Lighting for Comedy Specials Reflects the Star’s Distinctive Style
When Gabriel Iglesias sold out two nights in the Chicago area’s Allstate Arena May 20-21 for the filming of a Netflix special, lighting designer Robert Peterson knew he had a major challenge on his hands.
For the reboot version of Ghostbusters, which opened on July 15, 2016, director Paul Feig brought together a new team of Ghostbusters in Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. As ghosts and slime threaten to take over the city, they fight it with comic, and at times, chaotic efforts. When the team get their first call to capture an actual ghost it is at a heavy metal concert. For this key scene, the film’s director of photography, Robert Yeoman, ASC and gaffer John Vecchio knew they wanted a concert LD involved but needed someone that could mix the concert lighting with their film lighting. They called on LD Michael Baldassari, who has lit sequences for movies including Rock of Ages, Nine and Sex and the City 2.
LD Joshua Hutchings brings a classic feel to Match Game on ABC
ABC has gone back into the game show business, and they are doing it in a big way. They have four “new” game shows on the docket for this summer and, while many are new to ABC, many Americans will instantly remember these as classic shows from the 1970s and ‘80s. The re-launched game show lineup includes $100,000 Pyramid, Celebrity Family Feud, To Tell the Truth and Match Game. Perhaps the biggest update from the past versions of these beloved shows is that they will be aired in prime time.
Historic TV Facility on Broadway Takes a Modern Lighting Approach
For this month’s Light Night Conversation, the third in PLSN’s series with a focus on late night television talk shows and how they are lit, we chatted with Michael Scricca, LD for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and the show’s technical director, Jon Pretnar.
Fred Bock has been lighting The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon since Fallon debuted as the new host of the iconic show on Feb. 17, 2014. After decades on the West Coast, having left NYC for “beautiful downtown Burbank” in 1972, The Tonight Show returned to its roots, moving back to the East Coast. Bock was no stranger to the fast pace and ever-changing setups lighting for late night TV. Over the years, he has lit a number of NBC productions and projects, including 16 years on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
For the past six years, Black Girls Rock, Inc., an organization that promotes empowerment and mentoring for young women of color through the arts, has partnered with BET Networks to broadcast their annual awards event. The Black Girls Rock! production is an inspiring evening of performances, awards, speeches, and celebration. The 2016 show included appearances by Lauryn Hill, Gladys Knight, Brandy, Corrine Bailey Rae, Rihanna, Monica, Shonda Rhimes, Danai Gurira, and Hillary Clinton.
“Light Night Conversations” is a new recurring series of PLSN interviews with the lighting designers of the various late-night talk shows on television. These designers face many interesting design challenges that go beyond simply lighting a desk and an interview area, which, for the record, is not as simple as it may appear. Late-night LDs need to light musical guests, often both inside and outside the studio, design sketch comedy setups, audience interactions, man-on-the-street exchanges and full show location remotes. We start on the West Coast with Jimmy Kimmel Live’s LD Christian Hibbard. –ed.
For this year’s Grammy Awards, held on Feb. 15, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences asked Lady Gaga to perform a tribute to the late music legend David Bowie, who died Jan. 10 at age 69. Gaga, her creative team at Haus of Gaga, along with creative collaborators at Prettybird and Studio XO, merged music and technology for a performance that evoked Bowie’s defining talent as both a visual artist and musician.
Simon Cowell may have just given the haters one more reason to rant about him over the ‘Net. Cowell’s latest creation, La Banda, a weekly singing competition airing Sunday evenings on Univision, has completed its first successful season and was recently greenlit for a second.
Recently, broadcasting the sport of Boxing has grabbed a more central position on Network Television. New on the stage is Premier Boxing Champions. HBO has upped the ante with spectacular Pay-per-views. Top Rank and, more recently, TruTV are carving their niche in broadcast boxing as well.
Called the “hardest obstacle course in the world,” American Ninja Warrior runs its athletes through such grinding physical trials — i.e. dangling in mid-air while swinging from one set of sharp spiked grips to the next — that no contestant has ever been able to complete them all and emerge a winner. The big winner has been the top-rated NBC reality show itself. Now in its seventh season and drawing over 5 million weekly viewers, ANW has tackled its own challenge of maintaining edge and excitement by continually affecting new themes as it takes its famed truss course to different locations across the U.S.