Walk through the sculpture and your movement will power a melodic xylophone soundscape and stimulate colour changes in every arch. “If a producer wants a shark tank or a football field, we’re no longer looking at million-dollar sets,” Pipher explains. Sky Castle is an impressive interactive light sculpture featuring a cluster of inflatable arches in a colourful symphony. The technology has opened up many more options for those aiming to get back to work.
“The tech crew, such as the camera people or control room personnel, are separated by their own entrances and areas, and everyone stays apart and safe.” “All our staff is COVID tested every three or four days depending on what productions we have coming in,” Pipher says. Pipher has installed a MERV 13 HVAC filter in the facility so that while filming is going on inside there’s plenty of safe, clean air for those at work. Other productions Pipher has helped put together during this time include the BET Awards, CBS’ “Mission Unstoppable With Miranda Cosgrove” and the CBS special “John Lewis: Celebrating a Hero,” with John Legend and Common performing on a virtual Edmund Pettus Bridge. “We have 12,000 square feet of space, and if you had 12 people in the studio, that’s 1,000 square feet per person, so by default, you could be spread out and safe.” The physical layout of the studio is plenty big enough for social distancing. “I pay anywhere from $30-$50, and we have a location.” Since the majority of locations are available online, posted by artists and camera people around the world, Pipher simply buys the locale the production requires. The virtual locations meant there was no set construction required and no builders needed “because everything is done on a computer by virtual set designers.” Images of students were added to both Chalamet’s speech and Keys’ piano performance of “Underdog.” Their research led them here,” Pipher says.
The organizers “needed to find the safest place in the industry so they could convince stars like Timothée Chalamet and Alicia Keys to come into a location and be filmed. But a call from the producers of “Graduate Together,” the virtual celebration honoring the high school classes of 2020 whose senior year had been locked down due to the health crisis, changed things.