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Prism Profiles on American Idol

Kieran Healy is using four of the Prism RevEAL LED Profiles to keylight the judges

20 June 2012

USA - After 11 seasons and an Emmy Award, lighting designer Kieran Healy continues to raise the bar for live television design with his dynamic and well-balanced looks on Fox's American Idol. This season Healy chose to keylight the three judges - Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, and Randy Jackson - with the RevEAL LED Profile from Prism Projection.

"I chose the RevEAL LED Profile for the keylighting of the judges since the light provided me with a beautiful, flat field and for the fact that I could choose any colour temperature that I wanted-and maintain that balance," explains Healy.

"I am typically using them with a color temperature around 4,700-4,800K. We have a lot of different arc sources in the lighting design and that just averages it out. It is also easy to match the followspots, because you want all your keylights to match. Invariably the handheld camera will shoot the judges and then turn around and shoot the performance, so if you have one colour temperature for the judges and another for the stage it is very noticeable; at least it is to me. The Prism did a good job of matching colour temperature."

Healy is using four of the Prism RevEAL LED Profiles to keylight the judges as they sit at their table. "I usually use a followspot as a key when people are moving around but here I had a fixed location. I am keying the judges from a 45° angle left and right. Principally because when you try to key them from straight on it ends up backlighting all the theatrical smoke on stage, which then creates a fuzzy diffused image of the performers."

(Jim Evans)