Is there any particular reason why lights up at the start of bulletins and lights down at the end has been abolished across all the nationals?
Is it now limited to being sent up as an American televisual cliche on the Simpsons?!
I miss the concept - the drama generated is one of the elements that makes BBC 1993-99 so fondly held amongst most people. RTÉ used it then too, and long before then, as I'm sure BBC and ITV probably did.
Indeed it's gone from most studio production nowadays come to think of it.
Are broadcasters just not bothered now with the additional complication adds to news pres, or it just considered out-dated, or are there genuine technical/logistical concerns surrounding it? (can't think of any).
It's one of those things I've never really seen the point of. Are we supposed to believe that the presenters stumble into and out of the studio in darkness? And don't ITV News still do it? I'm sure I saw it recently, because I thought to myself "Why have they turned the lights down? It's back on the ITV NC in a minute". Obviously this was before it closed down!
Suppose it ranks alongside the inter-presenter banter as one of those inexplainable news cliches. They're noticable to all of us, but do 'normal' people think these things through?
Sure if they did, civilisation as we know it would cease to be! So I don't think of that as a major issue really.
Even to have a contemporary version of it would be interesting - maybe if you think of BBC 1999+ to have the halogen spots fade up, just as a (bad) example.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be a dark-to-light concept, but rather a lighting
change
feature. Nothing too naff mind.
North West Tonight still dim the lights at the end of the 6.30 programme.
Leaving a rather prominent white desk and red panels.
They did at one point dim the red panels under the screen and red spotlights behind the frosted glass on the 'window' too - but this seems to have been ditched.
However it sometimes seems they forget to - the ending to NWT is always a bit of a botch.
It seems to have been quietly dropped by a lot of programmes - as did the pan from top to bottom it seems.
I miss little touches like that, it all adds to a nice feel and makes the programme look a little more polished.
It's a shame really, I think things have got too simple when it comes to prorgamme production these days...but then I guess there's less people around to concentrate on making them work. And in galleries which now have less staff often doing more than one job, they'd rather leave it out than risk doing it for the sake of it and getting it wrong. Shame though.
ITV News do still have dimmed lights at the end of the programme, but I think that's more the case that at the end the presenters are stood up at the newswall, so there's no point in having the lights on at the desk.
A few of the regions still do this, Border did in their last set, but never in the new one introduced last month.
I guess set design plays a big part in this. Most sets these days use alot of illumination. ITV do dim the presenter spots but I guess they can't dim the lights too much as the newswall needs to be lit correctly in order to work. I believe they also apply a shaddow effect over the end credits to give the illussion of the lights going down.
I do see that sometimes it is not feasible for lights to be dimmed and then brought up, but when they are it does look more professional and adds a bit of variety to the bulletin, like moving camera angles as opposed to static ones.
Look North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (with Peter Levy) does this, and all though the news content on the programme is hardly perfect, the beginning does look professional and offers to me a more homely welcome to the bulletin. That is until the lights don't fade up by the time the main camera comes on so Peter Levy is sat in darkness for a few seconds.
One thing about the light dimming technique, I noticed that it was used much more regularly on the BBC regional news at 18.30 when there was an ident just before it. I would personally reinstate the 18.30 ident and bring back the lighting technique wherever feasible. I recall Breakfast did in its early days and it did look professional IMO.
I recall Breakfast did in its early days and it did look professional IMO.
As did the Nine O'Clock News during the early days of the 'corporate era' in 1999/2000. I can't remember exactly when it was phased out - it might have been with the launch of the Ten O'Clock News in October 2000.
Of course, the BBC used to do it during the 'Virtual Era' (1993-1999) quite a lot. I have a recording of the BBC Weekend News from c.1995 and they fade the lights all the way down on Peter Sissons. I agree that it looks very professional when they do it and it is a shame it has been gradually phased out.