Let’s Dance with coolux Pandoras Box

One of the main features of Florian Wieder’s set design was a movable palm

Let’s Dance, the German RTL version of the BBC’s hugely successful primetime format Strictly Come Dancing, used three Pandoras Box Server PRO for their state of the art studio production.

The overall studio design for this year’s Let’s Dance season appears purely modern at first sight, but on closer inspection one can see that it retains a sense of the classic ballroom atmosphere, which added extra style to the overall visual impact. Striking the right balance between these two seemingly contradictory directions was achieved through the use of almost 12000 spherical shaped Nova LED lights that bathed the dancefloor in a warm light.

One of the main features of Florian Wieder’s set design was a movable palm tree-like LED construction that acted as an entrance door for the celebrity contestants during the nine live broadcasts.

mo2 design was in charge of lighting design, video operation and media server programming as well as the overall look. During production, their team routinely spent Mondays programming, with rehearsals each Tuesday to be followed by the live show production on Wednesday.

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mo2 design’s technical director Matthias Allhoff was very pleased with the coolux Pandoras Box System’s performance: “The Pandoras Box is simply the most complete Media Server on the market. It is well suited for both simple and complex applications.  When in use, it is powerful and reliable. The grandMA compatibility was very important when working on Let’s Dance in particular, as well as the fast content management, since we were dealing with multiple Gigabytes worth of content for each show. For our operator Thomas Mrozek it was very helpful to have had the warping feature for fitting pictures onto the “palm tree” in addition to the extensive effects, which gave him a greater creative flexibility.”

Sample equipment list:

- 3 coolux Pandoras Box Server PRO
- appx. 12000 NOVA spherical LED lights
- 400 conventional spotlights
- appx. 100 MLS Wash/Spot

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Credits:

Broadcast Network: RTL
Production Company: Granada Produktion für Film und Fernsehen GmbH
Set Design: Florian Wieder (Wieder Design)
Content Design: Falk Rosenthal (Gravity)
Lighting Design: Manfred “Ollie” Olma
Technical director: Matthias Allhoff
Video OP: Thomas Mrozek
Server Farm Operators: Patrick Soffner, Sonja Ahrens
Technical DL: CT