- NEW YORK, NY--Lighting designer Christopher Landy of Brooklyn-based Vibrant Design LLC was called on to cook up a fresh new look for the new season of Food Network’s popular series “Ultimate Recipe Showdown”.
- Hosted by Guy Fieri, “Ultimate Recipe Showdown” premieres Sunday, March 14th at 9pm ET/PT. Each week, four contestants compete to win $25,000 and for the chance to have their recipe be deemed the “ultimate” in the following categories: comfort food, burgers, cakes, hot & spicy, desserts, and hometown favorites.
- “It’s the ‘American Idol’ of home cooking,” says Landy. “It’s a cooking show, it’s a competition show, complete with a running commentary by Guy Fieri. He’s constantly on the move.” This challenge proved especially difficult to Landy, who chose two 1x1 LED LitePanels to light his host. “Basically, where ever Guy went, he was followed by a steadi-cam, 2 Litepanels, a stage manager, floor producers and a lot of utilities. It was like an ameba moving around the studio.”
- This was Landy’s first design collaboration with Food Network and High Noon. “We had a great experience. The producers have such high standards, they work with you, and they give you the time you need to do your job.” Landy explains, “I got positive feedback on a daily basis; people were thrilled with the new lighting and I was inspired to start cooking!”
- Landy’s moving light package consisted of 21 VARI*LITE VL2500 spots and three 2500 washes, 30 Color Kinetics Colorblast 12s,. Among the conventional fixtures were 43 750-watt ETC Source Four lekos, 15 575-watt Source Four lekos, 33 750-watt ETC SPARs, 19 2K Studio and 19 2K Baby fresnels, 36 1K fresnels and a 650-watt fresnels, 16 75-watt Birdies, 20 1K 2 cell cyc lights, and four six-foot circuit mini strips. A grandMA console was on hand for lighting control with a grandMA Lite available for backup.
- “Chris is a very creative guy who came in with a lot of ideas and worked very collaboratively with the director,” notes executive producer Arthur Edwards with High Noon Entertainment. “He took a hybrid approach and by using moving lights and innovative lighting cues found drama in all the places we were looking for it.”
- Vibrant Design supplied labor and additional lighting. Jason Horn served as gaffer and Matthew Piercy was the moving light programmer. Scenery was designed by Jeff Hall Design.
- Scharff Weisberg Lighting supplied the lights.
