O-Town, one of the music industry's biggest success stories this year, recently filmed one of their live shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City for an upcoming, MTV-produced DVD. The band signed with J records last September as the grand finale to their first season as stars of ABC's 'Making the Band'. The original touring show, which was lit by Ted Downing and programmed by Joe Allegro, used 18 Martin 918s, 28 MAC 500s and 14 MAC 600s, supplied through Premier Global Productions. For the recording of the New York concert, MTV producers Jackie French & Chris Williams brought in John Broderick to flesh out the design for television with gaffer Michael Callahan looking after the additional rig brought in for the filming.

Broderick's main concern was to keep the lighting in check for the seven isolated cameras: "All the cameras were simultaneously recording, to give the director maximum flexibility in the editing room, we had to constantly grab fixtures and perform edits to keep the best possible looks across all seven cameras at the same time," said John after the show.

Programming the additional 22 Vari*Lite VL6Bs and VL5 Arcs, which John specified for the filming, was Patrick Dierson on a grandMA console with another grandMA running as a tracking backup via Ethernet. "The grandMA has great graphics capabilities," said Broderick. "It allows me to have instant access to fixtures, which is invaluable in a show such as this where we were constantly updating and altering looks live. This was my first time using the grandMA console but it certainly won’t be my last. I've been really impressed with what I can achieve," said Broderick.


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