
Litepanels Sola 12 LED Fresnel on the Red Carpet 01 Mar 2013
In one of the first high-profile uses of the new 12 Fresnel LED fixture from Litepanels, a pair of daylight balanced Sola 12 fixtures filled a critical need for red carpet interviews by a major German television station.
The red carpet path along Hollywood Boulevard is surrounded by tall buildings, said Director of Photography Peter Krajewski, who for the past six years has been responsible for a program broadcast live from the red carpet. For a portion of our broadcast, this puts our talent and the stars they interview in shadows, but with a sunlit bleacher section directly in the background.
Krajewski had used HMI parabolic fixtures in the past, with their accompanying box of lenses, heavy stage cables and weighty ballasts. While those HMIs supplied enough light to balance illumination of the talent in the shade with the sunlit bleachers behind them, it meant multiple trips carrying lighting equipment from the parking structure to the street, and a pair of 20A circuits to power the lights.
In tests with the new Sola 12 Fresnels, Krajewski found a number of advantages, including easily balancing the foreground and background illumination while using less than half of a single 20A circuit and transporting all of his lighting equipment in a single trip.
The sun moves through the sky while we're live on the air, to a point where there's a tremendous difference in the amount of available light hitting the background bleachers versus our talent, who are in complete shadow, said Krajewski. Because the LED Fresnels were connected to a small DMX panel, his sound engineer was able to not only add more light by adjusting the intensity, but also focus the light beam a little tighter to overcome the sunlight. That's a feature simply not available on traditional HMI lights, Krajewski noted.
Later in our broadcast, the sun moves so that both talent and the bleachers are in the shade. With the HMIs, we could only dim the lights to something like 70%, and my sound guy would have to fly silks in front of the HMIs to drop the intensity during a commercial break. Because the LED fixtures dim all the way from 100% down to zero, we were able to use the DMX box to quickly achieve the perfect balance.
Krajewski found another feature he liked about the Sola 12 fixtures. I didn't have to use barndoors or add any diffusion in front of the Fresnel lens at all; it was a soft enough light that I was able to light the talent with just the bare light shining through the Fresnel. With the HMIs in years past, I had to bring barn doors to rig diffusion in front of the lenses. We were able to set up and break down much faster than in previous years.
The Litepanels Sola 12 LED Fresnel fixture combines the performance of a large Fresnel with the advantages of LED technology. It supplies powerful and controllable daylight balanced illumination using just a small fraction of the energy required by a traditional tungsten or daylight 2K fixture. The 12 Fresnel lens emits an even, collimated light source that can be focused and controlled for maximum versatility. An integrated DMX module provides the unprecedented control of simultaneous remote dimming and focusing. The same performance can be found in a tungsten balanced sister fixture, Litepanels Inca 12.
For more information on products from Litepanels, part of Vitec Videocom, a Vitec Group company, contact Litepanels, Inc., 16152 Saticoy Street, Van Nuys, CA 91406, Email: info@litepanels.com www.litepanels.com
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
30/06/2026
Could your journalism reach an international stage?
Entries are now open for the Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2026, one of the most prestigi...
30/06/2026
As Brazil's only way for fans to see all 104 matches, YouTube channel proves the power of digital...
30/06/2026
Brings together saturation & lo-fi effects
Following on from the release of their Voxcraft vocal-processing plug-in, UJAM have announced the launch of Retro...
30/06/2026
New IR reverb engine, Juno-inspired chorus & more
The latest version of Rapid Flow's hardware-emulation synth plug-in expands on its predecessor with a ...
30/06/2026
Excels at heavy-handed VCA compression
For their latest release, Shy Audio have recreated the crunchy' sound of a rackmount compressor that found its w...
30/06/2026
Component scarcity drives cost increases
Shortly after Apple's CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that cost increases would soon be inevitable , the company hav...
30/06/2026
Statement regarding GetUp Save Our SBS' campaign
30 June, 2026
Media releases
The GetUp Save Our SBS' campaign is an independent initiative. SBS ...
30/06/2026
Hitachi and Bank Pekao S.A. have completed the installation of the first Hitachi...
30/06/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
MainStreaming, the award-winning and innovative Edge Video Delivery Network, today announced that it has been selected by ITV to support the delivery of ITVX, I...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
When Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! needed to upgrade their wireless communications system, they turned to Clear-Com FreeSpeak wireless for their iconic televi...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/06/2026
Other World Computing Launches New Atlas Core Line with 256GB CFExpress 4.0 Type...
30/06/2026
DaVinci Resolve Studio Used for Taketoshi Sado's Perfume Cold Sleep -25 year...
30/06/2026
Fernando Cruz and Jaz Wray Join as Regional Sales Managers; Bringing Extensive S...
30/06/2026
As organizations move from AI pilots to production AI factories, infrastructure decisions have shifted from peak chip specifications to cost per token: how many...
30/06/2026
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
30/06/2026
Scripps Research scientists demonstrate a faster, cheaper route to making critical drugs using common table sugar New method illustrates how to build a tough ch...
29/06/2026
By Andy Rayner, CTO, Appear
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the largest football tou...
29/06/2026
A new multi-country study from ESL FACEIT Group, Hero Esports, and Niko Partners estimates that 400 million Gen Z consumers regularly engage with esports, under...
29/06/2026
ESPN will mark America's 250th anniversary with a series of content initiatives across its linear, digital, and streaming platforms, including a special edi...
29/06/2026
The Esports Foundation has named OBSBOT the Official Camera and Webcam Partner for the Esports World Cup 2026, bringing the company's AI-powered imaging tec...
29/06/2026
Insight Productions has launched Insight Storm, a 53-foot mobile broadcast unit designed specifically for esports production, live entertainment, and digital-fi...
29/06/2026
Gravity Media once again provided broadcast, streaming, and content-distribution...
29/06/2026
The All England Lawn Tennis Club and IBM have introduced new and enhanced digita...
29/06/2026
Four-layer instrument aimed at dark electronic music
Excite Audio's latest software instrument has been designed with dark drum and bass, atmospheric te...
29/06/2026
New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more
Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...
29/06/2026
Details environmental policies & results
The Focusrite Group have just announced that following a long audit process, they have published their 2026 sustain...
29/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/06/2026
CVP, one of Europes leading suppliers of professional video and broadcast solutions, has announced the launch of CVP Warranty , a new extended warranty programm...
29/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/06/2026
Anthropic's Claude models in Microsoft Foundry - hosted on Microsoft Azure a...
29/06/2026
Arvato Systems Achieves AWS Cloud Operations Competency
The team behind the AWS Cloud Operations Competency (from left to right: Philipp Hellmich, Johanna Bod...
29/06/2026
RT today announced that Ger Gilroy will join the RT Podcasts team to present a daily sports podcast. Launching later this year, the new show will set the spor...
29/06/2026
RT Commercial announced OUTsurance as sponsor of the Oliver Callan show on RT Radio 1 from Wednesday 1 July.
Oliver Callan doubles the fun, delivering two ...
29/06/2026
Showcasing the importance of open source innovation in American AI, Palantir'...