Good Morning America, ABC News’ iconic #1 rated morning show, has a new home - and a new look - in the recently completed Rober A. Iger Building at 7 Hudson Square in lower Manhattan, New York City. As Walt Disney Company finished their new $3 billion (some say closer to 4) corporate headquarters at Hudson Square, they have been gradually transitioning all of their ‘brands’/divisions (such as ABC, ESPN and Hulu) from around the metropolitan area into one centralized location. The facility also houses over 20 studios, five of which are two floors underground, and are home to iconic ABC shows, now including Good Morning America, which moved to Hudson Square from it’s 26-year-home at Times Square Studios, where it was launched in a two floored windowed studio in 1999, with lighting designed by Dennis Size, of Lighting Design Group.
Size was once more asked by ABC to design several of their new studios at Hudson Square, including the new iteration of Good Morning America (GMA) in Studio C, which as he notes, “ended up being quite an undertaking.”
Good Morning America is a live two-hour morning show that endeavors to blend hard news with more entertaining features and a wide range of human interest stories from around the country in their goal to inform, instruct and often delight/entertain viewers starting their day. “Since the show broadcasts a wide range of segments featuring interviews with a myriad of experts, weather forecasts, pop culture segments, consumer product analysis/demonstrations, fashion shows, live performances, etc., the studio requires a multitude of areas to stage/shoot the various segments,” explains Size. “The biggest challenge was to provide a lighting design that was completely versatile, and able to service the ever-changing production demands from 360 degrees, around the huge studio, no matter where the talent went.”
Studio C is 100’ long and 35’ wide, with a maximum lighting grid height of 24’-0” and totally engulfed by LED video-tiled walls, including a full video floor and a myriad of overhead LED video tiled beams and curved elements. The major use of video walls to create virtual scenery created another challenge for Size and his lighting team: comprised of Ben Granucci, gaffer/systems designer; Alex Kyle-Dipietropaolo, associate designer; Sloane Kolesar, assistant designer; Ariel Benjamin, GMA lighting director; Dustin Coffey, programmer, Ed Ford, GMA head electrician, Daniel Kantor, head of the ABC electric shop, and an entire village of IATSE Local 1 electricians. Daniel DeFranco served as Lighting Design Group production manager (handles scheduling, non-union crewing, and design budget for Size).
“The compressed schedule imposed by ABC added another layer of complexity to the project. Light hang and rigging started the third week of May - while the set was still being built - and the studio launched ‘ON AIR’ four weeks later on June 16. To satisfy the incredible daily demands of the show, Seth Easter, production designer for ABC, designed a state-of-the-art set made up of LED video panels ….. 65 distinct video elements and over 187 million pixels. The set also has almost a mile and a half of LED tape,” Size points out.
In discussing the goal for the new design of the studio, Easter explains “A show like GMA functions almost like a variety show with so many different segments, often of different moods, that need to happen in different places around the studio. Adaptability and flexibility were key to this new design and that is why the set is so video heavy. Maybe we want to do weather with maps next to the anchor desk, but we also need to be able to have a couch in that area. The ability to quickly change from a weather map to a scenic element in 10 frames was critical.”
The studio can actually be divided into two halves – the A side and B side – separated by huge double sided moving LED panels that become an ‘air wall’ of sorts. “The A side is home to the main anchor desk, which remains a constant for hard news. To help light the anchor desk, Seth designed an “S curved” video ticker header that hangs in front of the desk to allow for anchor lighting positions at the optimum angle,” says Size.
“Directly opposite the anchor desk are a set of three large pivoting video panel towers in tracks that travel the entire width of the studio, and are used to enhance a variety of news events, maps, and live story feeds. To the left of the anchor desk are two large stationary window-like video walls/monitors in an area affectionately called the lounge, used for weather coverage, couch/chair/standing interviews, and a number of other purposes. It should be noted that all the video monitors are also surrounded/backed by LED walls used as virtual scenery," Size adds.
The B side of the studio is a versatile, highly functional, ‘open space’ with an LED cyc that services just about any need the show can dream up – from multiple demonstration areas, soft seating (sofa/chair) areas, fashion shows, and musical performances, notes Size. “Seth Easter relies heavily on digital scenery designers Brandon Bell and Amanda Kmett’Pendry to create the incredible variety of ‘virtual scenic graphics’ and the visual content that drive multiple layers of LED’s that service the show. Ross Video’s XPression Tessera feeds the many video panels with the graphics they design.
The lighting grid is composed of thirty 12’-0” x 7’-0” pods - complete with power and data - that can lowered to the floor. “Unfortunately most were locked off close to the ceiling to accommodate the rigging for the ceiling video elements and the tracks for all the sliding walls,” Size points out. “Although the A side of the studio was a bit more ‘formalized’ and structured with it’s planned usage, the ‘B’ side was going to be an open space, and a bit of a “free-for-all” for Production to use as they needed.”
The intent of Size’s lighting design was to treat that side like an arena theatre and break the space down into ‘acting areas’, that would be encircled with light from four sides. The lighting design also layers several rows of moving lights from all four sides to achieve the best possible angles of light on the talent across the studio. The variety of fixtures and positions Size designed allows for individual fixtures to ‘multi-task’ – not only servicing different areas around the space but also sometimes serving as a key light, sometimes a backlight, or sometimes a fill light, side-light, or even as “camera candy.”
To accommodate the many additional lighting positions that would be required, Size had rigger, Chris Whitacre, hang several runs of truss around the studios – most of it hidden within the scenery. As Easter clarifies, “The studio lighting had to first and foremost illuminate the talent. We built lighting positions into the scenery, allowing for the best possible angles. In areas we knew would be highly visible, we built enough space for moving lights and ensured they were white to match the set’s look.”
Easter also hung a larger version of his “S curve’ on this B side of the studio, which Size equipped with all white moving lights, allowing for a lighting position to illuminate out from the center, in addition to providing additional “pizzazz” and versatility for musical performances.
The biggest change in the lighting design from Good Morning America’s previous design in Times Square was the total elimination of conventional tungsten fixtures. “When the show was first designed in 1999, in two studios (1st and 2nd floors) - surrounded by windows and daylight pollution - the fixture package was a mix of tungsten (5000 watt fresnels, and a myriad of ellipsoidals) HMI’s, and Arc sources (a smattering of Vari-Lites),” explains Size. “Over the years, as the show evolved and serval re-designs occurred, a mix of fluorescent and first-generation LED’s were added.”
All the new studios in Disney’s Iger Building are equipped with energy efficient, state-of-the-art, LED broadcast fixtures – in a wide variety of ‘flavors.’ For his Good Morning America design, knowing the extreme level of versatility required, Size leaned heavily into a moving light package. The original equipment list numbered over 300 movers. Budgets and availability being what they are, the final hang was reduced to 250 moving lights, a mix of High End Systems, Halcyons, Solas, and Lonestars, GLP Impression FR-1’s, plus Martin Mac Ones’ and Auras. There are also over 250 fixed focus units, the majority being softlights and ellipsoidals.
“Once the rig was hung and focused with basic cues programmed, the show’s long-time director, Lily Olszewsky, began the arduous task of blocking a wide variety of positions and looks for the three different shows inhabiting the studio, Good Morning America, GMA 3 (Monday through Friday) and Weekend GMA (on Saturday and Sunday),” notes Size. “Obviously, all the shows’ producers and directors desire their own signature ‘looks.’ They also have different cast and talent positions.” The show lighting directors, Ariel Benjamin (weekdays) and Doug Cox (weekends) collaborated with Size to establish their signature cues with the shows’ lead programmer, Dustin Coffey.
As the look of the show developed in a week of rehearsals, Size worked closely with GMA’s talented senior video operator, Gene Gallagher, who had his work cut out for him. Gallagher explained, “This is the first time I’ve worked in a studio composed of video monitors as backgrounds – 28 to be specific. I worked closely with Dennis to establish an f stop and color temperature because any variance in luminance and/or color would change the entire look of the set. Then every monitor is set to match it true to any source feeding it.”
Size and Gallagher established an f-stop (the aperture diameter of the lens opening) of f/2.8, a relatively large aperture, but also a favorite for the show, which they felt would be the best exposure for the depth of field required by the proximity of the video wall backgrounds. This allows for a somewhat shallow depth of field, with the talent in focus but the video backgrounds slightly blurred. To maintain this f/stop the relative intensity of the light on the talent averages 60 footcandles, slightly less for lighter skinned talent, slightly more intensity for darker skinned talent.
The decision was also made to establish an average color temperature of 4500 Kelvin, always a great balance between the warmth of convention tungsten lighting and the somewhat ‘cold’ blueish/white of daylight lighting (which the on-camera talent always hates). That became the “TV white” programmed into all the lighting fixtures.
Size and Gallagher also discussed filtration as well, not just for softening the on-camera talent, but also to deal with the issue of moire – common with video monitors. As Gene explains further, “With the dawn of 4K/HDR, the images being produced by the newer cameras are sharper than ever. One way to deal with the pattern moire is to purchase monitors with a very tight pixel pitch, but this isn’t always a fix all. Sony has developed an Optical Low Pass Filter (OPLF) which we use to help reduce moire patterns and other artifacts in images by slightly blurring the high-frequency image formation before it hits the sensor.”
Although the OPLF will soften talent slightly it isn’t nearly as strong as the results achieved with a Soft FX, Black Pro Mist, or a Glimmerglass filter – which were used previously on the cameras at GMA’s former studio, often in conjunction with the skin detail feature of the camera. Good Morning America prides itself on making the on camera talent look as glamorous as possible – not only for it’s own show cast, but also for the endless stream of celebrities who come on as guests. Hence the need for supplemental filtration to help Gallagher ‘paint his subjects’ in the best possible light provided by Size and his team.