A versatile LD, Seth Bernstein designs for stage and screen, as well as big events, concerts, and Saturday Night Live, where he was the Emmy® Award-recognized film unit lighting designer. Additional clients include Rihanna and Alicia Keys performances, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, and Nike, including the Nike Zoom City Arena @ NBA All Stars. In this Q&A with Live Design, Bernstein talks about his career path, his creative process, and recent projects.
Live Design: What made you want to become a lighting designer? And a few steps along your career path?
Seth Bernstein: Lighting was always in my DNA. Some of my early grade school memories involve being cast in school plays, but being even more excited to get offstage and execute a lighting cue. From there, I essentially quit summer camp and spent summers mopping stages and running followspot at the most excellent Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY.
Despite growing up in a theater, upon moving to NYC I was instantly attracted to the speed and intensity of TV, fashion and concerts. Even though I started at the bottom unloading trucks, my knowledge of lighting consoles from community theater quickly moved me up the ranks to being a console operator (this was in the early days when lighting boards were rarely used on location in TV.)
From there I started gaffing network commercials that were prepped and shot at break neck speed; which attracted the notice of DPs who were in and out of the Saturday Night Live (SNL) film unit universe. I remember them saying a few times, “that commercial was insane and you stayed calm the whole time…you might be able to do SNL,” before a producer called me out of the blue for a tryout on pretape in 2015.
This led to a four year rollercoaster ride (and on-screen credit) as the film unit lighting designer for Saturday Night Live. Each week, I would be handed a script on Wednesday night that would need to be prepped, loaded in and shot in cinema quality before Saturday morning, in order to air that night. Sometimes they would be simple location pieces, other times we were expected to deliver five music video locations and two rooftop performance stages for Drake with eight hours notice!
At the same time, I kept working as a lighting designer for industrial projects, concert tours and other television specials…always with an emphasis on pulling off the impossible in short timeframes. These projects have ranged from museum quality installs for Louis Vuitton to a national arena tour for Anderson .Paak and lighting for the music performance in the Savage x Fenty Vol. 1 special for Amazon Prime.
LD: What's in your toolbox, and what is your creative process?
SB: My creative process is highly influenced by television… whether we’re shooting things on camera or not. I always start by asking: what is the world we’re building? What are ‘practical’ fixtures that make sense visually in that world? What fixtures are necessary for the broader goals of the project but need to be hidden?
From there, the toolbox is very deep. I pull in fixtures from all over the spectrum…with an emphasis on doing small-scale shop tests of design ideas, especially if it’s in a context we’ve never tried before. For my process, this is critical… and equipment supplier shops like 4Wall are very supportive, since it prevents last minute changes that can throw everything into chaos on their end.
Once ideas have been validated, I huddle up with the electricians and associate designers to see how we can all best help each other to get the job done in the typically insane timeframe. What is worth the time to extensively detail in Vectorworks? What elements are verbally understood without spending that valuable time drawing? Where can we bring in a partner like Earlybird to quickly throw everything into a rendering and previz? With the right team and toolbox…even if you’re planning a national arena tour in 10 days, there’s still time to do the important steps one would take in a project that had months.
LD: Do you use exclusively LED fixtures.. did you transition from tungsten and halogen sources? How do you choose and use color?
SB: That’s a very good question, but a tough one! My relationship with tungsten and color are quite complicated (not to mention inextricably linked).
In my life outside of NBC/SNL, my transition to LED occurred in about 2014 when ETC unveiled the LUSTR 2 daylight fixtures. On projects for Nike, we were constantly fighting dimming curves and color correction to achieve that precious “neutral white.” We would be constantly asking “do we lamp Source Fours at 375W and use 1/4 blue? Or lamp at 750W, dim down and use full blue?” It was maddening.
The Lustr Daylight arrays in both mini and full size just eliminated that headache and we started using those fixtures by the truckload. When Arri released the Skypanel the transition was truly solidified—that fixture really changed everything for us in both events and TV.
Meanwhile, at 30 Rock almost all of the studios are still filled with tungsten lights that are quite well maintained, and there is a huge emphasis on renting as little as possible when we’re in the building. Because of that, I’m still keeping that part of my brain that balances dimming/wattage with color very active. Sometimes it’s a camera tweak and we’re able to white balance to 4500K and have all the tungsten and LED fixtures meet in the middle. This can be beautiful, especially if it’s a period piece we’re doing that day.
So to sum up, color for me is something that I try to use thoughtfully and intentionally. If tungsten is going to throw a color due to dimming, let’s lean into that. Let’s go beyond “it’s a slow song, make it blue” to think about what’s best for a skin tone…what’s the wrong choice that could make what we’re looking at more interesting?
LD: Rhianna and Alicia Keys, can you talk a little about lighting such “stars?"
SB: When you work with high level talent, you’re definitely stepping into someone else’s world. I mean this on multiple levels because of course the star owns the stage or the screen, that goes without saying! I’m talking more about how the level of collaboration required immediately goes into high gear. The TV special or event itself may have a creative director, plus the talent usually comes with their own creative team…sometimes even a lighting director of their own.
All of these people have unique insights and I find it rewarding to open my ears and listen to the often contradictory ideas everyone has. From there, we put our heads down and balance all the needs to make an amazing show.
LD: What is the most challenging and/or rewarding project you have ever worked on and why?
SB: This is a tough one, since I’m really lucky to have a constant stream of rewarding projects. I would say the Nike x NBA Uniform Launch in 2017 ranks high on the list. It was the first show I did with creative director Willo Perron, and he laid down some very unique challenges.
First of all, he wanted the space to be defined by three massive LED Video monoliths that roamed throughout the soundstage on a TAIT tracking system. This meant that a handful of three-story high obstructions regularly crossed through all the paths needed to light the highly choreographed uniform launch, both for an army of press cameras and a multi-camera set up for NBA TV & ESPN.
On top of all that, he didn’t want to see any fixtures whatsoever or use follow-spots. My first instinct was total anxiety but I thought you know what: “challenge accepted.” That meant we were building LED tape and tubes into all the scenery… plus hanging our fixtures (PRG Best Boys and LUSTR 2 Daylight ellipoisdals) as high up as possible to make this show work. We also went truly old school and did 20+ section studies of every talent position to make sure we were hitting our angles around the changing monoliths obstructions. On top of that base layer, we added a ceiling of JDC & Lightning Strikes strobes from the film world that revealed themselves for the concluding performance of Travis Scott.
In the end, the project was so rewarding because Willo’s mandates made the show look as it if glowed from within or was lit by magic. The soft washes and area blends appeared to come from nowhere and I loved the look he pushed us towards.
LD: What was your approach for Nike Zoom City @ NBA All Stars—fixtures, color, how does the lighting add excitement?
SB: This project was another classic example of a crossover project. Production Glue, another frequent and beloved collaborator, was tasked by Nike to build a regulation basketball court with an LED floor.
I put the emphasis on regulation, because a high stakes student championship game was to take place there live on Fox Sports, in addition to all the exhibition games and demonstrations with pro athletes.
The fixture that really came through for us was a totally non-traditional use of ROBE Pointes —one of my favorite fixtures. During the exhibition periods, we used the Pointes for beams and other effects to add interest but during games, we put the full frost in to make them wash lights for game play. This was a bold choice since their color temperature is not known for good key lighting, to say the least! However, we didn’t have the money or time for parallel systems for each need.
However, we did a shop test of this idea against the actual LED tiles and it totally worked! The “etherial” color of the uncorrected Pointe’s lamp gave the whole event a futuristic tone. All the cameras were able to hit their stop and capture all sorts of slow mo that wouldn’t be possible at lower light levels.
LD: How have you kept busy during the pandemic?
SB: Personally, I’ve really felt for our friends from the live event and touring sections of our world that have been largely idle during this crazy year. I’ve definitely stayed busy being available to talk with those who are struggling, and helped to find them spots available in our installation and TV work that continued.
As someone whose work crisscrosses the boundaries of live and broadcast, I got a lot of calls from our event friends who pivoted to television production to stay afloat. These included some very memorable private broadcasts that were taped in lieu of holiday parties and network upfronts (a very high stakes event centered around ad sales that’s normally done in person.) I also spent a lot of time talking to cameramen on a zoom feed in five cities and three continents about proper key lighting for virtual speaking events.
At the same time, things got back into gear at NBC quite quickly due to their incredible testing and PPE effort, so I’ve really enjoyed working on the new and totally unique Amber Ruffin Show, plus pre-tapes for Late Night and The Tonight Show. There are some really interesting things happening with emerging writers at NBC and I feel privileged to be a part of it, even though I left SNL last year. Aside from Amber, my work with Jeff Wright comes to mind immediately (he writes and plays every part in his sketches.)
I’ve also got an experiential installation at Manhattan West opening in late June that has kept the team busy throughout. That being said, I can’t wait until the doors open for live events again so we can pull in everyone who has been without work.
Performance Reel, courtesy Seth Bernstein: