Lighting Design for Television Broadcasting - General

[whycliffrussell]

I'm a designing a lighting system for council chambers at a city hall. The council chambers are to have several TV cameras to broadcast council proceeding on the local community channel. Can someone point me in the direction that I should proceed on this design (as I am not a lighting designer) as to:

-Provide adequate lighting conditions for the television broadcast wrt. illumination level and color temperature for the lighting to achieve the required CRI and luminance.

-Minimize the effects of glare. Particularly as seen from the origin of the camera.

Originally I was going to go with some std. 2X4' fluorescents with a string of dimmable LED pots around the periphery and maybe a string through the middle as to give some control to the lighting level in the room; however, I’m not too sure that this will be adequate for the purposes of television broadcasting. At the same time I don’t feel that it is necessary to upgrade the lighting design to the requirements of a commercial broadcasting station…$$$. Has anyone ever worked on a job similar to this before, and if so how did you reasonably proceed?

 

[IRstuff]

Conventional fluorescents contain globs of blue, possibly wreaking havoc with camera color balance.

Websearch: Broadcast lighting:

http://www.brightlines.com/SeriesONE/index.htm

http://www.brightlines.com/pdf/SeriesONE/S1.1 datasheet.pdf

http://www.brightlines.com/pdf/SeriesONE/SeriesONEweb.pdf

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0068/t.p0001.html

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[rbulsara]

This would be a specialty knowledge and experience, more art than science. This is not somethig you want to do from catalogs or talking to a lighting rep.

I would recommend hire someone who has done this type of work and been successful. Lighting for TV cameras is very tricky as its not only about light levels but color rendition on TV screen and addressing glare, etc.

There are people who specialize in studio lighting.

 

[EEJaime]

Lighting for television broadcasts is indeed somewhat of a specialized arena. We have done several projects and we have done so successfully-but we had the advantage of working with a client whom had a specialist on staff.

First of all you do not want to use any flourescent sources except perhaps as background fill. The color rendition is abysmal and the large source area washes out all detail and contrast. As others noted, you really should consult with an experienced design professional.

There is some guidance and basic information in the IES Lighting Handbook, but the system layout for the "electrics", (the overhead lighting rails, connectors, fixture outlets, mounting pipes, etc...), fill lighting, spot lighting, dimming, control boards and color control gels, etc..., will only be properly selected by an experienced designer. Also be aware that the lighting levels can be quite high, 150 to 250 footcandles and even higher depending on background color, etc....

Good luck if you do this yourself, I would recommend at least studying the IES handbook and Recommended Practices publications. Also look at stage/theatrical lighting and controls manufacturer's information. (Altman, ETC-Electronic Theatrical Controls, and others).