SWT page 4

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Slightly Warmer Turkey

Page 4

As darkness fell, I waited for 90 minutes for the non-arrival of a TRT driver to take me up to see ‘Gece Kahvesi’ being lit. Eventually I took a ‘taksi’ and ‘enjoyed’ a hair raising and seatbelt less drive around the city. It was a brand new set, which had just been completed for this long running Café/Bar L.E. series. Tim Wallbank and I had been involved with the programme on our previous visit. As usual, there was no evidence of a floor plan or a lighting plan. The scenery was being built by enthusiastic and noisy scenery men in brown coats. Hayrettin explained his lighting intentions to me as he waited his turn for the studio floor. His ideas were, I have to say, well thought out.

A long running Cafe/Bar programme that is a regular Sunday evening programme from Istanbul

I watched him rig and focus the mixture of 2K’s, 1K’s and egg crate less softlights with the help of Mehmet who was in the lighting gallery upstairs. If they had an intercom system it was not in evidence; instructions were shouted at each other with great gusto. It was a ‘late late’ show so I escaped in time to get back and watch transmission in my hotel room. To be fair, Hayrettin had done a good job and there was little to criticise in his work. He had thought things out, and used a low light level to maximise the effect from pracs and also to encourage limited depth of field so as to preserve a drama like depth in his pictures.

Neon tubes (much loved by TRT designers) had been covered in N.D. type material and the whole balance of the picture was really quite pleasing. Chatting to him later, I told him what I thought. It was clear that he was in great demand outside TRT for his undoubted skills. What was nice was that the whole team working with him were working with him. In Ankara, the ability to work in a team was not as evident.

Istanbul 1, Ankara 0.

Monday February12th The first task of the day was to fill a Renault 12 (built in 1997 to a 30 year old specification!) with lighting men and to zoom off to the Istanbul stock exchange where I found a camera wide open looking at a female presenter who was lit (on one side) by over steep houselights while two ancient 300 watt Mizars with 0.5 CTB and some diffuser or other were standing on the side lines unlit and un-loved; one of which was acting as a coat rack! This was a direct result of my observations of TRT’s news output, where it was clear to me that anything coming from Istanbul into the main news programmes in Ankara looked as though it needed a bit of the lighting equivalent of WD40 on it. Adjacent cameras acting for other news networks were all sensibly bouncing light off a conveniently placed curved ceiling piece to which the TRT cameraman had remained oblivious. ‘Inshallah’ (God willing) as they say in this part of the world. We soon had the coat stand and its partner working for a living, and I had even worked out a plan for achieving some backlight using kitchen foil and a Maglite for the long haired blonde who had given me a rather nice smile. Well, you know what I mean.		Adjacent cameramen had sensibly used 270 watt Sachtler lamps bounced against the ceiling to give a nice soft key light for their presenter.
		TRT's presenter had steep, unflattering shadows from a house light just out of shot.
		I thought that this pair of bronze sculptures captured the atmosphere of the old, manual exchange beautifully. They were just out in the corridor to remind all how it used to be.
		She may be looking off to one side, but at least she is now lit in a rather more flattering way. Black wrap did the job of hiding the prac from creating its nasty effects.

As we entered the building through security worthy of Heathrow on a bomb scare day, I was amused to note that all the employees were leaving. It was just midday and I was told they were going for lunch; all of them, all at once! Whilst we were fiddling with coat stands and black wrap, the Dow Jones and the FTSE could have been plunging or going off the top of the enormous graphical display, but Turkey could rest in peace knowing that its’ financial wizards were enjoying their packed lunch.

After returning to TRT via the scenic route (just for me, I was told) it was time to take a look at the Istanbul TV news studio which acting as an ‘island site’ for Ankara. My jaw visibly dropped when I saw the somewhat OTT array of about ten cold light units delivering 1600 lux at any point on the desk in front of the Chromakey screen. Oh, and the blue backing had a hefty 3500 lux scorching its painted surface. No, it wasn’t an ancient image orthicon colour camera from Lime Grove; it was a modern chip device.

With apologies to devotees of cold light lovers everywhere, I returned the lighting to a traditional tungsten rig using some elderly 500 watt and 300 watt fresnels that were languishing in a corner of the studio. I did find a better use for two of the cold light units in lighting the blue screen. I mentally earmarked two of the others for Ankara’s newsroom where air conditioning was non existent and staff had resorted to opening the N.D.’d windows on occasions even in January.

I couldn't resist putting in this view with me blocking part of it. There can't be any Broadcaster in the world who has a finer view than this. TRT's Istanbul studios have this very view.