NEW YORK — Prominent TV lighting director Carl Vitelli, Jr., 81, died Jan. 7, 2015. A recipient of IATSE Local One Honorary Gold Card in 2011 (pictured here), Vitelli was also inducted into the Emmy Awards’ New York Chapter Silver Circle in 2001.
Early in his career, Vitelli became known as one of the lighting professionals working with Imero Fiorentino Associates (IFA) in the “Golden Age” of television. He went on to light a wide variety of game shows, talk shows, awards broadcasts, beauty pageants and political conventions from the 1970s to 1990s.
One of Vitelli’s many projects was the 1988 Republican National Convention, held in New Orleans’ Louisiana Superdome. The venue presented a cavernous space with a footprint seven times that of the Omni arena used for the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta that year, which nominated Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentson.
To scale the Superdome’s vast space down, production crews used a curtain measuring 90 by 300 feet. Vitelli used cyc lighting to change the color of the curtain for different speeches, and preset different looks in the dimmable fixture rig as well. He also effectively lowered the 300-foot-high ceiling with a lowered grid to limit the required throw distance to less than 40 feet.
The convention was a success, giving rise to some of the more memorable catch-phrases as George Bush assumed his first term in office from Ronald Reagan, including his “Read my lips: No new taxes” pledge and the Peggy Noonan-penned reference to “a thousand points of light.” (Even within the confined space, Vitelli’s actual dimmable fixture count was closer to 1,800).
That was just one of the highlights in a long roster of designs seen by millions on TV, over Vitelli’s long career, however. Other lighting credits include beauty pageants (Miss America, Miss Universe, Miss Teen USA); awards shows, including the Tony and Emmy Awards in the late 1970s and 1980s; TV specials including the 1979 Music for Unicef concert plus a variety of TV series, game shows and corporate events.
“I consider him to have been quite a mentor,” said Don Earl of Egg Harbor City, NJ-based Earl Girls Inc., who worked with Vitelli on numerous projects in the 1980s and 1990s. “I still think back to my times with Carl and find myself saying, ‘How would Carl have done it?’”
Earl noted that Vitelli is survived by his wife, Esther, and that he had a brother, Ronald.
