The series is filmed at CBS Television City in Hollywood (photo: DX7 Design)
USA - Global design firm, DX7 Design, recently embarked on its second season of lighting the hit American TV dance competition Dancing With The Stars, shot at CBS Television City in Hollywood.
Production loaded in at the end of August and the show runs for 11 weeks, culminating in the final over Thanksgiving weekend, at the end of November.
After featuring GLP fixtures heavily on the last series, LD Tom Sutherland has raised the bar even higher this time, deploying 150 GLP fixtures, predominantly X4 Bars and JDC1 hybrid strobes, in his ever-changing landscape. “We reprogramme weekly,” he explained. “Then we bring in extras for certain dances week-to-week if the creative team call for them.”
The lighting brief is heavily dictated by the set design. “[Production designer] Florian Wieder has created a modern take on an art deco ballroom. It’s essential that the lighting and set work in harmony,” he said. “Many elements of the set have been built to contain fixtures of our specification, which is great as it keeps everything looking neat and tidy.”
Turning to the GLP deployment, he said: “I’ve always been a great fan of their products. The X4 Bar and JDC1 strobes are my workhorses on many shows. I love to use those fixtures.”
Sutherland has added in quite a few extra GLP fixtures for this season - all supplied by local vendor Felix Lighting. “These fill in the gaps where we used to have an audience,” he said. “This year we are using 70 X4 Bar 20’s, 66 JDC1 strobes and 14 GLP X4’s.
“In television you always need to think about the cameras. This is shot in 360°, so we need to ensure that we have every camera angle covered from both a key-lighting perspective and lighting in the back of shot perspective. We also need to think about shadows and exposure etc, so it’s pretty complex.”

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