2003 PBS Annual Meeting

From June 6-9 public television station PBS held its Annual Meeting at the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort in Miami, Florida. The event is the largest meeting in public broadcasting and an ideal place for production companies to achieve high visibility with the public television community for new television programs.

For the meeting two grand ballrooms at the Fontainebleau were transformed into inviting oases of colored animation by International Entertainment Production and Meeting Presentation Group (IEP MPG), a Baltimore-Washington based staging company that provides video, audio, lighting, and show coordination services for corporate meetings and special events. Lighting designers Jonathan Goldstein and Brett Gross were called on to create unique and captivating lighting for the two rooms.

Ballroom I
In the first ballroom, what Jonathan calls the ‘talking heads’ room, the president of PBS and other dignitaries held speeches and keynote addresses. Here LD/Programmer Brett Gross dressed the room in decorative effects from MAC 2000 Profiles (10) while MAC 600 wash lights (8) were used to uplight a surrounding drape in various shades of color. PBS and Miami city logos were also projected onto surrounding walls.

Ballroom II
The second ballroom, the ‘meal room’, is where the all-important presentations took place. Production companies pitched new shows to PBS in the hope that the network would gain interest and eventually pick up their show. 

Ragdoll Productions, producer of popular children’s show Teletubbies, presented what they hope will be the next big hit with kids. The show, called “Boo Bah”, is as curious to adults as Teletubbies and features 5 characters that live inside the nucleus of a cell, wear fiber optic suits and travel around in the “Boo Ball”. 

Video-like look
Jonathan’s challenge was to produce a video-like look around the Boo Ball, in order to make it look as if it is traveling. Instead of projecting a static image, Jonathan used the animation wheels of 4 MAC 2000 Performance to “bring people into the Boo Ball world.” Using custom star gobos to achieve the effect, he animated each gobo, grouped the gobos together, and then angled each individual shutter to give depth perception to the look. The projection was then synced to an audio track. The result was a star path that looked realistic, as if the Boo Ball itself was moving. Jonathan reports that the client was extremely happy and that attendees were amazed at how video-like the effect was. In order to bring people into the room during the presentations initial phase, Jonathan projected dot break up from 10 MAC 2000 Profile and color wash from 14 MAC 600 wash lights onto 22 foot white silk curtains.

Singer Naomi Judd hosted and performed at the opening night event along with country musician Ralph Stanley. They performed beneath 10 MAC 2000 Performance, 24 MAC 600 Wash, 10 MAC 2000 Profile and 20 MAC 300 Wash. Together with Naomi and Ralph Stanley, singer/actress Julie Andrews was also in attendance as part of a series pitch called “The Appalachians”.