Lighting Coordination: A Checklist to Work Through Before You Decide

Start with what your studio actually changes

Most studios do not light one show. A newsroom might run a morning bulletin, a midday update and an evening programme in the same space, and an entertainment team may record on the same floor within the week. Before you choose any way of coordinating lighting, write down what genuinely changes between those shows: the position of key and fill lights, the colour of the backdrop, the height of the set pieces, the number of presenters at the desk. This sounds obvious, yet it is the step teams skip most often. When we sit down with a studio manager, the first useful conversation is rarely about software. It is about which parts of the rig are fixed for months and which are touched every day. That split tells you how much planning effort belongs in permanent plots and how much in quick changeover notes.

A fair test is to ask a lighting operator to describe last Tuesday's changeover from memory. If the answer is vague, or differs from what the producer remembers, the studio is relying on habit rather than a shared record, and that is the gap a coordinated plan is meant to close.

• List every show that uses the floor in a typical week
• Mark which lights stay rigged and which move
• Note who currently decides each change

Check how plots are drawn, stored and found

A lighting plot is only useful if the person who needs it can find the current version quickly. Ask where plots live today. If the honest answer is a mix of a shared drive, a printed sheet pinned in the gallery and an email from three weeks ago, you have a version problem before you have a design problem. Look at what each plot records. A good one shows fixture positions, types, channels, dimmer or console assignments, and any gels or accessories, with a clear date and the name of whoever approved it. It should also say which show it belongs to. Plots for a bulletin and a recorded entertainment show often look similar at a glance, and mixing them up on a busy morning costs time nobody has.

When you compare options, ask to see an actual plot being updated, not a finished example. Watch how many steps it takes to change one fixture and whether the previous version is kept. Being able to look back at what was rigged for a given date is worth more than a polished drawing.

• One current version per show, easy to locate
• Previous versions kept with dates
• Channels and accessories recorded, not assumed

Look at the rigging schedule, not just the design

Good lighting design can still fail on the day if the rigging schedule is unrealistic. Rigging involves people, access equipment, floor space and sometimes a cleared studio, so the schedule has to respect all four. Ask whether your current approach shows who is rigging what, when, and what else is happening in the studio at that time. Two clashes cause most of the trouble. The first is a rig change booked while the camera crew are still lining up shots, so lights are moved under people who need them fixed.

The second is a change that needs a particular lift or ladder already committed elsewhere. Neither is a design flaw, yet both show up as delays and short tempers. When reviewing a method, check that rigging time is visible next to camera and sound calls. If the lighting team has to ask three colleagues before they know whether the floor is free, the schedule is not really shared.

• Rigging tasks tied to named crew and times
• Access equipment booked alongside the task
• Clashes with camera and sound calls visible early

Test the changeover between news and entertainment

The hardest moment for any lighting team is the turn from a news bulletin to an entertainment recording, or back. News lighting tends to be flat, clean and quick to recover. Entertainment often wants colour, depth and effects, and the set may move as well. The same fixtures serve both, so every change is a trade between speed and finish. Ask what happens in the minutes after the last bulletin ends.

Is there a written changeover sequence, with the order of moves, who does them and what the rig should look like at the end? Or does the team rely on whoever has done it before? Experienced people are valuable, but a sequence that lives in one person's head fails the week they are on leave. A useful check is to time a real changeover against a written one. The difference is rarely about effort. It is usually about waiting, for instructions, for access or for someone to confirm a fixture can be touched.

Ask who needs to see the plan, and when

Lighting does not sit alone. Camera operators care where the lights fall on faces and where shadows land on moves. Sound teams care about fixtures that hum or throw noise into microphones. Producers care about how long a change will keep a presenter waiting. A lighting plan that only the lighting team can read forces everyone else to ask questions in the gallery, which is exactly where you want fewer questions.

When you weigh up a way of working, check who can see the plan and how early. Can a camera operator look at tomorrow's plot before arriving? Can a producer see the rig change window without phoning anyone? Does the sound lead get notice of a new fixture near a boom position? Visibility is not the same as sending more messages. It means one place, kept up to date, that each role can read in their own terms. If the plan needs a meeting to be understood, it has not yet become a plan.

• Camera, sound and production can read the same plot
• Changes flagged before the day, not on it
• No need for a meeting to explain a drawing

Be honest about maintenance and recovery

Lamps fail, fixtures drift and cables wear. A checklist that stops at design and scheduling leaves out the part that keeps shows on air. Ask how fixture condition is recorded today. If a lamp is swapped, does anyone note it? If a unit has been repaired twice in a month, will anyone notice before the third time? Think also about recovery. When a key light fails ten minutes before a live bulletin, the team needs to know the nearest equivalent fixture, whether it is free and how to reposition it without redrawing the whole plot.

That knowledge is much easier to use when fixtures, plots and bookings are connected, rather than held in separate lists. This is where we link lighting coordination with the wider equipment records, since the same studio usually keeps both. You do not need every detail on day one, but you should know how much of this you would have to build yourself.

• Lamp changes and repairs logged against each fixture
• Substitute fixtures identified in advance
• Equipment and lighting records easy to cross-check