Everyone loves TV. Everyone. Even people who say “I don’t watch a lot of TV” love the TV that they do watch. It’s like ice cream. Remember that old rhyme we did as kids?  “I scream, you scream, we all scream for premium screaming content with analytics that brands can use for a laser-focused ad buy.” Ah, memories.

UVLD was asked to join Valencia Production Partners‘ team as the lighting designer for the Hulu Upfront, our third year on this project. This is an amazing team of production professionals lead by executive producers Jim Piccirillo and Erin Phibbs. This year, we moved to the somewhat-less-than-intmate theatre at Madison Square Garden. Production Glue held it all together both as technical directors and staging supervisors.

The space can be a challenge with its imposing low ceiling and limited fly space. Production Designer Andi Blady and her team at Atomic Design did an amazing job creating a set rich with vertical LED elements and a playing area big enough to fill the space without overpowering the content. Video played on our center projection screen, which gave us a great background to frame executives.

In this new space we had an awesome lobby design as well. UVLD’s Jeff Nellis uplit location photography of star talent while backlighting info graphics. It was a great combination that allowed photography to shine while giving the space real depth and consistent branding.

For the show itself, UVLD’s Gregory Cohen and the unflappable Kevin Lawson took full advantage of an amazing lighting package from Beame. Using vertical pipes as taildowns between LED screens, we were able to fill the space with light without overpowering the space.

Upfronts are a great chance to get together with a team and pull off a relatively short show under a substantial – if predictable – amount of pressure. We were thrilled to be part of  this year’s event and are proud of what collectively we were able to create.