A Desk, Two Presenters and a Shadow That Would Not Go Away

Rhys produces a lunchtime news bulletin for a small regional station, and he rang us in the first weeks of autumn with a complaint he could not quite put into words. Two presenters sat side by side at one desk, and on the monitors one of them looked healthy while the other looked faintly green, with a hard shadow under the chin. His crew had tried moving the lights twice and had given up after the second attempt.

He was careful to say the cameras had been fine for years. The trouble had started when the old lamps were replaced with a mixed batch of LED panels bought over two budgets. Nobody had written down which panel sat where or what colour temperature each was set to, so every adjustment was a guess made at ten minutes to air.

Priya and I visited on a quiet morning when the studio was free. Before touching anything we photographed the grid, noted each fitting and measured colour temperature at presenter height. The panels were split between two makes, and the readings ranged across several hundred kelvin, which explained the green cast better than any camera fault could.

The shadow had a simpler cause. The key lights sat nearly level with the presenters, so light fell flat across the desk front and dropped hard beneath the chin. A fill source existed, but it was bounced off a wall painted a pale mint, which pushed the green tint onto exactly the seat Rhys had complained about.

• Mixed panels reading at different colour temperatures
• Key lights set too low and too far to the side
• Wall colour feeding a green cast into the fill

Back at the workshop Priya drew a lighting plot on paper, with every fitting numbered and its height, angle and output written beside it. We chose to keep most of the existing panels and replace only the ones that could not be matched, which kept the spend modest and the downtime short. Rhys appreciated being shown the drawing before any work began.

The plot placed each key above eye line and slightly forward, with a softer fill from the opposite side and a gentle back light to separate the presenters from the set. We also specified a neutral grey drape over the mint wall at the fill position, a cheap change that mattered more than any new fitting.

The work took one long day with the studio closed. Two of us worked from a tower while Daniel checked the safety bonds and load ratings on the existing bars, replacing two clamps that did not meet our standard. Every fitting was secured with a safety bond, and the cable runs were tidied and labelled so that a tripped breaker could be traced in seconds rather than minutes.

Once the panels were hung, Priya set all of them to one colour temperature and matched output with a meter rather than by eye. Rhys sat in each presenter chair in turn while we watched the monitors, and we made small corrections until both faces held the same warmth on camera, with the chin shadow softened to something natural.

• Clamps and bonds checked before any panel went up
• Single colour temperature set on every fitting
• Output matched with a meter, then confirmed on camera

Rhys's crew were not left to remember settings from memory. We handed over the finished plot, a numbered list of fittings with their intended levels, and a one-page card for the gallery showing the three preset scenes we had stored. A new floor manager could now rebuild the look from the card without phoning anyone.

Priya also spent an hour with the crew explaining why each light sat where it did, so that moving one made sense rather than being a gamble. A few weeks on, Rhys told us the green seat had stopped being a talking point, and that the morning setup now takes about as long as making tea.

The case reminded me that most lighting problems that arrive as a mystery are really a lack of records. Nobody had done anything foolish at Rhys's studio. Panels were added in good faith over several years, and without a plot each addition nudged the look slightly off. A drawing and a meter turned a vague complaint into a short list of fixable items.

Autumn is a sensible season to look at your grid, because the lower daylight through any studio windows exposes colour differences that summer light hides. If your presenters look different from one another on screen, measure before you buy anything, and write down what you find.