Lighting for YES Network Live at Montclair

Each year the YES Network conducts a remote shoot at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center at New Jersey's Montclair State University. YES and Montclair have developed a great relationship with each other over the years due to this annual affair. This year the crew was back to shoot Yankees Baseball Tonight, but this time the stakes were higher; this time we were going live! In years past we taped our segments and shows from Montclair but not this year. Live TV brings on a whole new plethora of responsibilities and leaves absolutely no room for error and I was ready for the job.

Our lighting crew arrived on location at 8:30 AM to begin set up. The location: a small lecture hall and learning center; not so adequate for TV lighting. Although we weren't rolling until 6:30 PM, we still needed to allot ourselves enough time to make sure everything was exactly in order, because like I said, live TV leaves absolutely no room for error. Earlier this month myself and a few other crew members spent a day scouting the location and began brainstorming and noting things that needed to get done in order to make the set look as good as possible on our limited budget.

Another reason we arrive on the scene so early is so we can get the majority of our work done before the rest of the crew shows up. When the camera men are around and the director is on-set, things tend to get a little stressful. This way, the basic lighting configuration is set and the camera-ops and directors can come in and block their shots and determine whether or not any changes need to be made. If the director does call for a change in the configuration, it will be a minor fix since we are already set.

After a long day of work it was time to roll the cameras. With a live studio audience and a live television audience tuning in, I can confidently say that it was a successful day of production. The show ran smoothly and we received nothing but positive feedback about the set's appearance on television.

This particular gig was fun for me for two reasons:

1.) I was able to get out of the studio and work on a remote location, all-the-while being a part of the growing relationship between the Yankees/YES and the local community.

2.) I needed to be creative with the only items I had on hand. Doing the best with what you've got was our phrase for the day, as we were working on a limited budget.

I would like to give a big shout out to The Lighting Design Group for brilliantly designing the rig and set up for this show. Those guys are the absolute best in the biz and I'm fortunate to be able to collaborate with such talented people to get the job done. Additional kudos the Metrovision for providing the satellite truck for the shoot, as well as Shadowstone for supplying the rental lighting package.

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