Brilliant lighting by Bob Dickinson, Noah Mitz, and the team at Full Flood added pizzazz to the Oscars, from full-stage shots to close-ups of the stars. Broadcast live on ABC from The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023, the Academy Awards celebrated the glamour of the movies in style, for those in the house as well as more than 18 million viewers at home. Live Design chats with the LDs about this year's design.
Check out the light plots and gear list here.
Live Design: Please talk about the collaboration with the scenic designers and the different looks this year?
Bob Dickinson: The visual creative team of production designers Alana Billingsley and Misty Buckley, screen content producer Raj Kapoor, content operator Jason Rudolph, and the lighting designers (Noah and myself) started creative Zooms with the producers in early November. The goal was to create a hybrid set that had: 1) real 3D scenery 2) screens that were clad with translucent 3D scenery and 3) high-resolution naked LED screens. The goal was to have the naked screens to always mimic real scenery and architecture, when not servicing playback video content. After several years of the Oscars trying unorthodox scenery and venues (L.A. Union Station and “club” seating at the Dolby), the goal was to visually visit the architecture and graphics of Hollywood's golden age of the 1930’s. This was a deco/streamline school. Also it was important to the producers that the set extend out into the theater by cladding the box seating along the side walls with screens and architecture, plus a sweeping header that extended over the orchestra level seating. The decision from the top down was that this was not going to fall into the trap of just doing a screen show, which so many broadcast fall victim to. The Deco look is not new to the Oscars, but it has been decades since last referenced—what is new was the amount of screen technology that was embedded on stage and front of house.

LD: Were there specific challenges with the Dolby Theatre at this year's show?
BD: A decision to put a large orchestra off stage, out of view of the audience but very present on camera. This caused the onstage scenery to only occupy half the stage space. There was a garage upstage center for performances and the like and an elevator for some scenic changes and band reveals. A deliberate decision was not to have a huge full stage “close down” or piece of scenery that seals off the upstage to allow for scenic changes for performances or large scenic changes. This meant that everything was visible to the live audience including scenic changes or talent preset positions. This mandated that while an intro was occurring in close up at one of the “home base” positions, which were far stage left and right, the main stage had to be dim. This approach was risky, but worked nicely. Not having a huge close-down scenic element led to a visual that felt expansive and deep. On some Oscar telecasts the “close down” was the scenery that half the broadcast was in front of, which led to a shallow look.
LD: Can you discuss the use of LED—choice of fixtures; color? How do you pick the fixtures for the rig?
Noah Mitz: The rig was an array of the usual top-line instrumentation that we use on these broadcasts, but I would like mention the new, to any show, not just the Oscars, installation of continuous lines of Martin VDO Sceptron LED strips in the orchestra level audience seating. The intent of these instruments was to supply much-needed lower fill light to faces. This year due to scenery, lighting angles for audience lighting were not ideal and in many cases steep. This is a broadcast about faces and gowns after all! The trend in award shows is to under light the audience to give a better “live” vibe. Color and reduced lumens are appropriate on music shows, but this is the Oscars and we want the audience close ups to be flattering and bright. They are movie stars after all! So the thinking was to have the fill light come from the seat backs of the row in front. We installed the Sceptrons so we also had the option of mapping effects and controlling smaller segments of each fixture. While they worked fantastically on the faces, a wonderful byproduct was being able to reflect and animate based on the onstage screen content. As many of these shows have overhead cable cameras now, the resulting shots tend to be downward angles, which tend to be dark since most of the men tend to wear tuxedoes. These super-wide and high angles suddenly came to life with the audience LEDs animating and coloring to harmonize with the screens which further enhanced the overarching design goal of creating an immersive experience for the audience and cameras. The producers both emailed the following morning and both noted what an incredible difference in the audience shots and that even some stars who were in the audience noted, positively, about the installation.
LD: What are the best awards show techniques for lighting faces, while at the same time lighting the set?
NM: Specificity is key. It is not as much containing key light so it does not influence the scenery is the challenge, but rather the myriad of camera shadows that are created by unorthodox use of cameras that are very close to talent. Glenn Weiss (director/producer) has discovered by putting a teleprompter on jibs, cable cams, handhelds, and Agito remote dollies, and moving those cameras within a few feet of the talent he uses a wide-angle lens, which shows much more of the scenery. The problem is that the cameras cast shadows from traditional followspot angles. This necessitated the use of many key lights that come from remote followspots or ellipsoidal moving lights. These from various angles that supplied a flattering key light, but carves out the camera. Patrick Boozer, one of two lighting directors who ran board on the show, worked with lighting director Mike Berger and his associates to focus and meter every single mark on the show. So the followspots would follow them onto a mark, then we would cross fade to the complex key light for that mark. A lot of work!

LD: What about collaboration and integration of video?
BD: We started to work with Raj and his team early on. Since the decision was made to use shades of white as the main color palette for the broadcast, we followed this lead. The few times saturated color was used, it was distinct. So many of these shows use so much color that I believe the viewer gets numb to it. It is amazing how powerful color is when used deliberately and sparingly.

LD: Can you talk about the lighting of the live song performances?
NM: The songs were so different, it was a little fun interpreting them. From the “noon day in the marketplace” dance lighting for "Naatu Naatu “ to grunge incandescent illumination of Lady Gaga, they were all different. Unlike the rest of the broadcast we were able to use high contrast key lighting and some deep colors. It is always a dance, negotiation between talent desires and not using a lighting approach that is already in play for a different performance. In the end, all of the talent were thrilled with the look of their performances.


LD: What made the show look so good this year, it has been highly complimented!
BD: Beyond the obvious impact of the seating LED strips and working so tightly with the screen content, I believe that it is the face lighting that is remarkable on this broadcast. Given invasive camera angles, they could have been compromised, but I felt the closeups were really good. This was the work of Noah, Mike, Will, Andy, Patrick, Hannah and Tyler. They are the heroes on this one!