Pandemic. New venue. Active train station. Daylight streaming in. What else would the designers face while lighting the 93rd Oscars on April 25, 2021 at Union Station in Los Angeles? But nothing much daunts veteran LD Bob Dickinson of Full Flood and his co-designer Noah Mitz in their quest for excellence no matter the challenges.
Dickinson addresses the lighting for this year’s Academy Awards in this Q&A for Live Design, noting that the biggest challenges were the Covid protocols, daylight, and a non-theatrical venue.
Live Design: Considering this was a rather unusual year for the Oscars, how did you approach the design.. what were the steps in the process?
Bob Dickinson: The location was practical, being a real operating train station. The biggest consideration for us were: 1) The producers did not want this to be in anyway theatrical. No apparent light cues or use of extreme color; 2) The windows exposed us to the raw sunshine of sunny Southern California. To help control this, we had a removable film added to the windows that offered an N3 as well as Hamburg frost.
We also were dealing with a landmarked building that would not accommodate any hung lighting positions. That and the fact that the producers did not want to see any instrumentation drove us to install six vertical towers that did not exceed the floor load bearing. Knowing we needed to deal with some 600 FC of daylight shafts as well a full lighting at night, we loaded up the towers to the max. We also installed robotic, remote-controlled followspots that allowed for surgical key lighting anywhere in the “venue.” Each handheld camera had a custom LED camera light as well as several roaming “sun gun” panel lights.
LD: What was the artistic intent of the lighting in each area of Union Station?
BD: We needed all the spaces to appear to be gaining illumination through natural light. We ended up lighting all of the interior walls, but not in a distracting manner. This, in addition to the fact we shot from outside to inside, required full contribution of the video operators led by Guy Jones.
LD: What was the load in, programming, etc.. was the station open to passengers during that timeframe?
BD: The station was open! Production was really challenged dealing with an open, public facility and still allowing for construction, installation, and rehearsals honoring all Covid protocols. It did get worked out, but everything was a snail’s pace.
LD: Daylight to moonlight, how did you light that progression?
BD: The most difficult hurdle with production was getting rehearsals on real time to the show. Since we started at 5pm and went until past 8pm, we went from full sun for three quarters of the show and nighttime for the rest. Somehow they were able to schedule the rehearsals that honored our department’s needs…for the most part. We built cues that followed the sun, but each day was difficult, so we modified the rehearsals each day assuming the weather forecasts were correct for show day. As it turned out, the forecasts were wrong! We went from a forecast the night before of “overcast” to a reality of partly cloudy! Fooled again by the forecast.
LD: What were the things you ended up liking about being in a train station, how to give it a Hollywood feel?
BD: The classic early Hollywood architecture of Union Station, being the site of so many films over the years, plus the cool Casa Blanca vibe.
