A.C. Americas Contributes to ESPN's Studio Broadcast Design

	Photo courtesy: Eastern Lighting Design, Inc.

When it came to providing new lighting rigs for two ESPN studios in New York City, Matthew Gordon, president and principal designer of Eastern Lighting Design, emphasizes how critical collaboration is, and remains, on any project the company takes on.

"At Eastern, all our designers come from theatrical backgrounds, and theatre is a completely collaborative process," Gordon says. "We bring that into the work we do in television and live events, because, in anything entertainment-related, collaboration is intensely important."

In this case, that involved working closely with ESPN, the show's production design team, and A.C. Americas to determine the ideal lighting solution.

"That's incredibly important because lighting comes in after scenic designs have been chosen and approved. So, we work with ESPN's team and the production designers to determine how best to turn their renderings into reality."

Doing so requires discussions to determine the ideal position for lighting elements, ensuring they don't interfere with any scenic elements, workflow, or how the show is presented.

"When it came to selecting fixtures, we worked closely with ESPN's lighting team to ensure the fixtures we proposed were up to ESPN standards, and that the equipment would function without issues, long-term."

On both projects, the timeline was tight, he adds: "But we've used gear from A.C. Americas, and specifically Prolights (fixtures), for a long time because they've been proven in the field for long-term use, and both A.C. Americas and Prolights were helpful in facilitating prompt delivery."

In Studio X, they were tasked with creating a warm and rich environment for Get Up, a morning sports talk show hosted by Mike "Greenie" Greenberg, which, Gordon says, "is a casual environment for Greenie and his guests to hang out and talk sports."

"The set is filled with wonderful textures and details, subway tile mosaics, and brick walls. Our job was to accentuate those details while creating a flexible space for the talent to move around in and make them look great, without washing out the backgrounds or making the details and textures appear flat."

Control is of the utmost importance, he continues: "So, we chose fixtures with barn doors. That gives us the ability to shape the areas that we needed to light, while maintaining expansive, clean, wide jib shots."

That required placement that didn't cramp the talent or the camera operators, by hanging fixtures too low. "In many TV studios, you see lights hung close to the talent, eight to ten feet off the ground. Our goal, and the Eastern lighting way, is to drop those down as little as possible, so they can get those big, beautiful, wide shots." In service to that goal, any fixtures chosen had to provide enough firepower and punch to throw longer distances.

In total, the rig comprised 30 Prolights ECL EclFresnel CT+M and 72 Prolights ECL Profile CT+ fixtures, along with 44 Jet PAR7ZIPBK and a pair of ArcShine M9/S18FC.

"The EclFresnel CT+M and Profile CT+ fixtures give us that punch," he notes, adding that the Profiles were particularly helpful in terms of providing flexibility to add or move positions, and do double duty, when necessary. "Before you'd have lights for talent and lights for scenery. This fixture can do it all. So, for example, if there's a talent position I hadn't planned for, I had spare fixtures in my scenic lighting pile that can light people just as well as lighting scenery."

Gordon runs through the placement of the elements: "It's a 360-degree set with talent areas spread throughout, but the main area was the anchor desk. We used the ECL EclFresnel CT+M to create what we call a 'ring of fire' -- a nice base wash for everyone at the desk, and the CT+ Profiles as individual key lights, fill lights, and backlights."

"Using the Profiles as key lights provided the control we're looking for. So, if there's a talent configuration where seven big sports guys are sitting shoulder to shoulder at the desk, that control allows us to make sure a key light isn't affecting the person who's literally one foot away to the right or left, and to properly dial in the appropriate light levels for skin tone."

Both the Jet Pars and Arc Shines were deployed as architectural fixtures: the Jet Pars, primarily as a scenic light to help bring out the brick texture, "scraping down walls, making nice scallops. Having the ability to zoom was key in the initial shaping. But also, because they do a lot of what they call 'billboards,' which are logo cutaways; they'll put a logo on the LED video wall, then zoom in to further accentuate some of the textures and make it feel a little sharper. That kind of flexibility is nice for the day-to-day operators."

The Arc Shine's compact footprint and the fact that they are fully integrated fixtures, without external power supplies and data enablers, make them essentially plug-and-play.

"In Studio Y, the show is called First Take. The set design has a modern, penthouse feel, with many overhead scenic elements. So, we needed fixtures that could thread the needle through specific openings." That was also critical, he continues: "Because the show can be unpredictable, we created a design that could support lighting anyone, anywhere, at any time. Again, (as in Studio X) keeping the fixtures high, tight, and pulled back."

In Studio Y, the rig consisted of 119 Prolights ECL Profile CT+, 15 ECL Fresnel CT+M, and 24 Jet PAR7ZIPBK.

Again, the ECL Fresnel CT+M were deployed as a base wash with the CT+ as key lights and backlights. In this case: "to create a dynamic, flexible environment for the talent to exist in and, literally, run circles around the room. Stephen A Smith, the host, is very energetic. He'll literally get up from the desk and run around the room. So, the lighting design needed to allow for anticipating and reacting immediately in those moments."

As for the end result: "ESPN is absolutely thrilled with the outcome of both studios," Gordon says. Ensuring that's the case is another element of the "Eastern way." Leveraging cutting-edge technology, cooperation, and collaboration to ensure that every client, regardless of their needs and the nature of the show or event, can tell the stories they want and need to, in the way they want to.