08.08.2016 | Elation EMOTION Digital Lighting for Season Finale of CBS’s “Survivor”.

Lighting designer Victor Fable has been incorporating digital lighting and graphics effects from Elation Professional’s EMOTION™ digital light on television shows lately and recently turned to the new generation luminaire for the 2016 season finale of the popular competitive reality television series “Survivor.”

The season finale of “Survivor: Kaôh Rōng,” the 32nd season of the Emmy award-winning show, aired live on May 17th from CBS Radford Studios in Los Angeles. Fable, who says he has been fortunate to be part of the “Survivor” finales for many seasons, programmed some of the early finale shows before taking over as lighting designer beginning with 18th season. Since then he has designed nine of “Survivors” live season finales.

He explains the reason for turning to the EMOTION digital light moving head for the show. “The set for season 32 had water as a prominent element and in areas where I could not produce natural reflection of water using light, I had to come up with something to mimic the reflections of water in strategic locations of the set. The EMOTION was perfect for doing that. I used them to project water reflections behind the contestants on the set and around our host.”

EMOTION came onto the market last year as a new generation digital light and has reignited excitement for digital lighting with its easier to use design and a price point that allows designers to do more with their budget. It is a plug-and-play DMX moving light just like a traditional moving light yet houses an on-board media server with royalty-free digital art and videos that can easily be manipulated from a DMX lighting console. It has the ability to upload custom content and unlike past digital lighting products, it utilizes only 32 DMX channels (54 in extended mode) so users can easily operate and integrate fixtures with their lighting system.

“The advantage of using EMOTION is flexibility, flexibility, flexibility,” said Fable, who used both custom graphics and stock images on the “Survivor” finale. “Also it’s simple to get up and running. It’s like adding a moving light on visual steroids!”

Long considered the leader of American reality TV, and the first highly rated reality show on broadcast television in the U.S., “Survivor” season 33 (Millennials vs. Gen X) will debut on September 21, 2016.