Ask Michelle Poley what a lighting designer does and she’ll tell you the obvious answer is “we light the show.” The real answer is bigger: a collaborator who makes the director’s vision and the talent look great on camera, a miracle worker on budgets, and the glue that holds the image together.
In this Scene and Heard conversation, the three-time Emmy winner and founder of LightCue draws on 40 years across CNN, presidential debates, and network broadcast to break down the craft.
What does a lighting designer actually do?
Poley describes the role as interdisciplinary: part creative collaborator, part technician fluent in the science and technology of light, part budget problem-solver. In news, the job is reinforcing the story being told, like the color-coded segment backgrounds she designed for CNN, readable even with the volume down.
What are the biggest mistakes in broadcast lighting?
Two, in her experience: skipping the prep work, meaning assuming the power, the gear, and the producer’s needs instead of confirming them, and taking lighting for granted, where a station invests heavily in new scenery but lights it with 15-year-old technology.
What skills matter most for lighting designers now?
Previsualization tops her list, since stage time keeps shrinking and clients want to see the show before they fund it. She also points to virtual engines like Unreal, console programming, and shop experience. She’d hire eight years in a shop over a master’s degree.
How this interview set was lit
The conversation itself doubles as a working example. The booth setup mixes fixture types: Diva Lux 4s for soft lights, Chauvet Professional Ovation Reve E-3 ellipsoidals for shaping, Chauvet Professional Ovation Reve F-3 for separation, Chauvet Professional Solo Edge 3 and Chauvet Professional COLORado Batten. As Poley points out mid-interview, the color science holds consistent across all of them, which is exactly the fixture-matching problem she describes solving on debate stages.
Explore the Fixtures:
- https://kinoflo.com/diva/
- https://chauvetprofessional.com/product/ovation-reve-e-3/
- https://chauvetprofessional.com/product/ovation-reve-f-3/
- https://chauvetprofessional.com/product/colorado-batten-72x/
- https://chauvetprofessional.com/product/colorado-solo-edge-3/
Want to build it yourself? Download the lighting plot for this setup:
DOWNLOAD FILEWatch the full conversation
The full episode also covers matching multi-camera shots, why broadcast lighting has gone cinematic, how she evaluates fixtures beyond spec sheets, and where wireless control and GDTF are taking the industry.
Subscribe on YouTube for more Scene and Heard conversations:
https://www.youtube.com/@KinoFloLightingSystems
