TV show · LA7 · September — December 2012

Cristina Parodi Live.

A desk that had to be noticed before the host. Four meters of biomorphic curve, fifteen hundred LEDs, gloss black like a car body.

Story

Act one

A visual identity
for the new LA7 daytime.

Summer 2012. LA7 — back then the generalist network owned by Telecom Italia Media, soon to pass to Cairo Communication — is betting its autumn season on two major names: Enrico Mentana on the prime-time news and Cristina Parodi on daytime. The show is called Cristina Parodi Live, directed by Fabrizio Deplano, produced by Andrea Coletti, debut set for 10 September 2012.

The network is in transition and looking for a new visual language to set it apart from Rai and Mediaset. For Parodi's daytime studio the choice is an off-canon line: no classic talk-show table, no upholstered "living room", no reassuring scenography. The director asks us for a piece that gets the next day's papers talking — a desk that, even before the host, identifies the show on screen at a glance.

We have ten days for the build. Filming is at the Infront Studios in Milan — at the time the most modern TV facility in northern Italy, chosen for the quality of its LED control room. Time is extremely tight: sculpting the form, precision drilling, LED wiring, polychrome finish and transport. All compressed between 1 and 10 September.

The Cristina Parodi Live desk on air at the Infront Studios in Milan: a sinuous gloss-black form with thousands of purple LEDs lit in concentric bands, HD signal test monitors in the background — The desk on air — gloss black and purple LEDs lit

Panoramic view of the Cristina Parodi Live set at the Infront Studios in Milan: sinuous grey desk with purple LEDs lit at the center of the studio, technicians at work around it, PARODI lettering on the set backdrop — The LA7 studio on installation day

The desk installed at the Infront Studios in Milan during testing: surface still in grey primer, LEDs lit as purple points across the sinuous form, signal test monitors and technicians at work around it — Installation in studio — grey primer, first LED tests

Act two

The biomorphic form
and the LED grid.

The biomorphic form comes from the art director as a reference: no right angles. A line that coils like a wave, stretches to the right, rises and falls, ends in two opposing curved terminals. Four meters long, one meter deep, base rising from the studio floor.

In our workshops in Marino we work on a large block of high-density expanded polystyrene: the section is sculpted by addition and subtraction, first with a hot wire saw, then with a scraper, then with fine sandpaper — the same sequence of gesture we use for the drapery of classical statues, applied to a technological surface. Once the form is ready we layer on reinforcing fibreglass, eight successive strata: the piece has to withstand two hours of live broadcast a day, under hot stage lights, with technicians and camera operators moving around it.

On the outer surface, the perforation grid: roughly fifteen hundred holes, each calibrated one by one to house its own addressable LED. The grid is not a regular square mesh: it follows concentric bands that ripple with the sinuous form, like the growth rings of a trunk seen under a microscope. Each LED is inserted by hand, fixed in place and wired to DMX control boards in the gallery. The base color is chosen by the art director: purple-magenta, which on air becomes the chromatic signature of the show.

The last stage is the gloss black finish: six coats of automotive acrylic paint, polishing, polish. When it leaves the workshop for the first live broadcast on 10 September, the desk reflects the lights like a car body.

The desk being sculpted in our workshops in Marino: white polystyrene form worked by hand, the point-grid perforations already stamped on the surface, Roman statues from another set waiting in the background, a worker shaping the edge of the form — Sculpting in our workshops — 1 September 2012

Detail of the desk seen from above in the workshop: sinuous white form with thousands of point-grid perforations arranged in concentric bands, each hole calibrated to host an addressable LED — The perforation grid — concentric bands

Detail of the desk in studio during LED programming: green and purple light points lit across the grey primer surface, camera operator and technician standing in the background of the Cristina Parodi Live set — LED programming — color tests in studio

Behind the scenes

Three techniques
in ten days.

The challenge was not a single one. It was making three live together, each requiring a different kind of precision, inside the same week on site: organic sculpture, technical perforation, automotive finish.

The biomorphic sculpture

Four meters of curve without a plane of symmetry. Four sculpting techniques applied in sequence: hot wire saw for the large volumes, scraper for the curvatures, fine sandpaper for the transitions, fibreglass layered in eight coats for the load-bearing structure. The same gesture we use for the drapery of the classical statues at Cinecittà, applied to a technological surface.

Precision perforation

Fifteen hundred holes, each one calibrated to receive its own addressable LED. The grid is not a square mesh but follows concentric bands that ripple along the sinuous surface — like the growth rings of a trunk. Each hole is drilled by hand to the right depth, each LED inserted, fixed, wired. Three days of work just for the grid.

The gloss black finish

The piece has to reflect the studio lights like an automotive body. Six coats of acrylic car paint — primer, base, enamel, two coats of clear, finish — each interleaved with paste polishing. The result is a surface that returns the studio colors without distortion, even under the hot light of the stage spots.

4 m of biomorphic curve sculpted by hand

~1,500 addressable LEDs in concentric bands

10 days from the Marino workshop to going on air

Second life

Three months on air,
a technique that stayed.

Cristina Parodi Live leaves the LA7 schedule on 21 December 2012, after just over three months of programming: the daytime ratings never take off, the network shifts its bets. The desk is dismantled and archived. But the method — the biomorphic sculpture with an addressable LED grid in concentric bands — enters our repertoire and comes back in later projects: from the sculpting of the rock walls of GF VIP to certain modular flats at Roma World and Carthageland, the same principle of "organic sculpture + integrated light technology" is the foundation.

Entertainment television has short lives, but the techniques that build it stay. After Parodi Live, every time a TV show asks us for a shape that has to speak before the host, we start from that LED grid sculpted on polystyrene.

Tech sheet

All production data

Type: Scenographic desk for TV show · daytime talk show
Show: Cristina Parodi Live · LA7 · 10 September — 21 December 2012
Host: Cristina Parodi
Director: Fabrizio Deplano
Production: Andrea Coletti (producer) · Carlo Previati (executive) · Telecom Italia Media / LA7
Broadcast venue: Infront Studios · Milan
Piece built: The LED scenographic desk:

Sinuous biomorphic form, over four meters long, one meter deep

Surface perforated as a point grid — about 1,500 addressable LEDs arranged in concentric bands

Automotive-style gloss black finish
Techniques: High-density expanded polystyrene sculpted with hot wire saw, scraper, fine sandpaper · layered reinforcing fibreglass (eight coats) · precision drilling for LED housings · addressable DMX wiring · polychrome finish in six passes: primer + base + enamel + double clear coat + paste polishing
Build timeline: 1 September 2012 — sculpting in our workshops in Marino · 5 September — installation at the Infront Studios in Milan, first LED tests · 10 September — gloss black finish and first live broadcast on air
Our role: Full build of the scenographic desk — from the study of the biomorphic form to sculpting, from precision drilling for the LEDs to wiring, from automotive painting to installation in the studio

Cristina Parodi Live.

Three techniquesin ten days.

The biomorphic sculpture

Precision perforation

The gloss black finish

Three techniques
in ten days.