Lighting Design Mistakes We See Most Often, and How to Avoid Them
Six recurring faults in studio and stage lighting plots, from skipped site visits to flat key light, with practical ways to catch each one before the rig goes up.
Callum Reid · · 6 minutes to read
Drawing the plot before seeing the room
The most common fault starts at the desk. A lighting plot is drawn from a floor plan, the rig looks tidy on paper, and nobody checks the ceiling until the crew arrives. Then the grid turns out to sit lower than the drawing assumed, a sprinkler pipe runs across the planned position of the back lights, or the power feed is on the wrong wall. Every one of these costs a day of rework, and they are all avoidable with a single visit.
Our habit is to measure the room ourselves, even when a drawing is supplied. We note the clear height under beams, the position of fixings, the distance to the nearest distribution board and the colour and finish of the walls, because a pale wall bounces light that a dark curtain swallows. Photographs taken from the camera positions are worth more than any number of emailed dimensions.
A plot drawn after that visit usually changes very little on the day, which is the whole point.
- Measure the grid height and any obstructions yourself
- Photograph the room from each planned camera position
- Locate the power feeds and note their rating
- Check wall and floor finishes for reflection
Treating the key light as an afterthought
Many rigs are built around a general wash and the key light is added last, from wherever there is space. The result is a presenter lit from too high or too far to one side, with dark eye sockets and a shadow under the chin that no amount of camera adjustment will remove. Faces are what the audience watches, so they deserve the first decision in the plot, not the final one.
We start from the presenter or panel position and work outwards. The key sits roughly forty-five degrees off the camera axis and slightly above eye line, with fill softer and from the opposite side. For a panel of several guests, each seat gets its own key, so that someone leaning forward does not step out of the light.
Once the faces are right, the background and the set can be lit around them with far less argument.
Ignoring the cameras that will record it
A rig that looks lovely to the eye can behave badly on camera. Mixing lamps with different colour temperatures is the classic case: warm tungsten next to cool LED fixtures produces faces with one orange cheek and one blue one. Flicker is another, appearing when dimmers and shutter speeds disagree, and it often only shows up once recording starts.
Agree the camera settings with the vision operator before choosing fixtures, not after. Ask what shutter speed and frame rate will be used, which white balance the cameras will be set to, and whether any camera will move across the set. A short test recording at full level, played back on a proper monitor, shows problems that the eye forgives.
Where fixtures must be mixed, gels or fixture settings can bring them together, but only if someone has planned for it.
- Keep every fixture on a face at one colour temperature
- Test for flicker at the actual shutter speed
- Record a short clip and review it on a broadcast monitor
Overloading circuits and forgetting the heat
Lighting rigs draw more power than people expect, and studios and venues rarely have spare capacity where it is needed. A plot that ignores circuit ratings ends with tripped breakers during rehearsal, or worse, a rig that works until the room warms up. Older fixtures are the worst offenders, adding heat to a space where presenters already sit under lamps for hours.
We total the load per circuit while drawing the plot and leave a margin of around a fifth. We also mark which fixtures can be swapped for lower-draw LED equivalents if a feed proves weaker than described. Ventilation matters too: a small studio with no air movement becomes uncomfortable within an hour, and uncomfortable guests perform badly.
A plan that shows the electrical load alongside the fixture list is much easier for a venue electrician to approve.
Leaving no room for change on the day
A plot fixed to the last lamp is brittle. The guest arrives wearing something shiny, the set piece is a metre to the left of where it was drawn, or the director decides that the second camera needs a different angle. If every fixture is already committed to a job, the only answer is compromise.
We keep a small number of flexible fixtures in the rig, a couple of movable spots on stands and a spare soft source, and we label every circuit clearly so that a change takes minutes rather than a search through cabling. A written cue sheet, even a simple one, lets the operator return to a known state after experimenting.
Flexibility costs little to plan and saves a good deal of stress when something inevitably moves.
- Reserve a few unassigned fixtures for late changes
- Label circuits at both the dimmer and the fixture
- Keep a plain written record of the final settings
Skipping the rehearsal with real people
A rig is often tested with an empty chair and a stand-in holding a clipboard. It looks fine. Then the real presenter sits down, taller than expected or wearing glasses, and a lamp that was perfect reflects straight into the lens. Skin tones, hair and clothing all behave differently from a test card.
Wherever possible, run lighting through at least part of the rehearsal with the actual people in their actual positions, wearing what they will wear. Ask them to move as they would during the show: lean in, turn to a colleague, stand up. Walk the stage performers through each mark and watch for places where they drop out of the light.
This is the cheapest correction in the whole process, because everything is still in reach and nobody has yet started recording.
Most lighting problems are decided before a single lamp is switched on: in how well the room was measured, how early the faces were considered and how much was left open for change. None of the habits above is complicated, but they need a little time set aside in the plan. If a rig has misbehaved for you, it is worth working back through these six points before blaming the fixtures.
Callum Reid
Senior Sound EngineerCallum specialises in live sound for concerts and festivals and in studio monitoring setups.