Corporate

KOI Judges

The Knight of Illumination Awards USA (KOI-USA) celebrates the achievements of international show lighting and video designers for their work in the United States, and is pleased to announce the judging panel for the Live for Broadcast category.

Panel chair Jeff Ravitz comments, “I’m very lucky to have been able to assemble a stellar panel of judges. I wanted a well-rounded mix of experienced eyes working with me to select this year’s KOI-USA Live for Broadcast Award recipients, and well-rounded they are.”

KOI-USA Full Live for Broadcast panel:

Jeff Ravitz – lighting designer and chair of the judging panel who has turned innumerable live performances into broadcast ready television shows, including for Bruce Springsteen, Lollapalooza festival, and Canadian pop star Justin Bieber.

Amy Tinkham – creative director, producer, and writer, Amy has previously worked as a choreographer for artists including Madonna, Aerosmith, and Earth Wind and Fire, and has directed events including America’s Got Talent Live in Las Vegas.

Dennis Size – lighting designer and Vice President of design team Lighting Design Group, Dennis spent 18 years as senior lighting director for Disney/ABC TV Network, lighting everything from soap operas to variety shows.

Cameron Barnett – director of photography, Cameron has worked as extensively as DOP primarily in large sensor capture in the UK, USA, and Australia on shows like The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Kevin Hart’s What Now stand up special, and was the film consultant on Beyonce’s US tour.

Alana Billingsley – Emmy Award-winning art director with more than ten years’ experience on high profile live television events, Alana has worked on The Grammy Awards, The CMA Awards, The Oscars, and one Democratic National Convention.

Michael Appel – lighting director and programmer whose selected credits include Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Awards, Christmas in Rockefeller Center (NBC) and In Performance at The White House (PBS). Michael has also programmed two tours for Bruce Springsteen, and under his company banner MADesign, worked with Gwen Stefani at The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for NB, Mary Kay Leadership Conference, and the Maserati Levante Trofeo launch.

“I’m very honored to have been invited as chair of the Live for Broadcast judging panel. I take it as a serious responsibility to be part of this highly-respected award process,” says Ravitz.

Cameron Barnett adds, “Lighting and video design allow the audience entry into a world that the designer creates, an illusion that suspends time and space. It’s magic that can only be created when these disciplines are at their best.”

Nominations for the first Knight of Illumination Awards USA are open until July 31 and can be made for all three categories on the Knight of Illumination USA website: www.knightofilluminationawards.com

The panels’ chosen winners will be unveiled at the 2018 ceremony and gala dinner at The Foundry, SLS Hotel, Las Vegas on October 20.

About the Knight of Illumination Awards

Since its inception in 2007, The Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI) has celebrated international lighting and video content design for entertainment. KOI-USA recognises work broadcast or performed in the US across the fields of Concert Touring & Events, Theatre and Live for Broadcast. Judging is carried out by three independent panels of industry experts. The KOI awards were conceived by renowned LD Durham Marenghi, Jennie Marenghi and Italian lighting manufacturer Claypaky who, along with ACT Lighting, are headline sponsor of the KOI-USA Awards. The Awards and ceremony are managed by America’s leading entertainment technology trade show, LDI, in partnership with specialist content creation company The Fifth Estate on behalf of the KOI Committee.

 

 

NewscastStudio Announces Winners in 2017 Set of the Year Contest, Honoring the Best in Scenic Design for Television

The annual awards honor the best design and technology in television with winners from NBC, ESPN, Fox Sports, Netflix and Tencent.

 

LAS VEGAS, April 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ – NewscastStudio, the trade publication for broadcast industry professionals involved in production, design and engineering, has announced the winners of its 2017 Set of the Year competition — an annual contest that showcases the best in broadcast design, technology and lighting from organizations across the globe.

“This year’s awards honor broadcasters from across all formats and styles of presentation, truly capturing the changing world of broadcast,” said Michael P. Hill, publisher and founder of NewscastStudio. “This year’s contest was also updated to reflect the changing state of the industry, with a new category devoted specifically to on-set technology and video walls.”

This year’s Set of the Year awards were judged by a panel of 15 industry veterans with over 200 years of combined experience in broadcast design, production design and the broadcast industry.

Clickspring Design took home the most accolades, with five total honors, including two awards for work completed for Tencent (腾讯体育), a leading technology and internet company based in China.

Other winning broadcasters included ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC News, Cox Media Group, Gray Television and Netflix.

“NBC Nightly News” from Clickspring Design took home the National category honors, with New York’s Spectrum News NY1 from Jack Morton Worldwide awarded the top honor in the Local News category.

Internationally, Suzhou TV’s (苏州电视台) Media Center from Clickspring Design was the judges’ pick, while the design for Fox Sports’ coverage of Super Bowl LI from JHD Group won in the Special Event category.

Tencent’s NBA studio took home the top honors in the Sports category and the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality category, with design from Clickspring Design and graphics by Girraphic Park with graphics technology from Vizrt.

Meanwhile, James Pearse Connelly’s studio for Netflix’s “Bill Nye Saves The World” took top honors in the Entertainment category.

The Set Technology category, a new addition to the awards program this year, included winning work from Devlin Design Group at Cox Media Group’s WJAX in Jacksonville, Florida, where the video wall usage was honored, integrated by Advanced. Clickspring Design’s usage of curved, tracking LED video walls in ESPN’s Studio Z, home of “Outside the Lines” with Bob Ley and “E:60,” also garnered honors, with integration by AV Design Services.

“LED video walls continue to dominate broadcast design — and designers are now faced with the challenge of finding innovative ways to use them,” said Dak Dillon, editor of NewscastStudio.

The Lighting Design category, which focuses purely on the lighting of a broadcast studio, saw two awards for The Lighting Design Group. The winning work includes “Megyn Kelly Today,” an entertainment show airing on NBC, and New York’s SNY, a sports network covering the New York Mets and Jets.

Financial services firm William Blair’s Chicago-based set from Provost Studio won the Webcast category, which honors work designed primarily for usage in online streaming productions.

For the reader’s choice Fan Vote, which garnered nearly 20,000 votes, NewscastStudio.com readers picked FX Design Group’s work for WCTV in Tallahassee, Florida, a Gray Television station.

The complete list of winners, including the judges’ picks for honorable mentions, is available online at https://nca.st/soty2017. The winners were announced at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Media Contact

Jason Marks
Email: jason.marks@relaypr.com
Phone: (415) 915-8855

Additional Resources

Full Winners List
https://nca.st/soty2017

Contest Details and Background
https://www.newscaststudio.com/set-of-the-year

Video of AR/VR Category
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olG31zMYbck