Makris's basic lighting approach for day interiors (which predominate, especially in the second half of the show, which focuses on the workings of the district attorney's office) is to bring the key light in through a window and then fill around the actors. "If the window is approachable on a location, that's usually where we start," Makris notes. "However, if the location is more than a few stories up and there is only one scene, we'll try to avoid putting the window in the frame, or else gel it with ND. But if I've got three scenes to do, we'll put up a Condor and light through the window. We routinely block and light windows that are 40 to 70 feet up! On our studio sets, shining the key through the window is very common. It's not a rule, but I think the window light suits the somber tone of our stories."
Creating strong shafts of light that penetrate the show's dark offices through the windows is another favorite approach. "If there is something interesting on somebody's desk, in their wardrobe or on their face, I'll often hit it with a shaft of light. I have mixed feelings about doing that, because I feel as if I'm 'lighting' when I do it. So I'll stop doing it for a while, and then I'll see a strong shaft of light in real life and say 'Well, maybe it's okay,'" Makris explains. "These tight, strong shafts of light happen in New York City, where you will get the ambient window light and then a small, oddly shaped shaft from a reflection off another building."
"We use Fresnels, HMI Pars and mirrors to make our shafts. We'll cut a Fresnel or Par with diffusion or a flag, and we have different sizes of mirrors which we use to make really tight beams of light. Sometimes, in the interrogation room, we'll hit a subject with a shaft from a mirror if they have an interesting face or a tattoo. We just try to make sure it doesn't look like a spotlight!"
On location, Makris will often gel lights coming through the windows to approximate the colors of mercury- or sodium-vapor streetlights. "I also like to mix color temperatures — with the window light usually being blue and the interior practicals warm, of course. You'll see long takes where the cops will start out in the hallway of an apartment building lit with uncorrected green fluorescents. Then they'll go in an apartment and get hit with cool blue window light, and head down a hall to another room that is lit with very warm, household tungsten-type light. That sort of mixing of color temperatures has a very true-to-life feel to me."
The cinematographer often uses uncorrected fluorescent practical sources on location. "If we're in a tenement hallway that is lit with fluorescents, we often won't replace or gel them," he says, "because it is an effective look to have greenish light in that sort of location. Besides, you encounter many different types of fluorescents on location, and you can't just replace them all with tubes from the truck. When you try to gel an odd-shaped bulb, you can do a beautiful job but still end up getting no usable light from it!"
For night interiors, Makris says that his basic approach is to make the light look as if it is coming from a practical — "either one that is in the picture or an imaginary one outside the frame."
The show's subject matter is unrelentingly grim and downbeat, which naturally influences the lighting. "Law & Order is about serious stuff," notes Makris. "There is always a dead body in the first 40 seconds. The show is based on hard, cold reality. From that basic story approach, I've developed an emphasis on cross-lighting. I try never to flat-light, which is inherently undramatic. Light in the real world isn't planned and executed by specialists. It is often somewhat chaotic."
Makris explains that he takes more of a feature-like approach to separating his actors from the scenery, remarking, "I don't like to rim-light. We do it when we need to — for example, if we have [series star] Sam Waterston in a gray suit against a brown wall — but I prefer to separate the actors using the background. I try to light and shadow the background in an interesting way that will contrast with the actors. To me, that approach is more like a feature and less like 80 percent of television, where everyone seems to have a halo." When he does employ rim-light, Makris prefers to use fluorescents or a soft light. "They wrap better and tend to look ambient," he notes.
For night exteriors, Makris usually assembles a single big source, made from three Maxi-Brutes on a Condor. "We can't take the feature approach of using a lot of smaller sources, as I would prefer," he says. "One of the three Maxis may have spotty bulbs and other mediums. We flare them out and use it as a giant back- and edge-light. I don't like to use HMIs at night in the city; that blue light just doesn't look right there. Although I generally prefer not to back-light, I find that in the city at night you need backlighting to separate your actors from their dark surroundings."
[ continued on page 3 ]