Pyramedia Nears The End Of Live Reality TV Production ’The Prince of Poets’

Production company reveals latest technology used to create show

With less than one week left to go in the live reality TV production, the Prince of Poets, Pyramedia, one of the Middle East’s leading television and film production-houses, is gearing up for an exciting season finale promising to be the most exciting of the three seasons yet.

Nashwa Al Ruwaini, Pyramedia’s CEO quotes, "This has been our biggest challenge yet in our history of television productions, the show has been running for three seasons now so we had to work especially hard to create a format for the show that was similar to previous seasons but which had to include additional surprises and twists to keep our loyal audiences gripped. Our 100 plus crew have been working on this since March this year and we are extremely pleased with the results as we still manage to pack out the 2000 strong theatre each week."

With an audience of over 10 million, Prince of Poets is one of the highest rated shows on Abu Dhabi TV. Filmed live every Thursday night at Al Raha Beach Theatre in Abu Dhabi, the show took months to prepare with stage designers, lighting directors, sound engineers, technical directors as well as the producer and director working non-stop to bring to life a stage that is comfortable for the poets and entertaining for the viewer.

The live reality competition is just one of the many format’s that Pyramedia has created over the years, leading the industry with innovative programming for the Arab world. The Prince of Poets format takes cultural and historical content, classical Arabic Poetry and leads audiences on a journey to watch 35 competitors chosen from thousands of applicants to compete in the 10 week live TV competition battling it out in front of millions of viewers to win 1 Million Dirhams (approximately $274,000).

Pyramedia uses state of the art equipment to produce the live TV show, which also includes a pre-recorded re-cap episode each week. The set for season three of the show, designed by British set designer Christopher George, was modeled upon Al Ain’s recently restored Al Jahili Fort in The United Arab Emirates. The Fort, which underwent an eight-month rehabilitation project, is considered one of the most important historical landmarks in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Pyramedia’s lighting designers bring the set to life with colour, using the GrandMA lighting desk and video servers to control thousands of LED strips, halogen and moving lights erected around the 2000-seat theatre.

The production company uses the latest technology in a show focused on the traditional elements of poetry, using an LED curtain forming a backdrop for the stage with thousands of lights simulating a night sky. Taking centre stage behind the poets is an 8m x 3m LED screen fed by an HD blur with a resolution of 4 megapixels, the highest to be used in the Middle East. The screen serves as the focal point of the stage and features moving graphics to give a brighter, illuminated backdrop for the poets.

The live show is filmed entirely using 13 High Definition (HD) cameras and 2 pencil-cams placed by the director and producer to capture every possible angle of the poets, the celebrity judges and the audience. Using one of the only HD OB Vans in the UAE the show also transmits in HD making the show one of the few in the Middle East to be filmed in HD. Using only the best in sound technology, headband microphones are used for the presenter, poets and judges with a fiber-optic connection to the OB Van and state-of-the-art sound mixers are used including the Soundcraft Mixer.

During every episode of Prince of Poets, the audience vote for their favourite poets in the theatre. Every one of the seats in the main theatre has been installed with a specialized voting keypad and once prompted by the presenter, the audience votes on the quality of the contestants poem. The voting system is attached to a series of nodes connected to a server which then calculates the percentage for each poet using advanced voting system graphics. The voting system graphics is the only one of its kind used in the Arab World.

Pyramedia has been successful in creating a team made up of specialists from all over the world, but most importantly in striving to build its team of experts from the region. Pyramedias crew is made up of in-house and freelance cameramen, lighting specialists, sound technicians scriptwriters, producers and directors from the Middle East and Europe.
 

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