In celebration of the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, the home of the U.K. Parliament chose a total of 74 units of Cameo ZENIT W600 LED Wash Lights, supplied by Version 2 Lights.
Palace of Westminster in London was illuminated in the iconic red, white, and blue colors of the Union Jack. The renowned building, where Parliament makes its home, dates back to 1840 with iconic architecture. To illuminate the Gothic-style exterior façade in the national colors, lighting designer David Bishop went with Cameo solutions.
The IP65-rated ZENIT W600 fixtures were placed at the base of the building's façade over a width of more than 820 feet (250 meters) by David Bishop and gaffer Matthew Zelmanowicz, focused to uplight the historic building with a beam angle of 18 degrees. When choosing the colors, the lighting team didn't have to think twice: blue, white and red - alternating across the entire width of Palace of Westminster.
“The Zenit W600 was the obvious choice”, said Bishop. “Its power, reliability and IP rating combine to produce stunning colors on any chosen canvas. In particular, the punch of the white chip in the W600 suited this application as we needed to ensure the naturally warm stone of the Palace translated into pure white to make the traditional red, white, and blue associated with the UK. The color consistency across individual units is great too—even when white was mixed with some blue, each unit in this setting was absolutely identical.”
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Version2 Lights knows its way around royal events. The rental service provider already equipped Queen Elizabeth II's platinum throne jubilee in 2022 with hundreds of Cameo fixtures, including the ZENIT W600, and illuminated both the open-air stage and Buckingham Palace in the background for the famous Party at the Palace.
“The ZENIT W600 boasts an impressive output and has come into its own on some of our larger outside broadcast productions," added Simon Perrot, Version 2 account manager. "We see these fixtures appearing on more and more kit lists from leading television lighting directors, such as David Bishop. The W600 has rapidly become a dependable workhorse fixture for both studio and location work."
