptons were ready in time.

"It was certainly worth while," said Tim. "They are a great improvement particularly in output - up in the rig they look as bright as a MAC 500. The color change and movement speed is also much better. For a little 250W lamp they are amazing! This is the first time we´ve purchased a Martin fixture and we didn´t hesitate once."

The Kryptons are situated on two truss arches, one around the main entrance doors and one around a video cue ball, and David describes them as ´bright little suckers´. "They´re light, bright, compact and they give you the gobos, colors and beams that you want," said David. "They certainly have a future in television particularly as they are quiet."

The show utilizes a whopping 52 Martin Kryptons, twelve of which are owned by Res X. Added to the Kryptons are 42 Martin MAC 2000 Wash, 40 MAC 600 and 40 Martin MAC 500, sub-hired from Chameleon Touring Systems.

MAC 2000 Wash
The MAC 2000 Wash, especially the fact that they use an HMI lamp, also impressed David. "That means there tends to be none of the color spike problems that some of the other discharge lamps have," he said. "The bulk of them are used for audience wash as well as washing the stage and entrance doors. They do the job well and I´m very happy with them. The MAC 500s provide the gobo break up over the audience. The MAC 600s are arranged in a triangular pod over the 26-contestant area where they wash and change color over particular contestants. All of the Martin gear has been very reliable."

The game show computer is used to trigger a scene of MAC 2000s positioned directly above a contestant, when that contestant presses their buzzer the MAC 2000 changes color to either blue or yellow to match whichever team they are from.

"It´s quite an amazing set up and it has run really smoothly," added Tim. "Everyone is delighted with the outcome and, from our perspective, we´re ecstatic because we´ve been able to install a system that has been inherently reliable. We´ve got Martin fixtures in there that include some of the original MAC 600 fixtures through to the latest Kryptons off the production line and we´ve had remarkably few problems. This is also due to the amount we invested in the infrastructure. The guys from Channel 7 call us if there´s a problem and we´ve had hardly any calls. It´s a great gig and the client is happy - what more can you ask for?"