I couldn’t get British chat show host Terry Wogan out of my mind as I endured yet another production meeting with the BBC OB director and entourage on the first balcony of the Shepherds Bush Empire Theatre. 'The Wogan Show' set had looked so big on TV, yet it was all once shoehorned into this tiny thirty foot proscenium arch. But that’s the telly for you. It makes everything seem larger than life. People look fatter, egos become inflated, dramas become crises and your live show can become a nightmare. We were talking about where to position the eight ‘chip’ cameras that John Rooney, the director/producer, was going to use to record Status Quo performing sixteen new album tracks to playback in front of a live audience for a DVD release. Then some wag suggested that, as the band were planning to do a live set after the album shoot as a ‘thank-you’ to the fans for being camera fodder for a day, we should record that as well! Shoot day promised to be action packed.

John, meeting me for the first time, eyed me nervously as he asked what I had in mind for lighting, lamenting that, often, his biggest problem with shoots of this type is the live/touring lighting designer who is reluctant, or unable, to adapt his ‘live’ look for the camera. “Though chips are now getting very close to seeing what the eye sees in terms of colour saturation, temperature, contrast and intensity, they still have a way to go and it’s important that the LD be aware of this.” he implored. I was entering, once more, the surreal world of ‘jimmy jibs’, Ikegamis, and cathode ray tubes. A world where all the colours you know and love become screaming parodies of themselves. A world where our eyes are blind and the one-eyed camera is king.

A badly lit live show goes away. It becomes no more than an uncomfortable memory, but what the camera records will haunt you for life. It is permanent. Friends can gleefully replay and freeze-frame your lighting howlers over and over again. I mumbled some reassuring words in my best ‘BBCese’ about my need for a ‘window of opportunity’ some time before recording to white-balance the cameras,
follow spots and key light, which seemed to put John and his OB manager, more at ease.

Those two old friends, Messrs. Time and Money had advised us that it would be prudent to augment, rather than replace, the Empire’s existing rig of one hundred assorted par 64s and eight Golden Scans. Accordingly, we had spent the day before the shoot hanging ten Mac 500s and thirty six par 64s vertically from the back of the box truss. These would act as ‘cosmetics and effect’; something for the camera to see in the background, providing depth for the close-up shot and layers of visual movement for the long and wide shot. We then added a bunch of Colour Mags to some house floor cans to
uplight the three white triangular silk sails hung off an upstage fly bar. After bolting four 4 lite Molefay with colour changers to the front truss to provide extra audience light, we lobbed ten Source 4 profiles into the rig for keylight. Oh, and we added two more Pani short throw follow spots, making four in all, just in case.

Shoot day and the first camera rehearsals. The jimmy jib soared above the Empire stage, then swooped low and out towards the balconies over the heads of imaginary fans whilst the hand held cameras below twitched nervously from focus to focus. I stabbed at the ISO switcher matrix buttons to get a picture on the TV monitor that was squeezed between the Empire’s Avo Sapphire and Pearl desks we were using. Gordon Roberts (that most excellent house man and moving light operator) and myself had, from detailed notes, programmed thirty tracks, cue by cue, until the early hours to ensure that
shoot day was a stress-free desk operating day and not a panic-programming-on-the-hoof-to-catch-up day.

The homework had paid off. We had two desks brimming with cues and we were ready to rock ‘n’ tweak! Now was the time to white-balance the cameras. This involves ‘teaching’ the cameras exactly what colour they should ‘see’ as white. All other colours will then be interpreted by the camera in terms of this basic white reference point, just like your little scanner at home. Get this wrong and you’ll be in for some nasty surprises later. I pushed the Source 4s, the primary keylight, to 75% (always leave yourself some headroom!) to set level and temperature. We could then overlay general washes and effects and have a first wince at all those looks that seemed fine to the eye last night, after a Rizla frenzy …

From this point on you work exclusively from the TV monitor in front of you. Look at the little picture. Forget the big picture. You will be dealing mainly with close-ups and mid-shots with occasional long shots.. Do not look at the stage! To do so would only upset you. It will probably look like pooh. John Rooney recalls several disasters where the LD had failed to stay glued to the monitor and made the mistake of looking at the washed out stage in horror and then re-adjusting levels to the eye. “Sometimes after a live shoot like this you go to edit and find nothing but grey pictures with patches of burnt out hotspots, but you can’t go back to do it again! There is no second chance so it’s important for the live LD to be able to cope with the differences in saturation and contrast demanded by the TV camera. ” What this means, in essence, is that the LD should accept that their show will look distinctly odd to them for a night, but it will look fantastic for the (hopefully) hundreds of thousands that will watch it on video or DVD.

I had a happy flashback to a late night TV live music show called ‘The Beat’ I once lit, shot at the Astoria. Sadly it’s no longer with us, as it gave many a young live LD a chance to cut their teeth on the peculiarities of lighting bands for TV. Six bands performing eight songs each in one evening, with a live audience and no retakes. Back at the Empire we had thirty frantic minutes to check and tweak
our colours, levels and contrasts on camera before an afternoon of shooting close-ups. Things to look for:Too much red and it all goes fuzzy. Too much colour saturation and it all goes fuzzy too. Lavender looks blue, as does turquoise and HMI white. White goes yellow, and the ‘over lit’ audience disappears into darkness on the reverse shot. That white shirt on the 'main man' is bleaching so you’d better
take your keylight down a notch before the rack man in the TV truck stops down for you and plunges your backline into darkness. Oh, the joys of TV! The light grey carpeted stage and the stacks of light grey Marshall cabs, together with the vertical curtain of par 64s and Mac 500s were working well, providing background and depth to all the close-ups. Gordon and I beamed at each other as exclamations of “Great pictures!” came over the headsets from the TV truck.

At eight p.m. sharp the words, “Tape rolling” came over headsets. The Empire was full to the rafters with denim and pony tails, the air thick with cracked oil and excitement. The whole building was bathed in light and sound. Quo entertained their Army as only Quo can, and suddenly thirty tracks had flashed by. My only cue to Gordon had been, “Make ‘em wiggle more!” The director loved it and the fans loved it. Let’s be honest, fans never notice the lights! So concentrate on the little picture, ‘cos the director does!

Patrick Marks.