Band Lighting

There are many differences and similarities between lighting a band for a purely live performance and for a mutlicam production. I personally have created lighting for band concerts for a purely live performance. I have also been involved with trying to make to most out of filming these sorts of events. Lighting by its very nature can be extremely different even if the exact same rig is used, it can often be made or broken by it's operation and different operators may get two very different but equally good shows.

I was able to have a talk with Daniel Potter the lighting designer and operator of the last Choirboys tour who went with the band to Mornings With Bert Newton where he was able to see how the same band he had lit on stage was lit in the studio. The first comment he made was there was a lot less front lighting as he anticipated but lots of rear white was. This was in contrast to lighting the band live where there was little white wash during the performance and very directional front on spots used instead. He also noted the extensive use of ray cans from the rear. He also told me about the use of gobo-rotators attached to the end of Pacific spots. He commented it would be much more common to use a full blown intelligent light for a concert than a gobo-rotator.

I think that in lighting for cameras it would be much more important to get the angles of the white lights right as the camera can often harshly depict a face. It is also of importance to keep the white light to a higher level to assist in focusing and picture clarity.

Just as important as the design the actual operation of the lights would also be different. There would be less strobing of lights, any light chases would be slower and additionally there would be fewer changes in the colour states compared to a concert. If smoke was used it would be much thicker if for a concert.