Throughout my career I have experienced all sorts of annoyances and mishaps in the world of television and stage production.  Whether it be lighting-fixtures burning out before show time, stressed-out directors screaming at crew members, or Video technicians nit-picking my every lighting decision; I’ve grown to understand that the show really does go on, and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.  Even after ten years of working as the Lighting Director for the YES (Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network), I’ve found that the second you get too comfortable with your job is the same second that something will throw you for a loop.

A few weeks back the pioneers over at Lite Panels provided YES with a full LED lighting package to be used for evaluation on the set of Yankees Baseball Today.  The package consisted of both Inca 4’s and Inca 6’s, fueled by 5-pin to ethernet and DMX power.

-Inca, for incandescent.  

–6  for 6 inch Fresnel Lens, Draws 104 watts as bright as a 1000 Watt 6” Fresnels

–4  for 4 inch Fresnels Lens, Draws 39 watts substitute for an Arri 650 Fresnel

This was the first time in my lighting career that I would be using a lighting configuration as Talent Lights consisting of strictly LED.  I was feeling very excited, and very comfortable about our test run…

We had one day to integrate the Inca units into the existing lighting rig, set levels, and finally be ready for the premiere live shoot of Yankees Baseball Today.

Let me elaborate…

LED do not run on standard dimmers, they have internal electronics which are controlled by the standard DMX lighting control protocol.

This mean, we now have to run Data to each unit from the control board. And each unit must be addressed individually. Our only option was to daisy chain data from one unit to another. (Not the best way to distribute data for television, more on that in the future.)

We were completed in the time I allotted for a “standard” hang and just had time to focus. I noticed that we were rapidly approaching our PM airtime.  We were ready, and feeling comfortable.  Job well done…  Went to the control console and all of a sudden one of the key lights went out on us and was not responding to our control console.

My Gaffer and I now had all eyes on us, and we could feel it.  The director wanted to look at camera shots and we could not controlthe anchor Key light! Never had we missed an airtime because of being unprepared, and I was not about to let it happen on this day.  We began double checking everything; The power supply, the control console, the Opto box.  What we found… was…nothing.  There was nothing wrong.  Everything was set up properly and after an hour of trying to solve the problem, with only minutes left before show time I made one final attempt at getting the light back up and running.  I simply powered down the Key light locally and powered it back up again. And well, you guessed it.  The light was up and running like new.  We made our air time for that evening and all of the troubles of the day were fading quickly. We never did have time to add Neutral Density to the new light box, but we got on air.  No one realized we almost went to Air without lights! I received compliments for how good the first show looked! The Video Engineer was absolutely thrilled with the new lights;  “Loved the skin tone! Talent looked great on our HD cameras under the Incas.”  I have a punch list of add ons.  Tomorrow is another day to add yet another light to the set.  I always find it funny, how no one notices the lighting if it is done right. They always notice it when it is wrong… Now when there is no light… is there a show?  Glad I don’t have to answer that question.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I bring you more behind the scenes stories, as well as a professional evaluation of the Lite Panels Inca LED lighting kit!

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