KitPlus | Articles

How we lit Mick

Shine a lightLets start at the beginning with the most fundamental, basic of questions – what’s the point of lighting anything, let alone a living legend like Sir Mick Jagger? The answer is simple – because lighting is the most important part of the whole process. Not the filming. Not the fiddly edit. Not the chin-scratching pre-production. The lig...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Lighting and Grip.

Lighting and Grip are often spoken as if they are one item, inseparable and complete. However the clue is in the phrase lighting AND grip. So let’s start by separating them. Lighting covers the instruments that provide the light. Grip covers the instruments we use to hold and control the light. LightingThere is a huge range of lights, luminaires, p...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Behind the scenes at Big Brother 9

Working 94 days with no day off is a hard task. It’s even harder for the TV equipment that has to keep going round the clock, every day, to keep all the viewing ‘addicts’ supplied with live footage and highlight editions. This is the situation that the Big Brother 9 team finds itself in. For those inside the house, there is actually a means of esca...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

London to Capetown, by bike Part 3

Brazzaville was still five hundred kilometers away and the road was still a little on the rough side but not as sandy. What it lacked in sand however, it made up for in water. The road had developed the particularly unattractive habit of having huge water-filled mud-holes at any place where it was impossible to pass on either side. So there was no...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Lights, Camera, Makohead Action

With the movie Quantum of Solace due to hit the big screens in October, audiences around the world are already gearing up for another huge blockbuster from the James Bond stable. The movie, which began shooting at Pinewood studios in November 2007, will undoubtedly include the spectacular action sequences that are the hallmark of James Bond films....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Back in the days before microprocessors

Back in the days before microprocessors, Character Generators were members of the Graphics Department armed with sheets of Letraset and cardboard. The finished caption cards were then handed over to the stage crew who acted as "Caption Pullers". For a title caption sequence, cards were stacked in shooting order alternately into two separate piles (...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Virtual Sets

When I first started approaching people in the UK with Brainstorms Virtual Studio software I was surprised to have them shake their heads vigorously and explain that virtual studio systems were “far too expensive and too difficult to set up and run” Coupled with that was the lack of realism and who’s using them?In Spain where Brainstorm are based t...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Virtual sets come of age

Virtual studios (VS) have experienced a roller coaster ride of popularity through their short life. Initially they were hailed as the future for live broadcasting, seamlessly combining people and computer-generated environments without the need for post-production. But the racks of SGI computers, complex studio set-ups, complex camera tracking syst...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Marshall masters LCD

Marshall Electronics has made huge strides in the LCD picture monitor market, with a practical package that fits with many of today’s applications and circumstances. Its LCD panels are light and compact, saving space and weight – obviously very attractive for OB vans. The monitors are recognised for their value for money while frequently winning si...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2008

Stryder TV Brick House Video User Report

Stryder TV is based in Oxfordshire and for decades we have provided both British and International broadcasters with a complete video production services. Our camera crews have operated in 45 countries from the Arctic to the Tropics and we produce anything from web content to beaming live pictures across the world with our satellite truck. We neede...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Mixing with the wildlife on Springwatch

As the 5th series of ‘Springwatch’ draws to a close I’d like to share with you an insider view of one of my favourite vision mixing jobs. As a freelance vision mixer I work across the board on all sorts of programmes: quiz & chat shows, sports, drama, music & Light Entertainment, recorded & live, studio-based or Outside Broadcast. But for four week...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Fancy a trip from Beijing to Paris in our Landrover?

That’s more or less how it happened, not months of planning or deciding I needed adventure in my life, just “Fancy the trip”. Of course no money in it (when is their ever?) but who could pass up such an offer. Dave at Broadcast Services in Chertsey had been preparing a Landrover for the journey for some months having acquired a left hand drive mode...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2008

Is it cool to use cool lighting

Is it cool to use cool ?The term ‘cold lighting’ is used within the film & TV lighting industry as a generic term for energy efficient, Fluorescent, LED, and Plasma (panel) lighting sources which emit little or no radiant heat. HistoryThe technology is not so new; Evidence exists of neon lighting being used on a film set in Teddington Studios Engla...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

Everything you ever wanted to know about lighting Part 1

Anyone starting on the long and winding road of lighting might well be baffled at the number of very different approaches that he or she might find in books and articles. I certainly did, and that was probably because my training in Television had been engineering based, where the very nature of engineering provides specific answers to specific pro...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

CTV OB Truck

Responding to the growing demand for HD broadcasts and with a fleet of already overworked outside broadcast trucks, CTV Outside Broadcast’s newest addition to its fleet, OB 9, is a fully-equipped production facility with the latest in High Definition production, mixing and recording equipment. Targeted squarely at major entertainment and sporting e...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008