New Music Awards

When the giant music publicist NME decided to move their award ceremony to the O2 arena last month, they wanted it to be an event that would herald it as the music award ceremony.

Staged at the Indigo and O2 Arena in London and broadcast on Channel 4 the following night, the event saw the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, Klaxons and Block Party take to the stage to remind the audience of just why they were there.

The Arctic monkeys cleaned up with three awards including Best track, Best Video and Best British band. Other winners included The Killers, Muse and, er, George W Bush for ‘Villain of the Year’. (Unfortunately he was not able to collect his award personally).

Organisers for the event turned to Remedy Productions and veteran LD Vince Foster to make it a show to remember.

And when we say ‘veteran’, we mean it. In the last year Vince has been working on Kyle, George Michael, Peter Gabriel, Duran Duran and Janet Jackson to name but a few.

Speaking to him within the nanoseconds he had free between shows, Vince said of the NME gig.

“We had to design a lighting show that could work for five or six bands - like a festival really - plus for television because the show was being filmed. And all on a tiny lighting budget.”

“I phoned Jessica at Martin and we talked about the new Martin LED panels, so I decided to give them a go. We rigged them 12 units wide and two high.”

“It was a very good system and I was surprised the resolution was so good because they are so lightweight. I think in total the 24 square metre screen came in at 300kg which is a huge departure from the days when a screen that size would weigh tons. The 40 millimetre pitch sounded like a very low resolution, but we were putting faces up on it from live feeds and cameras and it was fine.”

“The units are very easy to rig and the transparency is a great idea so you can put lights behind it – though I didn’t use them like that on this particular occasion. The stage was revolving so while one band played, the stage behind was being set up for the next, so we couldn’t use the transparency feature this time.”

The fact that the screen was being moved throughout the show meant that it needed to be robust. Joe Makeim from XL Video who supplied the units said they were just that.

“Every time the stage revolved the whole screen was hoisted up and down again which was a serious workout. The units were really good though and we had no problems. They were tough but nice and light to rig.”

Jim Parsons who was the Executive Producer from Remedy Productions added:

“Having the Martin screen as a backdrop allowed Vince, Director Dick Carruthers and the band’s LDs to create a variety of looks specific to each band, complementing the music and their other lighting states. Without the flexibility of the screen, the backgrounds for the bands would inevitably have been very similar.”

The show not only looked great on the night but was a colourful affair for those who tuned in the following night to see the broadcast. It looks like the Shockwaves NME Awards are settled at their new location and will run again in 2009. Maybe not such good news to the next President of the US.