Transcending the Odd Walls that Separate Lighting and Set Design for Live Performance and TV/film.
As designers, our practice is diverse. We design sets and lighting for television, theatre, film, events, museums and public spaces. The challenge is remembering what mindset we need to use at any given time, allowing for the possibility of crossover when appropriate.The benefit, beyond the joy of always doing something new, different, and challenging is the ability to import materials and techniques from one discipline, where those materials and techniques might be commonplace, into another discipline.
Live vs. TV Lighting
One recent project on which the opportunity to cross-pollinate from one area to another presented itself was when we designed a long form commercial for producer Conrad Fink of This is TV. The product, geneME, is a skin care product for men and women, so the goal of the production design was to capture the appearance and feel of a luxury spa; soft and comforting with natural materials used throughout. There was a main set that defined the look for the show, including product shots, identity and motion graphics. Locations were selected that complemented the look, feel, and lighting of the main set.
As you can imagine, the lighting was a key component to ensure the proper impact of the product’s promise so, as is our practice, we tried to provide director of photography, John Rybecki, as many places to tuck lights as possible. There were also frosted glass elements, slick surfaces and a water feature for him to light.
Before and After
In addition to the main set environment, we shot a series of actual product user interviews. These were shot over the course of three weekends with about two dozen test subjects. We checked on their progress with the product, starting on Day 1, Week 2 of use and ending, finally, at Week 6. These shoots became known as the “Befores,” “Middles” and “Afters.”
A standard studio white cyc provided the base environment for the interviews with test subjects. To that, we added frosted glass and bamboo elements that tied the look back to the main set environment.
To help draw attention to the impact of the product on the skin of the test subjects, we needed to differentiate the Afters, without creating a shockingly different space. We explored numerous creative segment visualization concepts with the key production team members, including Fink, Rybecki and lighting director Robert Lechterman.
Vaulting the Walls
Drawing upon my diverse experience, I suggesting Rosco Prismatic, or color wave gobos. My colleagues weren’t familiar with these beautiful and cost-effective products. (In a clear example of the odd walls that exist between different disciplines within the same industry, Rosco does not even provide a link to these beautiful, useful tools under the heading “Film, TV and Still Photo Production Tools” on their website. It actually resides under the general “Lighting” heading, which is more focused on live performance.)
They were intrigued, but concerned that scale of production, which was much more intimate, might render this idea unlikely. To make it work, we utilized two cameras close up on the talent, which provided distance from the background to create a depth of field necessary to make these gobos really work for the small screen.
Traditionally, Source Fours and other ellipsoidal lighting instruments aren’t the work horses of film lighting, the way they are in the illumination of live performance. Ellipsoidals are for accent lighting; Fresnels and Kino Flos are more predominately used instruments in TV production. Even the terms differ, as gobos aren’t gobos in film and television, they’re called “Cookies.” But these aren’t usually little metal discs, they are large pieces of Masonite with patterns cut out. Cookies don’t go in the unit, they are clamped to a stand and sit in front of the unit, surrounded by flags that shutter the light like barn doors.
This was all part of our attempt to truly cross over our lighting strategy into the “live” world. We even decided to create a metal gobo of the product logo. This would allow the image to simply cut through the color glass.
Previz for Concepts
I am a firm believer in pre-visualization of any design idea. Set and lighting designers should illustrate their ideas for the rest of the team, to avoid unpleasant surprises later in the process. Before computers, pre-visualization was in the form of sketches and models. Fortunately, technology has made the process easier, and far more realistic, in terms of truly representing the final concept.
The Vectorworks Designer application, specifically the Spotlight and Renderworks modules, are my go-to tool for visualization and creating production documents. I have become a Vectorworks expert, which expedites the rendering process.
Utilizing the Vectorworks software, I modeled the studio in which we were working to illustrate the “Befores” and the “Middles.” I had the cyc in place, which was the only modeling challenge, but I knew where the talent and cameras would be placed.
Vectorworks Spotlight comes with an extensive library of lighting symbols. A symbol in Vectorworks is geometry that can be repeatedly used in a document. That geometry can be 2D, 3D, or both. When both 2D and 3D geometry are combined in a symbol, the symbol is referred to as Hybrid. Geometry in a Vectorworks Symbol can have data linked to it, so a Spotlight Lighting Device Symbol also contains a light source that can simulate the beam and field of the actual lighting unit.
Although the package comes with its own library of symbols, I prefer to use Field Template’s SoftSymbols collection. This is a more comprehensive library, and each symbol generally contains more data than the stock set.
Vectorworks Spotlight also comes with a complete library of gobos from Rosco, including the Prismatic, and Color Wave lines. The Vectorworks library also contains the Apollo, GAM, Goboland, High End and Lee gobo collections.
Selecting the Rig
Armed with my symbols and my model, I was able to quickly determine the type of instruments we would need, the quantity, the wattage and the placement. In order to make some of these choices properly, I placed a few Kino Flos in the document to light the talent and some soft light on the cyc.
Pre-visualization saves time and money. We did not need to invest in a number of different gobo choices. We did not need to try different looks on the stage with the crew standing around, or worse, with the talent standing around and getting grumpy when we needed them to extol the virtues of the product. All of that work was accomplished in the design studio with a crew of one.
So, with a few clicks, I began to render different gobos in my base set-up. I emailed the renders around and we began to see how our hybrid concept would play out.
I always render in the Renderworks quality rendering modes. I prefer the look of a Final Quality or Custom Renderworks rendering, but when considering multiple options, Fast Renderworks quality will do. I’m not a big fan of OpenGL rendering, where details like gobo projections do not render.
Quick Rendering Tips
By carefully building the model, minimizing the geometry, especially any complex geometry, and minimizing the number of lights used to illuminate the scene, I created a file that would render quickly. While the studio walls were necessary for planning, they were not necessary for these renderings; we did not see beyond the white cyc. Even beyond the visible area, Vectorworks has to calculate the geometry. What if the cyc had a transparent or translucent texture and we could see through the cyc to the building architecture?
I am a firm believer in the use of Vectorworks Classes to assign graphic attributes to objects, and to control visibility. The studio walls and doors were assigned to a class. I turned off that class. I created a black Layer Background. I turned off the ambient light on the Design Layer.
It would also have been possible to have modeled the studio architecture on a separate Design Layer and have turned off the visibility of that Design Layer when rendering.
So, in the end, I had a few Source Fours and a couple of soft lights on the talent in the rendering. The talent was created as a Vectorworks Image Prop, to render faster, with a mask, rather than using complex geometry.
With the model set up to render as quickly as possible to illustrate the different looks provided by the different choices of gobos, I was able to generate a number of looks and deliver them as screen captures to email while we were talking.
Once we had settled on a choice of gobo, and we were off the call, I did one last Final Quality Renderworks rendering and properly exported to an image file. I sent that image to the producer for distribution to the crew. We had our plan!
Real-World Efficiency
Load-in was smooth and efficient, and the crew was up and shooting in no time. The Vectorworks software allowed us to attempt a creative leap, without losing extensive time and money.
The end result was exactly what we had all hoped for — a beautiful contrast between set and subject that captured the intended look and feel perfectly, while providing just the right amount of drama for the grand reveal of the “After” shots.
As professionals, especially if we are medium-specific, we can easily be walled in by common practice, particularly those that have traditionally produced successful results.
But when you really want to reach for something different, that special, unique look, letting the light shine outside the box (and taking a few calculated risks) can really deliver some exciting and rewarding results.
Kevin Lee Allen of KLAD (klad.com) is a designer of scenery for film, television and theatre. He is also author of the Getting Started Guide to Vectorworks Spotlight, published by Nemetschek NA.
