In Broadcast - In Show Guide 2016 - 102


102

www.inbroadcast.com | IBC2016 InShow Guide | 9-13 September

Juhl Lights Danish Radio's
TV Studios with BB&S Lighting
Creative lighting design goes hand in
hand with BB&S Lighting technology...

D

anish Lighting Designer Robert
Juhl has long known the pluses of
LED lighting fixtures, such as low power
draw, low heat generation, full dimming
with no colour temperature change and
long bulb life. However, there was a
problem: "Whenever we did tests with
LED fixtures, there was always a bit of
green in them," says Juhl. "Unless you
were trained to look for it, you couldn't
really see it with your eye. But they
looked really horrible on television
cameras. I needed consistently precise
colour temperatures and a rich colour
spectrum with a range of all colours
that can be measured by a scope. And
I wanted to be able to use the LEDs
alongside tungsten and HMI."
Until this year, Danish Radio's TV
studios lived with its tungsten halogen
and HMI fixtures, which were large,
generated heat, used a lot of energy,
and couldn't be dimmed without
colour shift.
All the while, Juhl had been
keeping his eye on Danish lighting
manufacturer BB&S, who pioneered
remote phosphor technology in their
Area 48 LED lighting fixture in 2012.
The remote phosphor design separates
the phosphors that generate the colour
spectrum from the raw light of the
LEDs.
"When I got my hands on an Area 48
about a year ago, I had the television
technicians at Danish Radio test it.

For Danish Radio's main anchor desk,
Juhl used Area 48s with halogen
Fresnels for a perfect mix

They were very happy because the
green cast wasn't there."
Main Anchor Desk Make Over
Juhl's maiden voyage using Area 48's
was relighting Danish Radio's main
news studio anchor desk. He placed
18 Area 48 Softs with 5600K phosphor
panels in the newly designed overhead
soft box as his soft fill-light source. At
the time there were a few Fresnel LED
fixtures available but they didn't meet
his critical colour standards, so he
mixed the soft-source Area 48s with
halogen Fresnels because Area 48s
mixed perfectly with HMI lights.
"The rectangular desk is designed to
seat the host and contributors around
three sides," said Juhl. "Each of the
talent needed to be lit so that they
can be shot from a variety of angles
as they turn to talk with each other. I
wanted a soft source to light from all
around, but still have some directional
light for modelling.
"So we put together a huge light
box above the whole table. It's bigger
than the table. And then I added some
Fresnels for the key lights and back
lights, and put them in their own light
boxes to soften them."
The resultant lighting accomplished
exactly what the studio wanted:
colour-correct modelling light that
works from a variety of angles, that
is
comfortable
temperature-wise

Temporary glass cube studio constructed outdoors to host Danish TVs
European Football Championship telecasts

for the on-camera talent, and uses a
small fraction of the energy previously
required.
Since then BB&S developed LED light
engines for several popular Fresnel
brands that are colour accurate. So
Juhl will soon pull down the tungsten
Fresnels in that studio and relamp
them with BB&S LED light engines.
This will keep the studio cooler for the
talent, and consume a fraction of the
energy of the tungsten fixtures.
Balance Success
From Mixed Sources
A temporary glass cube studio
constructed outdoors to host the
European Football Championship
telecasts for Danish TV, presented Juhl
with unique challenges. In the confined
space, the sun contributed to the heat,
so using low heat-generating LED
fixtures was a must.
The ambient outdoor
light coming into the
set and visible on the
Copenhagen
Harbour
front that makes up the
background was daylight
colour
balance.
The
intensity of that ambient
light also varied over the
hours of the broadcast.
To match that daylight
colour
balance,
he
deployed 16 x 5600K and
16 x 3200K Area 48 Softs
as his main soft source,
along with four 5600K
Pipeline 3-foot 4-bank
fixtures stacked two-high
side-by-side that can
achieve output equal to an
M18 with a soft box.

In the ceiling he used eight sets of
4-foot 5600K individual Pipes, sideby-side. To get more directional light,
he used HMI Fresnels. Where direct
sunlight coming into the glassed-in
set became a problem, he had heavy
curtains to block the sun.
While he was able to dim the Area
48s and Pipeline fixtures easily with
no colour shift, the HMIs could only run
at full intensity. So during the day he
used the HMIs for his key lights. The
Area 48s and Pipelines mixed perfectly
with the HMIs.
As evening approached, he turned
the HMIs off and varied the dimming
on selected LED fixtures to provide
proper modelling of the talent
at a light level that matched the
background.
As the Danish crowds gathered on
the grass around the studio's giant
outdoor screen, they were unaware of
the lighting gymnastics that had gone
on behind the scenes of the popular
sports viewing spectacle.
Danish Radio's Main News Studio
The Pipeline 4-bank fixtures
worked so well for the glass-walled
studios that Juhl's next project is to
incorporate them into the relighting
of Danish Radio's main news studio.
The format of the programme
features on-camera talent and guests
walking close to a colour-saturated
wall. Because the reflected light from
that wall is creating a colour cast on
their skin as they pass by, he plans to
use the Pipeline fixtures to override
that unwanted colour and to utilise
the other benefits of BB&S' groundbreaking lights.
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