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Darren Langer chooses Robe for “The Kelly Clarkson Show”

“The Kelly Clarkson Show” (TKCS) is a one hour syndicated daytime show, produced by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and recorded on Universal Studios in LA’s Stage 1. Darren Langer of DCLighting, a lighting design and direction practice also based in Los Angeles, used several specific Robe products throughout series 1 and 2 of the show - Pointes, BMFL Spots and BMFL Blades, Patt 2013s, Spiiders and Tetra2s.

In addition to his own ideas, Langer took initial creative inspiration from production designer James Pearce Connelly and director Joe Terry together with executive producer/showrunner Alex Duda and her producing team, musical director Jason Halbert and the house band. Together they all contributed to setting the tone of the show. With flexibility at the essence of the lighting, “we had capacity to transform instantly from a sharp, animated daytime talk show set to a sexy after-dark ‘musical dream’ at any point”, says Langer.

Season 1’s lighting had eight Robe BMFL Blades and eight Pointes permanently installed, and these were augmented with more Robe specials, depending on the songs and action of the day. Frequently used fixtures included Patt 2013s, 15 x Spiiders, and 24 x Tetra2s, all supplied, together with the rest of the lighting equipment, by Illumination Dynamics. Fixture positions varied constantly around the studio, but “these Robes they were fundamental to each show”, says Langer.

“We’d often hang the Pointes and even used them as back-light on the artists for creating moody silhouettes and other trick-of-light gags”, he continues. Two RoboSpot systems were being used for the show, both run by Chris Nelson. The BMFL FollowSpots being remote controlled were positioned one over the audience and one above ‘home base’ where host Kelly Clarkson usually sits for interviews, allowing pick ups in any part of the area that the host or guests would generally roam. The two base stations were located side-by-side backstage enabling Nelson to swap between as needed. All the lights in the studio were controlled via a GrandMA2 console.

They recorded two shows minimum a day for thirty weeks working three to four days a week, with the lighting rig changing weekly and sometimes daily, de-rigging and re-rigging to get the right fixtures for the specific action each time. With the two performances recorded each day plus guest slots and performances, interviews, demos, games and special themed shows, time was “never on our side”, as Langer puts it.

After the timeframe, programming was the next most galvanizing task throughout the two series for which Langer had input from a team over the period comprising Andrew Law, Brian Larsh, Brandon Dunning, Jeff Handke, Felix Peralta and Tyler Glover. The lighting department, with the assistance of technical manager Eric Feder, was also controlling a media server that dictated most of the screen content.

Darren Langer and the DCLighting team won the 47th Annual Daytime Emmy for ‘Outstanding Lighting Direction’ for the show in 2020 (for the 2019 broadcast year) and were nominated again for the 48th Annual Daytime Emmy in the same category for the 2020 broadcast year. Furthermore, Langer won the Newscast Broadcast Production Award for ‘Entertainment Lighting Design’ for the show’s 2019 and 2020 broadcast years.

He credits his team for their contributions to gaining these accolades, and this includes Kirsty Robson, DCLighting’s VP of Production who handles all the logistics, marketing, communications and client networking, and gaffer Andy Anderson who installs the different lighting designs each day. Andrew Gonzales is their lead tech, looking after the lighting system as well as multitasking as best boy, managing all the rental ‘specials’ in and out daily. Morgan Evans and the late Carlos Colina were also integral to the drafting and visualization part of the process.

(Photos: Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal Media, LLC)

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