Even stars need a little help with their shine, he knows

The hardest part of Bob Dickinson’s job is not what happens on the stage during the Oscars. It’s what happens in the audience. Dickinson is the show’s lighting director, or lighting diva, as he has been known to introduce himself, and he has spent more than 20 years trying to figure out how to light the nominees so they don’t look washed out.

“It’s just awful,” he says. “Here they are, their names being announced and the house lights are so high and so steep and the stage lights just wash everyone out no matter what you do, so even the best-looking people wind up looking like vampires.”

Or at least they did. A few years ago, Dickinson finally figured out a trick, a lighting trick so secret and sneaky that he refuses to share it. But now, Dickinson says, everyone looks just fabulous.

And just in time. This year’s show will not involve nominees in some categories lining up on stage or receiving their awards in the audience as they did last year. Instead certain groups of nominees will move into the front rows just before their names are announced.

This, according to producer Gil Cates, will cut down on the time it often takes for those seated in the back to make their way to accept their awards. And Dickinson is prepared.

“Now, when the camera cuts to someone in the front row, I can say, ‘OK, he looks great,’ ” he says. “It is such a relief.”

This leaves Dickinson free to concentrate on his other tasks -- to work with the set to create a certain mood, to illuminate and enliven the musical numbers and, perhaps most important, to make everyone on stage look as lovely and youthful as humanly possible.

Which is not always as easy as it might seem.

Yes, the Oscars typically involves some of the best-looking people on the planet, but not surprisingly, even big movie stars need good lighting. And some need really, really great lighting.

“Sometimes the people you see in films don’t look ... quite as good as they do in the movies,” he says tactfully. “Sometimes even I’m a little taken aback and think, ‘Oh, this is a bit of a challenge.’ ”

A little help where needed

Even those stars who look great in person need a little help when they’re walking out on a huge stage, under multiple lights. “After a certain age, for example,” Dickinson says, “you want a flat light, a low light. If someone has a double chin, we want to put a shadow under their face so we would light a little higher.”

Nose size can be an issue, he says, especially with a round face.

“You want to go off the axis,” he says, motioning to the center lines of his face, “to make the face seem thinner, but if the person has a very large nose, you can’t go too far off.”

Not surprisingly, the men are easier to light than the women, mainly because it’s pretty easy to predict what color the men will be wearing -- black. “We really do like to know what the ladies are wearing as early as possible,” he says, “but with the fashion wars, that gets harder and harder every year. So I send my spies out onto the red carpet to tell me who’s wearing what.”

The dramatically low back of Hilary Swank’s dress last year, for example, was reported back immediately and caused a few minor adjustments. “There were a few shots they stayed away from,” Dickinson says.

If he had his way, the presenters would arrive at their Saturday rehearsals in their Oscar finery and full makeup, but he knows that isn’t going to happen -- most of them show up in jeans and baseball hats, he says. “The old pros know how important it is, though. Someone like Barbra Streisand will come to rehearsal in street makeup and with her dress so we can see what will look best.”

Men have issues too, such as hair. If someone’s hair is thinning or white or nonexistent, Dickinson explains, a backlight is not a good idea.

“Which can be a problem because the backlight is pretty standard. It gives the person depth, makes their head seem round rather than flat.”

But this is the Oscars, after all, and most of the participants know only too well what an important part lighting plays. “If they feel it is a nurturing supporting light, they perform better because they’re more comfortable,” Dickinson says. “And we know a lot of the people year after year; they trust us.”

With 23 Oscar telecasts on his resume, there isn’t much Dickinson hasn’t had to deal with, but every year, there’s a new set and new stars and the same old time crunch.

By its nature, lighting is the last creative component added to the show. The lighting department may have its diagrams and palettes in place weeks before show time, but for Dickinson the real work is done during the last week, when he can actually see on stage what he saw in his mind’s eye.

Especially now, in the days of high-definition television. The Oscars, he says, dragged live entertainment television into the 21st century, and no one feels it more than the lighting department.

“In the old days, it was like a fog filter in front of the camera,” he says. “No more.”

There is no one way to light the Oscars. Every year, there are different nominated films, a different mood, and, perhaps most important, a different set. In contrast to last year’s modern, sleek look, this year’s design is a silver-and-black Art Deco-meets-baroque retro dreamscape.

“Sometimes I think [designer] Roy Christopher sits around trying to think of ways to drive me crazy,” Dickinson says fondly. “The thing has 90 different scenic looks, and all of them have to be lighted differently. There are these things Roy calls ‘the wings,’ ” he adds in a tone of mock desperation. “He makes them sound so easy -- ‘the wiiiiings.’ What they really are is sculpted pieces that look like waves, and he’s got them rolling all over the place. It’s making my life miserable.”

Last-minute challenges

Although Dickinson can’t bring himself to predict what last-minute change will test his patience and sanity, he knows there will be one. Because there always is.

One year it was Neil Young “and all those candles.” In 1993, Young was to perform his nominated song, “Philadelphia” (not be confused with Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia,” which won that year). On stage, he was surrounded by dozens of burning candles, and so Dickinson set a light directly behind his head. “And so we’re ‘five, four, three, two’ and boom, Neil Young suddenly scoots his seat over about 4 inches,” Dickinson says. “So now the light is shining directly into the camera, blinding the cameraman. We had to kill the light, and still the director had to choose a different shot.”

That same year, Springsteen also performed.

“Roy had designed a beautiful set because this was such a big deal. Springsteen hardly ever does TV, he had never been nominated, he agrees to perform, it’s a huge coup. So he comes to rehearsal and is nice as can be, only he looks around and says to Roy, ‘I hope you’re not offended, but I don’t like scenery. I like it when it’s just black.’ ”

Away went the set, and they were left with no visual except the singer. “I put in some smoke, which I almost never do,” says Dickinson, “so I could send down some shafts of light. And at the end,” he adds, “even Roy said it was very effective, even better than the set.”

This year’s best picture nominations have lent an air of seriousness to the show that Dickinson says he will try to echo in the lighting.

“For best actor, I think we’ll have tonal contrast,” he says. “A little more severe, more masculine.”

The nominees for best actress are a bit more all over the map, in age and tone of film. “We’ll go with softer shades of white, more nourishing, more gracious, a little more homogenous.”

And when in doubt, he says, you can always depend on blue. “You can’t go far wrong with a blue light. Though occasionally we’ll have a variation, a lovely teal, say, and someone will come on stage in a color that just doesn’t work.”

In such a case, he says, he will slowly fade to another color and hope people think it’s intentional.

“It’s high-risk television,” he says, with a shrug. “You only get the one chance. Any other show, you can do it again. Not the Oscars.”