Sky News

Lighting Design & Oversight

Introduction

• Designed and Oversaw the visual output for all the Sky News (UK) studios for over a decade which included the historic political dramas around Brexit and the challenges of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
• Ensured a clear and consistent visual presentation to a worldwide audience 24 hours a day throughout this period, delivered with zero on-air impacting issues.
• Primary point of direct contact / support for all lighting matters to the Studio Directors (at a high design level) and the Technical Supervisors (at the operational detail level).
• Specified and Designed the studio lighting for all the studios in use and at that time, together with a resilient control system of hardware and software, all bespoke designed around the needs of, and feedback from, the operational end-users, in addition to personal operational experience.
• All this was achieved in an environment of constantly evolving Production requirements, with their unpredictable studio guests and Breaking News events.

He designed not just the lighting of their regular studio output, but built or refurbished all the dedicated Sky News studios across London. In addition, he was the Lighting Director for the majority of their major one-off and recurring productions elsewhere on the Sky Campus in both General Purpose Studios and Office spaces, as well as their biggest Outside Broadcasts.

These included pre-general election debates featuring the (then) Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition, a landmark pre-Brexit Referendum debate, and three General Election - and one US Election - Nights. He was also the Series Lighting Designer and Director for the weekly shows The Pledge and The Great Debate, as well as the two major all-day Outside Broadcasts, Big Ideas.

He successfully steered-through the transition from a single large traditional studio equipped with legacy tungsten lighting sources and manual control to a interconnected set of specialist studios distributed across multiple locations, all fully-equipped with state-of-the-art efficient LED sources and designed specifically with a wide tolerance for production fluidity. This was delivered together with a fully-bespoke multi-site remote control system designed around the needs of a large and diverse team of non-lighting specialists.

Sub Sections

• The Many Battles for Number 10
• The Election Nights that followed
• The Studio Productions
• Going Outside to Broadcast

Prime Minister Debates

Attempts to give the UK a version of the head-to-head “US Presidential style” Debates had for decades been repeatedly rebuffed by whoever is in power at the time, but with no clear result ahead, everyone gave-in and agreed to a very low-key version for the 2010 General Election. Richard wasn’t involved in this, as had only just started Freelancing for Sky at that point, however the relevant thing is that both this Debate, and Election as a whole, resulted in what can be best described as a No-Score Draw for all teams involved…

So, roll on a then-legally-fixed nice and predictable 5 year delay until the next one. Nobody could then have predicted the utter carnage the next five years would result in!

Election Night Specials

Of course, those verbal fights were just a warm-up before the main event - the General Elections

And for Sky News, Election Night is when all the stops come out, records are broken, tension is high, and the cliches are cliched.

Richard designed, built, and ran the lighting for the main overnight studio presentation for the UK General Elections in 2015, 2017, 2019, and also for the USA Election in 2020. Plus setup various Local Election Night Specials in the Millbank Newsroom.

Flagship Outside Broadcasts

All-Day Channel Takeovers… or just a Very Grand Lady doing a piece to camera… Richard’s experience was sometimes called-for outside the fixed studios.

Full Studio Productions

Regular studio Output - Introduction

The construction and fit-out history of these is partially detailed in the Studio Builds section

The lighting for all the day-to-day use of these dedicated News studio spaces was designed and set by Richard, as well as providing Oversight and Support to the Technical Supervisors who had to operate them day-to-day. He was then frequently called-in to revise the lighting ahead of any major changes or unusual one-off usage. A random selection of example images are shown below :

Studio A - The Legacy Studio

Richard first supported and later expanded LD Don Hart’s work in the large open space in the middle of Unit 1 when built, the largest studio sky had, but still essentially a tin shed box warehouse like all their studios before the opening of the Sky Studios building in 2011 (Studios 1-8) with its very complex and demanding weight restrictions; through to its eventual closure at the end of Project Tardis (the move across the road into Sky Studios) The Structural Engineering specified the distance between lights and no exception was allowed, otherwise that once in 10 years snowstorm might collapse the whole building.

His main change, and first big project, was in 2013 was a relight using the first of many ETC Source 4 LED fixtures. These were used for presentation in front of a huge 5m high 5k videowall that replaced the original discrete LED curved wall. This wall was made of DLP Projectors instead of discrete LED panels, and it paid for itself in just a couple of years in saved electricity alone! The saving in no longer having random coloured lights cast onto people’s faces 20m away was of course priceless…

Studio 21 - The Glass Box

The Iconic and unique studio, with its cameras hanging down from the ceiling, a desk that span round, a videowall to point at, and absolutely no floor tech or clutter allowed. Well, apart from four uplighters that Richard snuck in behind the pillars (and only visible when reflected in mirrors).

Studio 6 - double-ended Real and Virtual Studio

Although one studio, this was effectively two separate studios. One end had a U-shaped Green Screen space, and the other had a U-shaped set of video walls surrounding a desk capable of up to 6 people sat around it (2 per side), and was originally designed for the Sunrise breakfast show as well as for overnight / disaster recovery use.

The intention was to feature live walks from the Virtual to the Real, similar to that featured in the then-current version of MNF. This was found in practice to not work well for several reasons. Visually, it didn’t work due to a very obvious hard transition as Green VR Key switched-off as the presenter walked in and out of the area (this had to be disabled as they then walked past the videowalls, which if all green content was removed from …things would not end well.) This was avoided on MNF by being hidden in the black background and shooting as wide as possible, but not the case here. The final nail in the coffin (instead of blaming lighting and/or set design) was that simply took far too long to walk and the studio cameras couldn’t clear sufficiently.

However, the original concept continued, as the VR Studio developed over time, it still retained often the look of being the Glass Box at a glance.

Another interesting aspect over time with the VR Studio usage was that Virtual Set Designer coordinated the Richard so that there were identical virtual lights to reality, both in the distant background, and also overhead, so that should a real Arri L7 ever magically drift into vision on the Jib shot, it would not be jarring or totally unexpected to the viewer, who might not know (or care) that its VR, but does know that its a studio of some sort. In fact, some virtual designs contained many more lights than the budget for a real studio would be likely to stretch to! This also meant that the scenic parts of the the virtual set were lit from not just the same place and direction, but also the beam angle and diffusion of the virtual light was the same was illuminating the talent. Shadows are always the bane of green screen shooting, fortunately after much back and forth, the decision was made to have a real lino floor with real shadows.

Millbank - multi-purpose studio

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Plus other spaces used in many different ways over the years included the Newsroom, an ENG Studio, and the constantly-in-use DTL (Down the Lines) broom cupboard. Always a pleasure to visit this little self-contained island of peace, a contrast to the often quite …fraught… scenes happening outside the adjacent Houses of Parliament.

City Studios 2 & 3 - shared spaces with CNBC

Quite an interesting design this. Not only were both of the studio spaces shared with a completely different broadcaster, with their own totally different lighting system, but operational use needed to flip-flop for each broadcaster, ideally automatically, whilst presenting no risk of interference between the two systems,

General-purpose studio Productions - Introduction

Other productions took place in the General-Purpose studios on Sky’s Campus which were shared with Sky Sports (etc).

The first two were long-running series, and the others were major one-offs :

The Pledge (2016-2020, Studio F)

Lead Lighting Director for this highly-provocative weekly Debate show; recorded “As-Live” a few hours before transmission - leaving just enough time for any edits for critical legal reasons…!

Five …highly opinionated… pundits each in turn presented their topical idea, on everything from disposable coffee cups to immigration, to which the others panellists would then vocally argue for or against.

No moderator or presenter, and the show was deliberately designed to provoke reactions & conversations on social media - and hopefully thinking - by viewers.

Filmed in the round with a gorgeous £150k glossy glass set - giving plenty of challenges in a small studio to ensure the cameras and operators were at all times hidden, address with carefully avoiding lighting spill, precisely angled set pieces, black clothing and drapes, and a unique system to blank individual AutoCues.

Quite a lot of 2k’s to gel and precisely set each week (basically, Key L - Frontal Fill - Key R - Backlight and repeat x5, plus some Decor) and a mass of practical LED to install and plug up, but it was one of the last shows with proper studio lighting to do each week so nobody minded the early starts and the long rig time.

After no less than 9 months of weekly pilots (…!), to get the production content right, the set design, lighting, and other technical matters were settled within a few weeks, this then went on to run weekly from the best part of 4 years, with lighting duties split between Richard & Malcolm Reed, until its abrupt halt and then cancellation thanks to the first Covid Lockdown.

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The Great Debate (2021-2022, Studio F)

• Trevor Phillips presented an audience discussion show… but with a twist.
• VR (Green screen virtual video wall) & AR (ceiling replacement and floor graphics) used together with a real set
• Originally started during Covid restrictions, hence why everyone is so far apart - and why the audience is at home!
• Every episode was lit by Richard.

Covid Crisis - Learning the Lessons (2021, Studio 4/5)

This series of 3 shows presented by Sophie Ridge, just a year after things started, was an attempt to start the serious inquiry into what went right, and what went wrong, that was being increasingly demanded by the public at this time. Due to continuing proximity rules, all guests were at home and shown on video walls, and the camerawork was all on a Steadicam and Jib, shooting in the round (360-degrees).

Info

Expand for Educational sections

Overall Design Choices

Due to the on-going Social Distancing rules at that time (making the whole premise of this programme seem a bit … premature) Richard made the decision to have a lighting rig made-up almost entirely of moving-lights. This would reduce the need for people working on the studio floor with a pole adjusting lights during rehearsals, as keeping distance from each other limited the total numbers on the floor at any one time to 13 people. The “Natural” air conditioning was cranked fully-open, and it was January. ❄️ ☃️ 🥶

Gallery staff had more challenging limits on their movements, essentially bolted to their seats with some perspex shields between each other with half the usual staffing density. As the lighting positions at Sky are by default located at the furthest point from the doorsSky, we took advantage of the flexible infrastructure and promptly decamped to the adjacent gallery.

3D modelling was extensively done beforehand to confirm positions and distances with the need to give wide coverage with a light as far back as possible but without clipping the set, or being too steep.

Luminaries used >

• Vari-lite VL-1100 LED were used as Keylights
• Martin Mac Auras as Backlights
• Martin TW-1 lit the scenic graphic panels from above
• Robert-Juliet Dalis from below for graphics, and as footlights.

Lighting Plot

Covid Crisis Lighting plot :

Covid Crisis Magic Sheet by end of Show 1 :

Downloadable versions : 🗂️ Initial Plot 🗂️ Magic Sheet

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Task : Compare the initial plot with the console MagicSheet which shows the final version of the show.

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It should be immediately clear that a lot more than originally anticipated of the existing studio tungsten 2k’s had to be used in a line along the top edge of the studio. Probably because a static position became a long walk up and down with 180 flip mid-conversation The positions up on the platform was cut too late to move any lights around to new positions. All of which shows, how ever many angles you think you’ve got covered with moving lights, Production will always find a secret new one you hadn’t thought of.

Due to the steep video walls, when near the wall Sophie had to be lit from both sides - but, if all this light came in from a long way away, it would splash all over the set behind her, as well as have shadows from the cameras operators. Which is why there are a whole series of lights in a row instead of a single key further away. As long as these are at least a moderately reasonable distance away, once carefully focused with a bit of back and forth and walking around they merge into one another.

If the source is too close, you will inevitably get hot spots, even if using softer sources than Fresnels, which is why in tiny studios, the inverse square law is most definitely off the xmas card list…. not your friend in a small studio. Fortunately, this studio can have lights up to 9m in the air - in reality they were probably about 5-6m up. as Sophie was stood too close to the wall to get anything in from above when facing that screen. The pre-production plot for this one-off production is shown below, as an example of how to approach the challenges of shooting in the round.

Footnote:

When it comes to setting a critical series of lights to cover a walk as smoothly as possible, there are three approaches :

• A Scientific LD compares levels with a light meter.

• An Engineering LD uses the back of their hand and the Mk.1 EyeBall.

• The Artistic LD dons a pair of designer sunglasses, looks in completely the wrong direction, and says ‘its meant to look lumpy’.

All are, of course, completely correct, for their particular production

One Hundred Women (2018, Studio 4/5)

• Kay Burley hosted all-female debate and audience to see what’s improved, and what still needs to improve, for women.
• Notable for all the keylights being VL-1000 to cope with the continuous walking and 360-degree shooting style used
• Due to the studio’s sausage-shape resulting in a very short throw, throughout the show, the side keys for Key were very subtly bounced backwards and forwards by a manual LTP fader oscillating between two preset focuses.

Credits and Thanks

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• The Many Battles for Number 10 The Election Nights that followed Going Outside to Broadcast The Full Studio Productions

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