Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (1950-1954)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

floor to get a rough idea of the completed lighting and camera shots. From 5:30 to 6:30 there is a "break" in which the actors get notes. Lighting can meanwhile continue. From 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. there is a run-through. This is rehearsing the show against time, trying to get it all done with no stops. (There will, of course, be some stops; an hour is allowed for rehearsing a halfhour show). During this run-through the lighting director is up in the control room with the video operator and the technical director. The lighting director wears his headset with which he can direct the man on the dimmer board to adjust the dimmers for the right mood or the right light level. Also, other headsets can be plugged in on the studio floor so that he can talk tov the electricians there. During run-through the lighting director sits in the control room and makes notes. He has no occasion to stop the cast or the actors to change lights. There is another break from 7:30 to 8:30, during which the cast gets notes, and the lighting director goes down on the floor and makes any changes that he considers necessary. Dress rehearsal is from 8:30 to 9:00. This is almost as it is going to be on the air. The lighting director moves up to the control room during dress. Between 9 and 10 o'clock, just before air time, the lighting director is again on the floor, making any last-minute changes. Then 10 to 10:30 is air time. One scene in the show, Adelaide's Apartment, is shown in Fig. 7. The view is down through the lighting pipes, and shows the lighting units and the pigtails into which they are plugged. This scene used approximately 25 lighting units, namely: eight scoops or floods, out front; ten 500-watt spots, six 1000-watt spots; and one 2000-watt spot. Figure 8 is a different view of the same scene showing the lights overhead. Notice the patterns of light and dark, plus depth creating shadows, on the walls. At the top of the picture are the scoops for the base lights. On two 1000-watt spots, barndoors have been used to create the dark uppers and light bottoms on the two doors. The bars on the window are projected through by means of a 2000-watt spot which puts the bars on the curtain, showing there is some light outside. The walls of the set are lighted with one set of lights and put on one dimmer. The actors are backlighted to make them stand out from the walls and the backlights are on another dimmer. The base, or the flat front-fill, light is on a third dimmer. The key lights to give the character and shadows to actors are on a fourth dimmer. The lighting director, in the control room, can by talking to the switchboard electrician, immediately change the mood of the scene. He can bring up the flat base lights from the front, and flatten out the scene — or, he can reduce the base and vary the dimmers to give the type of picture that the program and technical directors want. This show has nine major scenes and six minor scenes to light; yet lighting can be done in one dav of studio time. Discussion Murray Dick {School of Radio Technique, Inc.}: Have you completely done away with fluorescent lighting? Mr. Ahern: Actually we have very little of it in use at the present time, for several reasons. The units are quite uncontrollable in beam spread, and also, a dimmer is only now being developed and it is rather complicated. Fluorescent lighting by itself seems to give a pretty harsh complexion — you have to have incandescent to get the proper tonal renditions that the director likes. By the time that is done you find yourself using quite a bit of incandescent. Also, with incandescent you have greater flexibility, for fluorescent lighting units are bulky and heavy to move around. Mr. Dick: Isn't there a great deal of infrared light coming from your in 196 March 1954 Journal of the SMPTE Vol. 62