Lights! Camera! Action at DST

zoom

zoom

Yasiry says the $150,000 upgrade is part of DTS’s efforts to keep up-to-date with technology.

Dubai Sound and Television (DST), one of the busiest production houses in Dubai, recently upgraded the lighting equipment in its studio. The US $150,000 project, which was undertaken by Oasis Enterprises, is part of DST’s efforts to ensure that its services are in keeping with industry standard requirements. “We upgrade different areas of our firm every year,” says Anwar Al Yasiry, CEO of DST. “A year ago, we revamped our audio production area and put in the latest ProTools equipment. Now, it was time to upgrade the lighting in our studio.”

DST’s studio is about 110 sq.ms and has a height of about 8ms. Half of the studio is reserved for chromakey shooting while the other half is used for other sets.

Oasis Enterprises supplied the lighting as well as the entire grid for the studio. The lights are a combination of 16 cool lights and 16 1K Fresnel lights from De Sisti. All these lights are, in turn, connected to SmartPack Dimmers from ETC. “Each of these dimmers can take a maximum of 12 lights, so we needed three dimmers,” says Basel Al Aref, manager, Professional Projects Division, Oasis Enterprises. Aref says Oasis specifically chose the ETC Smart pack Dimmers because they are compact and cost-effective. “The control room at DST that is attached to the studio is fairly small so we needed something small to fit into that space. ETC’s SmartPack dimmers are also cost effective,” says Aref.

Likewise, Oasis has used ETC’s SmartFade console because it is compact and can accommodate 48 channels. “This product is small and yet, has a good memory. In a studio like this that has about three sets, it is not practical to making lighting adjustments all the time, especially if you have tight production schedules like DST. Its studio is always busy. So, if you want to move quickly from one set to another, you need to ensure that the lighting conditions for each are preset and put into memory. To make this possible while also taking into consideration the small space in the control room, we needed a solution like the Smart Fade,” explains Aref.

Oasis has also put in place the D-rail system from De Sisti to give DST the flexibility to move their lights. The production and rental firm, however, has opted for 32 manual pantographs. “This is a turnkey project,” explains Aref. “We put in the entire infrastructure for DST from the steel structure in the ceiling and the electric wiring to installing the lighting solutions.”

One of the biggest challenges that most systems integrators in the Middle East face is tight deadlines. “The ideal thing would be to work on a clean site,” says Aref, “but you almost never get that here. This is a fairly busy studio, which meant that replacing the existing equipment had to happen in parallel with other studio activities. When DST approached us, they said they wanted it done as soon as possible. Luckily, we had half the products in stock so we could begin work on site and by the time we completed that, the rest of the shipment arrived,” he adds.

This is not the last of DST’s upgrades. In fact, the company, which has offices in different parts of the world, claims that it revamps different areas of its company annually. “We have been in this business for the last 17 years,” says Yasiry. “Now, we have even expanded into the broadcast business by launching two of our own channels — MiTV and Venus TV – the former is dedicated to ads and the latter to music. We have plans to expand further,” he adds.

Print | Email | Discuss this article |

USER COMMENTS (0 COMMENTS)

POST A COMMENT

CLICK HERE TO POST A COMMENT

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Security Code *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.