NEW YORK — Television lighting designer Bruce Ferri opened his own design firm, Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA), which will focus on multi-camera television productions. Ferri, who was part of New York City Lites for the last 24 years, has worked on projects telecast by ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX and many of the cable networks. For three consecutive years, Ferri received an Emmy nomination for his design work on ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. In 2004 he received a Sports Emmy nomination for ESPN’s SportsCenter and recently designed the lighting for ESPN’s new high-definition studios in Bristol, CT. One of his jobs was lighting live wraparounds in Kuwait right after Desert Storm for the History Channel.
Ferri lit the last Pope, the current President, and all of The Iron Chefs. He said most challenging project was lighting ESPN’s NASCAR Pit Studio, a set inside an expanding tractor-trailer that is lit entirely with LEDs, talent included. Ferri recently designed the new state of the art HD Studio for the Weather Channel and is currently putting the finishing touches on the MLB Network studios presenting 24-hour coverage of Major League Baseball in HD.
“Lighting should support and complement a project to enable it to communicate much more effectively than without it,” Ferri said. “We stress that television projects always look the best when the lighting designer collaborates with the production designer, producers, and directors from the very beginning of the project. We are very aware of our responsibility to grab the viewer’s attention, and get them to stop surfing and watch the program we are working on.”
