04.01.2024 | DoP Jean Louis Rousseaux chooses Elation for new France 24 news sets

Director of photography Jean-Louis Rousseaux has been responsible for lighting the sets of television network France 24 since 2008 and knows what type of high quality light is needed to create the desired look and ensure a visually engaging viewing experience. Last summer, he and his team lit two France 24 TV news sets using Elation broadcast lighting supplied by Elation distributor Best Audio and Lighting.

As on most sets today used to produce broadcast news magazines, France 24 installed LED screens around the entire periphery of the sets. The space was also equipped with soffits and spandrels made of RGBW LED strips and treated with a night and day material which has the particularity of allowing saturated colors to be obtained.

“The surface area used on the sets being small (50 square meters), I was worried about the impact of this entire LED installation on the colorimetric reproduction of the presenters in front of the cameras,” Jean-Louis Rousseaux commented. “I chose Paladin Cubes to allow me to compensate in color for the dominance provided by the screens and LED strips. It’s a process that I have already implemented on the set of ´C’est dans l’Air´ and which has been working on a daily basis for three years.”

The Paladin Cube is a compact RGBW floodlight with 3 x 1 cell control. Output for such a compact unit is surprising at 3,200 lumens and operation is completely noiseless. “The possibility of controlling their diffusion angle and the fact that they are compact allowed me to place them on the entire periphery,” Rousseaux said. “Their reasonable price allowed me to take quite a number of them (84) and distribute them all around the sets.” The result, he says, has met his expectations and that of the other visual engineers as well, who recognize that the system is very efficient and greatly facilitates their work.

As for the choice of a small Fresnel light for backlighting, the director of photography turned to Elation’s KL Fresnel 4 CW, a 50W Fresnel light with 5,600K cold white LED engine. Incorporating 42 units total, the Kl Fresnel 4 CW includes a number of useful features for broadcast environments including a 14° to 33° wide manual zoom. Silent operation mode, barn doors and gel frame holder are also included.

“The sets are lit at a color temperature of 4300K but I wanted cooler backlighting so I chose 5600K projectors,” Rousseaux explained. Installed throughout the ceiling to provide bright and clean light for the studio, he says the advantage of the Fresnel projectors with shutter blades is that they can better control the beams of light. He also says he was able to equip them with N6 or N9 gelatin to avoid over-shining at the top of the head and keep the main illumination on the shoulders so as to best highlight the subjects.

Used for data distribution on the project are NETRON EN4 nodes from Obsidian Control Systems. Designed with a rugged housing and high-performance processing, the EN4 is a powerful Ethernet to DMX gateway with four RDM compatible ports and flexible mounting options to cover any situation.