Month: July 2018

How To Creating Effective Lighting For Live Television

Posted on by J3551CA

There are very few elements of live television that have as profound an effect as lighting does.  Get it right, and you are adding a whole new dimension to the action taking place in front of the camera, get it wrong and everything is ruined.

Great lighting enhances the mood, focuses the viewer’s attention, and enables the audience to clearly see what the director wants them to see. It also controls the quality, color temperature, and intensity of the broadcast image, making it one of the most powerful elements of any television broadcast.

To ensure that live television lighting is on point and ready to handle anything that happens on set, the lighting needs to be carefully planned and executed just so.

Here are some of the ways in which a highly skilled Lighting Director and his team ensure that live television lighting really works.

Finding The Right Type Of Lighting

Studio lighting is not actually much brighter than the lamps and pendants you would find in your own home.  It is, however,  light years apart when it comes to quality.  Quartz lamps, Fresnel lenses, and LED lights are the most common types of light found in a studio environment or on an outside broadcast.

Quartz lenses are the most traditional type of lighting used in production work, and while they produce perfect illumination, they can also get very hot and use a lot of electricity.  LED lights, however, are a more recent addition to every Lighting Directors powerful inventory, and work just as well, but without the high temperatures and extreme power usage

The Use Of Spotlights

Fresnel lenses are used to convert a small amount of bright light on to one particular area of the set.  They can be remotely controlled to alter the direction and the intensity of the beam.  Used to focus the attention of the viewer on one area of the picture, spotlights can lead the viewing experience away from other events happening in front of the camera.

Eliminating Shadows

Bright lights create shadows that can completely wipe out areas of the set.  The trick to creating effective lighting is to find a way to reduce these shadows.  Lighting Directors use a technique called “diffusion” to diminish light that may otherwise be too bright and overpowering on the set. Diffusion is created by shading the light with a translucent or opaque fabric, made from heat-resistant material that won’t melt or catch fire due to long exposure and close proximity to powerful studio lighting.

Reflecting The Light

A “scoop” is a tool that is used to reflect the light. Reflected lights create a soft glow that casts its light over a general area.  Often used for background and standard set lights, these concave pieces can also be used with colored lenses and filters to create more subtle and flattering lighting effects.

Measuring The Light

Lighting meters are used to ensure that all of those lights and accessories don’t overwhelm the camera equipment of the action taking place.  Light meters assess the light intensity in one particular area that is on-camera so that the light technicians can make changes were necessary.

When your subject is the focal point of your live broadcast, they need to ensure the foreground lights are brighter than the background lights.  Light metering tells the operators how the lights are affecting the overall appearance on camera.

Controlling The Light

 Using remote DMX consoles, highly skilled lighting technicians can change the mood and look of the action in front of the camera with just the click of a button.  On a film set, the lighting team will usually have a lighting plan to follow, in live TV, however, situations arise that cannot be pre-planned.

Frank Gatto & Associates provide lighting solutions for live television events for some of the biggest names in the industry, including HBO, ABC, ESPN, CBS, NBC, Fox, Showtime, Telemundo, and Univision.

If you would like to find out more about the services we provide, call us today at 561-368-0101.

Frank Gatto & Associates, Inc. are specialists in lighting for television events of all kinds.  If you have an event that needs expert lighting, please call us today to see how we can help.

Phone: 561-368-0101

Email: frank@frankgattolighting.com 

We can be found on Social Media at the following links.

            

The Evolution Of Broadcast Lighting

Posted on by J3551CA

From the earliest days of television, lighting has been used to enhance the way a picture looks on camera.  What started out as a simple transition from stage to studio, has become a multi-million dollar industry that offers a huge range of powerful tools and advances in lighting technology.

As far back as the 1900s at the birth of television, the best source of illumination was considered to be natural sunlight. As technology moved on, studio lighting became a standard fixture in studios the world over.  Large lighting rigs that involved lots of heavy fixtures, plenty of power to illuminate them all and a heap of air conditioning to keep them cool, became an intrinsic part of studio filming.

In recent years, however, the lighting industry has found ways to produce lighting tools that illuminate entire studios and sets perfectly, but in a far more efficient and cost-effective way.

From Traditional Tungsten to LED – An Innovation In Studio Lighting

Traditionally studios were lit using tungsten lighting instruments.  These heat inducing, power guzzling lights were famously hot and difficult to work with. They were also potentially hazardous in the wrong hands or in cramped environments.

Tungsten lights were also renowned for producing off-white lighting meaning that color correction was often necessary after filming.

Innovations in studio lighting meant that more efficient light sources such as LED lighting became more readily available, leading to a new generation of lighting tools for both indoor and outdoor usage.

Another major advancement in studio lighting was the ability to operate lights remotely.  DMX control panels offer technicians complete control over every element of set lighting without them having to interfere with the action in front of the camera.

While the original LED lighting was not infallible,  advancements have been made since their introduction into. These days lighting crews have access to some of the most advanced and efficient lighting tools ever seen.

These include:

Punch Lights

Punch lights are one of the most powerful, daylight- balanced LED white light solutions available on the market today. These high-intensity luminaire lights flood an area with light whose color temperature is approximately that of daylight, making them perfect for studio filming.

Space Lights

Space Lights are usually used in concert with multiple other space lights to provide an ambient, soft lighting source from above.   They help to create a base daylight ambiance or an overall soft base exposure.

Fresnel Lights

 These are very common in studio environments and use a special type of lens that is divided into concentric circles, resulting in a much thinner lens than a conventional lens of the same power that evens out the light.  Lighting technicians can then easy vary from floor to spot by changing the distance between the lamp/reflector unit and the lens.

Practical Lights

 A practical light is considered any light source that will appear in the scene such as a table lamp, a car headlight or even just a handheld flashlight. Existing bulbs can be swapped out for those of a different wattage or color temperature depending on the needed effect and desired contrast ratios required within the scene.

Fluorescent Lights

Fluorescent lighting is much more efficient than incandescent light and is capable of generating up to 100 lumens per watt, similar to the output of HMI. Fluorescent film lighting is most often used in fixtures containing banks of tubes, that are either tungsten or daylight balanced to produce a soft, even light that can be used in close proximity to the subject.

Frank Gatto & Associates – The Lighting Experts

Whatever your event or production, the team at Frank Gatto are all about harnessing innovations in lighting technology to ensure that we continue to offer the finest lighting direction in the business.

Call us today at (561) 368-0101 to find out more.

Frank Gatto & Associates, Inc. are specialists in lighting for television events of all kinds.  If you have an event that needs expert lighting, please call us today to see how we can help.

Phone: 561-368-0101

Email: frank@frankgattolighting.com 

We can be found on Social Media at the following links.

            

Why Hire A Lighting Director?

Posted on by J3551CA

If you’re planning on producing great looking live events for television broadcast, ensuring the lighting is just right is vital if you want your work to look and feel professional.

When it comes to lighting, as much time should be spent on planning the lighting as is spent on other areas of the production. With plenty of experience behind them and an intimate knowledge of every aspect of studio and event illumination, a professional Lighting Director will quickly become one of the most important people on your set.

What is the difference between a lighting technician and a lighting director?

Lighting technicians are also called ‘sparks’ and are responsible for setting up and operating equipment under the supervision of a Lighting Director.  Whilst they are very skilled in their own right, lighting techs are generally responsible for rigging up lighting equipment, carrying out lighting tests, positioning lights during shoots, and managing the inventory of bulbs and filters. It is the Lighting Director that makes the big creative decisions about how best to light the set, and they are hired to call upon all of their expert technical knowledge and creative flair. It is also the job of the Lighting Director to create detailed lighting plans that the “sparks” will follow when setting up.

How Does The Lighting Director Create A Lighting Plan?

To create an effective lighting plan, the Lighting Director will need to liaise with various other professionals involved in the production.  To get a good understanding of the design and feel of each piece, the Lighting Director will need to spend time with both the Director and the Designer of the production.

It’s not just how the lighting should look that is important, it is also knowing exactly when it should change in line with the action on stage or in front of the camera.  A Lighting Director will, therefore, need to get to know the script and storyline in order to compile a cue list to ensure that lighting effects are changed at the right time.

With all this information behind them, the Lighting Director can create a comprehensive plan that sets out exactly which kind of lighting should be used and when.

What Type Of Lighting Should Be Used On Set?

Again, this is where a Lighting Director comes into their own.  Anyone can add stage lighting and hope for the best, but an experienced Lighting Director will be able to choose lighting that not only looks amazing on camera but is also safe for the conditions on set.  Knowing exactly where lighting rigs should be positioned is also a skill that comes with plenty of experience. From lanterns to LED lights and everything in between, an experienced Lighting Director will know which lights work best for every scene.

Lighting Directors Are Artists In Their Own Rights

More and more successful producers understand the importance of hiring an experienced Lighting Director for their productions and events.  With a plethora of skills needed to create great lighting, including technical knowledge, an understanding of stagecraft and the ability to comprehend the overall design vision, Lighting Directors are creating truly amazing cinematic action, across a wide range of genres.

If you would like to find out more about our Lighting Director services, speak to us today at (561) 368-0101.

Frank Gatto & Associates, Inc. are specialists in lighting for television events of all kinds.  If you have an event that needs expert lighting, please call us today to see how we can help.

Phone: 561-368-0101

Email: frank@frankgattolighting.com 

We can be found on Social Media at the following links.

            

The Challenge Of Mixing Light And Sound

Posted on by J3551CA

Epic stage performances aren’t just about great sound, the lighting is just as important when it comes to creating awesome audience experiences.  The key to stage lighting is anticipating what the music or action on stage will do and programming the lighting to complement it. A good lighting technician will blend the sound and visuals seamlessly, and to make this happen, the whole lighting team, from the Lighting Director through to the sparks, needs to be highly skilled and have a really good knowledge of stagecraft.

A carefully crafted light show can add excitement, energy, and emotion to a performance. Finding a way to coordinate the lights to change in time with the music, turns a mediocre show into an epic performance. As the tempo of the music speeds up, the lights should become more exciting too, and are experienced lighting technician will know that changes should happen on the downbeats and when the music changes parts.

Effective stage lighting enhances the emotion of the performance on stage and brings the music to life.  This is why focusing not just on the sound, but also the lighting of your production is so important to make it a truly memorable one.

Which type of lights works best with music?

There is a wide range of lights and lighting tools that can be used to create awesome live performances: The most common types of lighting include:

LED Lights

These inexpensive, low energy lights can create a myriad of color combinations at the touch of a button.  Unlike traditional lights, they don’t produce much heat making them perfect for use on stage.

Fresnels

Fresnels was a soft light and are typically used close to the stage to produce color washes.  They are easy to set up and offer uncomplicated, easy to use washes light for almost every stage set up.

Spotlights

Spots create a tunnel of light on one area of the stage.  Used to draw the audience attention to just one part of the show, these big bright lights usually follow performers around the stage.

Moving Lights

These are super sophisticated bits of kit that are controlled by a joystick.  They also offer color changing capabilities, focus the controls and have motorized shutters.

Par Cans

The stage equivalent of a car headlight with a metal casing, Par cans are very common in stage lighting setups.  They can provide a good amount of light, but they can also get super hot.

How do the lights work in time with the music?

Lights can either be programmed in advance to precisely match the action on stage via a time code or can change using performance cues. Time-coded programs are very rigid and offer little or no flexibility, while cues-based lighting is based on a technician hitting the button as the music changes.  If the lighting technicians are familiar enough with the music, they can anticipate changes and creatively move between cues or even run things manually to smooth over unexpected transitions

How is the lighting controlled?

Using a DMX Controller, a single operator can control both the light and sound via one console. These digital communications networks allow the technicians to control stage lighting and effects, including color blending, the movement of the lights, stoves and fades to offer the audience an epic live experience.

Experience operators will program the lighting scenes before the show opens.  These preset order of lighting effects can be toggled and adjusted from song to song, and the technician will work with a cold wheel to create dramatic lighting to complement the action on stage.

If you are looking for a world-class lighting show to complement your live music, speak to Frank Gatto & Associates.  With over 30 years in the business, Frank and his team are on hand to help.  Call us today at 561-368-0101.

Frank Gatto & Associates, Inc. are specialists in lighting for television events of all kinds.  If you have an event that needs expert lighting, please call us today to see how we can help.

Phone: 561-368-0101

Email: frank@frankgattolighting.com 

We can be found on Social Media at the following links.