Kieran Healy, LD for American Idol and other TV shows, doesn't just blast the set with white light, as the lighting for Fergie's performance in the CBS special, Home for the Holidays, attests.
As the lighting designer for American Idol, among many other TV productions, Kieran Healy is responsible for lighting some of the most-watched shows in America. In this month’s PLSN Interview, Healy explains how his lack of audio knowledge pushed him into the world of lighting. He also talks about how the most memorable shows are not just the shows that entertain millions, but the shows with a positive social impact.
PLSN: How were you introduced to the industry?
Healy: In 1976, I was in college and had a part time job tending bar. There were two gentlemen that worked for The Who that frequented the pub; one of them was their audio mixer, Dick Hayes, and the other one was their lighting technician, Jim Hubbard. I was looking for additional summer work during college break and asked them if they could put me to work. The Who had just finished making the film Tommy. They did really well on the film and they had a bunch of money that they didn’t know what to do with, so they purchased a huge sound system, six trucks and two touring buses. They also purchased about a third of Shepperton Studios’ lot which included four or five sound stages. They formed a company and asked their road crew to run the business. They purchased the name ML Executive. It was basically a tax write-off. So the road crew, who had never done anything like this, found themselves running a company. I asked them if there was any summer work, so they brought me in to paint their wooden speaker cabinets.
I was there most of the summer, painting speakers and hanging around in the office. It was all very casual in those days. A group called the Small Faces was reforming and they were going out on tour, but they were missing a guy to go out as the last man on the sound crew. I overheard this and told them that I would do it. They kind of thought about it for a minute and said, “Okay.” I told them that I would have to miss college so I wanted a full-time job, and again, they said, “Okay.”
I went out on the tour and kept blowing up amplifiers because I’d plug in the speakers the wrong way around. At the end of the tour, my friend, Dick Hayes said, “You’re never going to make it as a sound man; you’ve got to go into lighting.” Luckily, The Who had bought 12 Super Troupers. They were the only Super Troupers in Europe at the time, so I was put on to those and I started touring Europe. Six was sort of the maximum you could take out, so I went out with Yes, Santana, The Sweet, Electric Light Orchestra and Thin Lizzy, setting up followspots and then running one in the evening. Basically, I learned lighting that way. A lot of the LDs really weren’t good spot callers, and I gradually earned a reputation for being a good spot operator, and, on some occasions, I’d even call the spots myself.
In between tours, we had installed a couple of followspots at Hammersmith Odeon, so we would work down there every night. I literally did hundreds and hundreds of bands over the course of a few years.
Did that work give you a lot of contacts in the industry?
I got to know a ton of LDs and tour managers from the backstage bar.
How did you transition into lighting design?
This company was up and running now, and doing very well, but the guy that used to be The Who’s production manager didn’t want to go back out on the road, so they asked me if I would be production manager. So, at the age of 20, I was their production manager.
In 1979, we came out to do seven nights at Madison Square Garden. We did two warm up shows at the Passaic Theatre in New Jersey. The Who had hired an LD, but on a previous tour he had been busted for possession and he never showed up at the court date, so there was a warrant out for his arrest. Somebody thought they would be able to fix it so he could come back to the States, but meanwhile, he had called and said he couldn’t get to New Jersey. So everyone looked at me and said, “Why don’t you run the lighting for the warm up shows?” It was a small theatre and they had a house board. It was more for the band to feel comfortable with their set than anything else. So I ran the lights there.
Two days later, we loaded into the Garden and we followed the Bee Gees who had this enormous set. Their load-out was incredibly slow, and they were still loading out while we were supposed to be loading in. At the end of the day, they didn’t get out until 2 p.m. and we had a show at 8 p.m. We loaded in, and at the time it was Showco Sound and Lights. A great gentleman by the name of Kirby Wyatt, who has passed on since, was the Showco production manager, and Tim Littrell, who now works for ETC, was the chief lighting technician. Again, the LD called and said he wasn’t going to make it to New York, so they told me I would be doing the lighting. Well, this was a far different situation because this other gentlemen had designed the rig and it was much bigger for the Garden. It was something like 300 to 400 PARs, and here we are at 2 p.m., just loading in. Tom and the Showco crew busted their ass and got everything up in the air by 6 p.m. They’re about to open the doors, and I had no idea how to focus lights, so Kirby sent everybody up in the truss, and me, Tom Littrell, and Kirby stood in various band member positions, and we knocked out a focus. The audience was coming in when I went out to the front of house with Tom, and he showed me how to run this Showco board, which I had never seen before. I didn’t have enough time to panic because before I knew it, the band went on stage and the house lights went out and off I went in the deep end, with Tom helping me. We had seven nights of this, and, after the third night, The New York Times came out with a review that mentioned lighting. So the band said, “Somebody else can be production manager, you’re going to be the LD now.” That is how I became an LD.
How old were you at the time?
I was 22.
That’s incredible. How did you make the transition to TV lighting?
We had been using a company called Showlites in England, and they wanted to open up in America. Eric Pierce was the owner and he asked me if I wanted to start the company with him in America. I leapt at the chance. So I parted ways with The Who and came out here in 1980.
Allen Branton became a client of Showlites, and they had the contract to light The Rolling Stones in 1981. I did a Diana Ross show with him and Greg Brunton, where I was their board operator. So Greg became a great friend. Allen asked me if I would be interested in doing the Stones, and I leapt at the chance. I went out as lighting director on that tour, which, of course, was madness. But Allen and I discovered that most arenas we were going to had IMAG that they used for sports. So, the Stones wanted to use IMAG everywhere they went. It was one of the first tours to use video in that sense. They were very into the idea of giving people a better view and close-ups of the band. So Allen and I were able to see the results of our lighting onscreen every night. Mick Jagger was very into the video, so we had to pay close attention to what we were doing. It was the same time MTV started out and recording concerts for television was becoming the norm. We culminated the tour in West Virginia and did the first live broadcast and first pay-per-view concert, ever, with the Rolling Stones. They brought in a film director, Hal Ashby, who has since passed on, and television director, Tommy Turbovich. Again, Allen and I had to pay attention to the wants and needs of the television people, and, because we had such a good experience with Greg Brunton, we recommended that he be brought out as a consultant. Between the three of us, we lit this major event.
From that point on I was fascinated by television and capturing the look of these shows on television, as was Allen. Of course, the cameras back then weren’t nearly as good as they are today, so we learned the hard way about correction and the balance of light. We learned it by trial and error, really.
What were some of the early challenges and tricks you used to compensate for them?
In those days, the big challenges were the carbon arc followspots in every venue, color correcting them properly — they could burn very orange — and you needed a lot more intensity for the old cameras compared to what we have today. Sometimes we would find that we had to double up, and sometimes triple up, on the spots to get the intensity we needed. The other challenge was to light the audience in a sympathetic manner, an anathema then on a rock tour.
Did you continue to work on television productions from then onward?
Allen and I worked together on all sorts of musical projects. We did Live Aid together and a bunch of other shows. We both sort of earned reputations as the “go to” guys if you wanted your show to look good on television, because, in those days, the rock-n-roll crew looked down on television people. The common belief was that TV people would come in and destroy your show by hanging a lot of white light. We were there to say, “No, that’s not true. We don’t have to do that. What we have to do is make a few adaptations to your show and get a better balance to your show, and correct the followspots. We won’t come in and destroy your show; we’ll make you look good to your client.”
MTV was shooting everything that moved, so we had a lot of work. I embraced this whole-heartedly.
What have you been up to lately?
This year, Don’t Forget the Lyrics with Wayne Brady, and a very controversial show, The Moment Of Truth, which I lit in my anti-game show look.
How so?
It’s very stark with very little movement. It has a very arena-like feel to it.
Then, of course, there’s American Idol, which I’ve done since the beginning. It keeps growing and growing. It’s been an incredible juggernaut; it’s staggering, really. I also do another show, an offshoot of Simon Cowell’s, called America’s Got Talent. It’s kind of like a Gong Show. And, I’ve been doing Last Comic Standing for five years.
As far as American Idol goes, how much does that change throughout the season?
You start very small with the audition process, which is just a simple road package, and I send somebody out to do that. It goes from that small set to Hollywood week, which we do in Los Angeles. Again, it’s a simple audition look and you set a scene like you would imagine for a Broadway audition. From that, it moves to a small set at CBS Television City, in Hollywood. It’s actually the big stage we use, but it’s a small set where we have a red room and what is supposed to be a small studio-like feel. The production values evolve as the show grows, so we use some moving lights on that one. The final 30 (contestants) get whittled down to 12 and we do the changeover from that set to this massive performance set, which literally extends from the floor to the ceiling of the studio.
You must be proud of that — the lighting is an integral element for the show. Over the course of your career, what are you the most proud of?
I think the proudest moment was after 9/11. I did a show — I did the West Coast and Roy Bennett did the East Coast — where all the stars came out and performed. It was a sad time; there were candles all over the set, and we did very sparse lighting as we didn’t want to see moving lights move. It’s probably one of the best shows I’ve ever done. I also feel that Live Aid, which I did with Allen Branton, was a terrific accomplishment. I remember Bill Graham, God bless him, was on that Live Aid stage all day screaming and getting things moving. Allen and I came back to the hotel after that show — we were exhausted, everybody was exhausted — and here’s Bill coming out of the hotel, and he gives us a big hug and says, in a very hoarse voice, “We did it guys. We pulled it off.” It chokes me up thinking about it.
I think the shows you remember fondly are the shows that may have had some social impact and where your contribution might have done some good. After all, what we do is not particularly important.
