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Cold Turkey
(continued)
The normal staffing for a large show in this studio is, just three. One to man the board and
the other
two to rig and finelight on their own.
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A
ring of virtually immovable Par lamps around the periphery of the big studio,
and no floor lamps. |
During one of the many, welcome tea breaks, we sit in the lighting gallery
sipping the rather nice Turkish tea from small glass handle less cups and
chatting. A 100 lire note that I fish out of my wallet is the subject of much
interest; apparently they are now collector's items! The minimum value note now
is 10,000 lire with over 1,800,000 lire to the pound sterling at the time of
writing. (September 2001)
At the end of the afternoon, back to base.
Modern Ankara is built on a massive
north-facing hill. The traffic jams are terrible. Our TRT driver is very cool
and yet aggressive in his driving methods, squeezing into sparrow sized gaps. I
think he has had lessons by Hayri 'Schumacher' who used to drive Tim Wallbank
and I around Istanbul in 1999.
Reflecting on the day, Ahmet, one of the few male designers (who I worked with
on the election in '99) did a nice set in the big studio. The lighting guys
seemed to take on board the points that I was raising, time will tell. It's a
bit like building on sand, though; I can't be sure that the various bits of new
knowledge will survive.
Day 4
The day started well; Ahmet (my other translator) had talked with the producer
of last nights programme and he was very pleased with the results of yesterday's
efforts in the large studio. That was pleasing to hear but also very necessary
for the successful outcome of this kind of training.
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Ahmet, my other translator, sitting in the 'old' news set.
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Then a medium hike down the kilometres of corridors to the new newsroom where a
24-hour news service is planned. Shades of BBC World, CNN, SKY etc. here. I met
one of the ten or so news Directors and also the two designers who are involved
with this project. It seems that there is no one single person who is in charge
of this project and as a result the design is going ahead in a somewhat
piecemeal manner. Everyone is aware of this particular headless chicken
(turkey?) and agreed with my description of 'Byzantine' planning.
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Ebru
models for me, lit by two three quarter front soft lights.
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At
this stage, a little imagination was required as the set was still being built. I took my trusty Seconic light meter around the room and noted that the level of
key light from the two DeSisti cold light units was approximately 800 lux at the
proposed desk position. Once again, I think I was expected to give my blessing
to the positioning of the lamps, they were well and truly bolted to the ceiling.
Three quarter front softs. Know what I mean?
The very pleasant and knowledgeable senior engineer who had 'shopped' for the
lights was Mr. Fatih (pronounced Farty) was keen to ask my
opinions on this opening gambit, and should we do something with the windows?
Although the windows were North facing, it was clear to my Seconic that on a
bright day, ND was going to be 'useful'. Oh, and daylight Colour Temperature
tubes would be quite useful in the DeSisti's instead of the tungsten ones.
Having given Mr Fatih a shopping list, it was time for a trip into the existing
news studio (digital Hyperhad cameras) and measured 1600 lux! Even with autocue
on two of the three cameras, they were working at f5.6. I would just love to
have changed the lighting immediately, without waiting for the new set. The
vertical glass panels around the rear of the news reader would have been a
challenge but I knew that it could have looked so much better than it did.
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