CNBC equips new Studio B with Martin LED
- Details
When anchor Shepard Smith joined CNBC in July 2020 to host The News With Shepard Smith, the network took the opportunity to completely renovate its 3,600sq.ft Studio B set. The new set is dominated by two massive LED video walls, including a five-panel display opposite the host’s desk that can be used to show multiple video feeds for remote guests and correspondents or combined to display one large image.
Additionally, the centre screen can be moved up to 17ft away from the wall via a motorised arm to draw focus to a specific element. In order to complement the light from the displays with precisely-calibrated illumination and reduce electricity costs, CNBC opted to replace the studio’s incandescent lighting with a modern LED solution.
The network hired Ferri Lighting Design & Associates to equip Studio B with a complete Martin lighting solution including more than 200 Martin ELP CL ellipsoidal profile fixtures and 50 RUSH PAR 2 CT Zoom wash fixtures.
“We had previously talked about converting Studio A to LED, but budgets and COVID put that project on the back burner,” said Bruce Ferri, owner of Ferri Lighting Design & Associates. “When the Studio B project came up, I decided to move forward and make it an all-LED installation. The big reason is that most of the set is dominated by displays. When you use incandescent light, you have to colour-correct the displays down to 3,200 degrees, but most displays are not designed to operate at that color temperature. The Martin fixtures allow us to work at a higher colour temperature to match the displays.”
FLDA selected Martin ELP CL fixtures as the main light for illuminating talent and scenery, deploying a total of 226 in Studio B’s lighting rig.
“The nice thing about the ELPs is that in addition to using them as lights for talent, we can use them as scenery lights because they're full-spectrum,” said Ferri. “I've done other installations where the talent lights have been variable white with no colour mixing, but as things change and all of a sudden you have too many talent lights and not enough scenery lights, you're at a huge disadvantage. So, the nice thing about the ELPs is that I can use them for both.”
To augment the main lighting, FLDA selected Martin RUSH PAR 2 CT Zoom fixtures as fill-lights.
Studio B reportedly consumes only 10% of the power used by the neighbouring Studio C, where Mad Money is broadcast from. Not only does this reduce operating expenses for the network, it also eases the burden on the facility’s backup power system in the event of a power failure.
