Lighting The 90th Annual Oscars

Lighting designers Bob Dickinson and Travis Hagenbuch lit the 90th Oscars, broadcast live from The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Seen on ABC on Sunday, March 4, the Oscars set featured 45 million Swarovski crystals and rotating panels as well as a lot of video content, creating various challenges for the LDs.

Live Design chats with Hagenbuch about adding a layer of light to Hollywood’s star-studded evening.

Live Design: How did you light the proscenium with all those crystals?

Travis Hagenbuch: We were lucky in that the proscenium took light really well. What it wanted was to be lit from a bunch of different angles to show off its multifaceted nature. It was front-lit and cross-lit with a series of Philips Vari-Lite VL3500 Spots and VL2402s, and was up-lit with some Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast TRX. 

LD: There was a lot going on onstage, with the panels and other set elements. How did that impact the lighting positions or angles? 

TH: LD/programmer Andy O’Reilly spends a lot of time on this show manicuring the scenery and finding what angles look best on camera, especially for the close-up backgrounds behind acceptance speeches. Luckily, the schedule allows the time to do that, although you’d always like more. He had a start, in-motion, and end look for every scenic move of the night. 

One big challenge he had was constant reflections off of the proscenium onto other things, especially the fly-in projection screen and stage closedown, both of which flew in and out like yo-yos all night long and needed constant clean-up cues to try to keep them clean. 

LD: What were your workhorse fixture? Where and why?

TH: The workhorses on this show have been VL3500 Spots and VL3500 Washes for several years. The stage, ladders, balcony rails, and floor are littered with them in every place we can find. Although to the naked eye, it might look densely hung, finding the best angle for all the scenery in all of its positions, as well as on all the people in all their positions, all while being shot by 20+ cameras in all their positions, is like threading a needle. Fewer fixture types is helpfully consistent and means that if one position isn’t quite right for a particular focus, then there are usually other options just a few feet upstage, downstage, or onstage to get it right. 

LD: What about the use of LEDs?

TH: There was a lot of LED tape in the scenery. It was particularly successful in the sliding close-up backgrounds, and we used LED tape as footlights because of its low profile, and the continuous defining edge it gives the stage. We had ColorBlasts on the proscenium and in the orchestra pit, but for the most part this was an arc and tungsten source show. 

LD: Can you talk about the color palette?

TH: Since the set was very screens-dominant, we often took our direction from that content. Many of the scenic looks started with virtual scenery on the upstage wall and LED legs, with complementary practical pieces downstage to give depth and provide cutaway pieces for cameras to weave in and out of. 

We also make a point to ask each presenter what color they are wearing when they rehearse so we can fend off any potential clashes between wardrobe and background. We naturally can’t do that for winners, but we do it wherever we can plan ahead. 

LD: Who were the programmers and their consoles?

TH: Andy O’Reilly had the all of the moving lights and set electrics on a PRG v676. Patrick Boozer had all of the audience light as well as the strobes on an ETC EOS Ti. Lighting the audience on this show is a full-time project for two weeks in addition to the complexity of what’s going on onstage. 

LD: What about the integration of the lighting with the video?

TH: We were always in communication with Raj Kapoor, creative director and co-producer, and Jason Rudolph in the screens truck to make sure we were playing in the same sandbox. Tweaks were a constant, both with us adapting to their looks and them adjusting to ours, all depending on how everything played in the room once we saw it in the full-scale model onstage. Jason also took photos of the actual set while we were lighting it that he and Raj’s team incorporated into the content.