Flying back to New York City from Nice after attending MIPTV in Cannes, an executive for an European hotel chain with properties in different parts of the world recalled an instance where, after getting free accommodations at one of her five star hotels, an “influencer” with some two million followers posted a negative review of the hotel because she didn’t get a late check out.
Earlier, an article in The Wall Street Journal decried the fact that social media (like TikTok) influencers are disrupting concerts. For this latest social dystopia, VideoAge‘s Water Cooler contacted Gianfranco Di Vitto (pictured above), a lighting and production designer from Lima, Peru-based company Tech & Site, who has over 100 music concerts on his resume, to find out if lighting can make it difficult for so-called influencers to record concerts and other videos on their phones.
“Quite an interesting question,” he answered via e-mail, adding: “It is good [for VideoAge] to put this issue on the table. From our point of view, the social media issue is not only disrupting concerts. It’s ruining the experience for the people. Sometimes I wonder: What? Are they recording the whole concert and they’ll watch it at home?”
“Most of what will remain on social media are the videos and photos that the audience members record and upload. When we search for some archive or reference of past shows, what we found were the amateur vids or pics. And these guys do not know about adjusting the capture settings on their devices. They just point and record… and so it’s the case that all those videos are completely dark or super exposed. This happens in most cases because of the brightness from LED video walls on stage. That is most of the light that the cell phone captures.”
But instead of fighting or discouraging this practice, Di Vitto promoted a solution to make the best of it. “[Together with concert organizers and artists] we met to discuss the issue,” he said, “and now we adjust the lighting and the LED video wall brightness to be adequate for the cell phone cameras on their standard and automatic features. So even my mom can record and it will look kind of good.” He then explained the technical features for those who can understand it: “All professional cameras are 4k and can work in low light with no problem. We balance the white in 5600k, and soft the key light just enough to be comfortable for the naked eye, and we are able to give these people the chance to record our shows and upload it for posterity.”
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