Doing my first gig as a desk op on a TV set this week. Looking for som

[GwynB]

So today I got offered a job as a desk op on a shoot for a TV show. My background is in live music but I'm pretty confident the skills are transferable.

 

The job basically consists of emulating a helicopter search light with a moving head fixture on a small crane/cherry picker. I have a few ideas for this but wondered if any of you guys had any experience with this sort of thing?

 

I was thinking a narrow(ish) beam in open white, slightly out of focus. Setup a few positions on a chase and then a cue for the final resting place on the actor with some smaller faster movements? The guys also mentioned that the "set lights" would be run through the desk as well. I'm imagining these to be just simple dimmers that will be controlled under the directors guidance.

 

Does anyone have any experience and advice for this sort of situation? As I said my experience is in live music where I mainly just do what I think looks good without anyone really being that specific with me. Any insider tips would be appreciated!

 

Thanks

[timsabre]

Do what you think looks good, but looking at the camera picture rather than your eyes. Then modify as requested by the director. If it's multi camera with a vision engineer they may also have some comments to help them rack the cameras (set iris etc) as cameras see patchy intensity much more than eyes.

[p.k.roberts]

As Tim says, the TV system is far less able to handle contrast than our eyes, so that will need to be taken into account. The colour temperature is also more important, so use of ND, distance or lamp size to adjust brightness is often more common than using dimmers. Is there an LD or a DOP? Chances are you'll be working to them rather than to the director.

[mackerr]

So today I got offered a job as a desk op on a shoot for a TV show. My background is in live music but I'm pretty confident the skills are transferable.

 

The job basically consists of emulating a helicopter search light with a moving head fixture on a small crane/cherry picker. I have a few ideas for this but wondered if any of you guys had any experience with this sort of thing?

 

I was thinking a narrow(ish) beam in open white, slightly out of focus. Setup a few positions on a chase and then a cue for the final resting place on the actor with some smaller faster movements? The guys also mentioned that the "set lights" would be run through the desk as well. I'm imagining these to be just simple dimmers that will be controlled under the directors guidance.

 

Does anyone have any experience and advice for this sort of situation? As I said my experience is in live music where I mainly just do what I think looks good without anyone really being that specific with me. Any insider tips would be appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

As a "board op" you probably won't have to concern yourself with what it looks like. There will be either a lighting director or some other creative title who will tell you what to do. Generally lighting operators in television just operate the board under the direction of whoever is responsible for the overall look of the lighting.

 

Mac

[paulears]

If you are a soundie - how good are you programming and controlling moving lights? That's more likely to be an issue than the artistic part.

 

TV has so many levels and budgets. In the studio, lighting is more commonly the most boring job going. On the shows with amazing lighting, then they bring in the programmers and whizz bang merchants who seem to have the lighting desk glued to their brain.

 

What I do know is that controlling a moving light manually is always hopeless, so the task will be to programme the move you want. Sounds simple. It isn't! Especially when the Director wants it to just go a bit further here, or less quickly there.

[timsabre]

As a "board op" you probably won't have to concern yourself with what it looks like. There will be either a lighting director or some other creative title who will tell you what to do. Generally lighting operators in television just operate the board under the direction of whoever is responsible for the overall look of the lighting.

 

If you really are just "desk op" then this is true, I haven't done that many TV jobs but most of them had surprisingly little lighting expertise and relied on me to get it looking something like they wanted - these were all live-type shows for regional TV though, yours sounds like a quiz show or something.

 

Maybe you need to talk to whoever is hiring you and find out the scope of your responsibility... if there is a lighting director then you just do what he asks.

 

The thing that surprised me most about working in TV rather than live music is the number of people they bring and the amount of rehearsal you get. Even on a live show they rehearse everything, and there is a dedicated crew member for every little trivial job who mostly seem to stand around waiting for something to happen. It's quite different from the do everything yourself, busk the show mentality of live music.

[ABlackmore]

What system are you using? I'm guessing if on the larger side likely a Maxmover, LRX or one of our Panalux custom jobbies. Depending on the system it'll likely change your approach a fair bit (and may make your question entirely moot in one instance!) Otherwise potentially a generic fixture. If it's a really small gig I wouldn't be surprised to find someone manually operating from the cherry picker itself!

 

As others have pointed out though, ultimately it'll be a moot point as you'll likely be specifically directed as to what you'll be doing.

[GwynB]

Thanks, some useful advice here!

 

 

As Tim says, the TV system is far less able to handle contrast than our eyes, so that will need to be taken into account. The colour temperature is also more important, so use of ND, distance or lamp size to adjust brightness is often more common than using dimmers. Is there an LD or a DOP? Chances are you'll be working to them rather than to the director.

 

There will be an LD and a DOP there yes.

 

If you are a soundie - how good are you programming and controlling moving lights? That's more likely to be an issue than the artistic part.

 

TV has so many levels and budgets. In the studio, lighting is more commonly the most boring job going. On the shows with amazing lighting, then they bring in the programmers and whizz bang merchants who seem to have the lighting desk glued to their brain.

 

What I do know is that controlling a moving light manually is always hopeless, so the task will be to programme the move you want. Sounds simple. It isn't! Especially when the Director wants it to just go a bit further here, or less quickly there.

 

To clarify my background is mainly in lighting for live music not the music part of live music. I'm perfectly fine with programming intelligent fixtures.

 

What system are you using? I'm guessing if on the larger side likely a Maxmover, LRX or one of our Panalux custom jobbies. Depending on the system it'll likely change your approach a fair bit (and may make your question entirely moot in one instance!) Otherwise potentially a generic fixture. If it's a really small gig I wouldn't be surprised to find someone manually operating from the cherry picker itself!

 

As others have pointed out though, ultimately it'll be a moot point as you'll likely be specifically directed as to what you'll be doing.

 

It's a fairly simple setup with just the one moving head. A Robe 600E Spot I believe and some "set lights". He asked what desk I wanted him to bring in for me so I just went with an Avolites desk as I'm most familiar with them.