I have spent all my working life in television - more than 40 years - engaged in all aspects of programme operations. I joined the BBC in Bristol in 1968 and left there in 1978 to work as a lecturer at the training centre at Wood Norton, near Evesham. In 1982, following lighting training at Television Centre, London, I moved to Cardiff and began to get to grips with the intricacies of television studio lighting. I was quickly promoted and moved on to Birmingham and the Pebble Mill studios at the end of 1983. By then I was lighting major drama series and plays, both in studio and on location, gaining a BAFTA nomination for my work on 'Vanity Fair'. My passion for this form of lighting continued until the demise of mainstream video drama in the early 1990s.

I lit the last major drama to come out of Birmingham Studio A in 1993 - this was 'Olly's Prison' and following that the fashion for studio based video drama fell by the wayside. It was an expensive medium but it allowed the ultimate creativity in lighting; although I have lit many location dramas, it is to studio I turn to find my most satisfying lighting experiences.

A brief sojourn in Newcastle as Manager Programme Services & Engineering did not leave me with the taste for pure management although it was a great place to work and my career has continued as an odd mix of management and craft skills. In May 2001, with the closure of the BBC studios at Pebble Mill, Birmingham, I joined the freelance market and have continued to provide lighting and resource management solutions to those who want an experienced, professional and above all, imaginative approach to their production lighting requirements (who was it accused me of being too modest!)

Nowadays the job of television lighting has changed and it is more difficult, particularly for new comers, to get the mix of programme experience that I have had. I have managed to add light entertainment programmes to my CV in recent years, thanks to a long-running series at Pebble Mill and this has served to develop my understanding of colour combinations, if only to get away from the omnipresent mix of blue and pink! I was an early user of moving lights, not so much for movement as for painting the scene but, in my opinion, their day is gone - we see far too much of them, every production seeming to feel that there should be beams of light winking away at the viewer and these lights have become tired. I started the trend for beams of moving lights from the floor surrounding the contestants on quiz shows and you can't move for them now! If I knew what was to follow then I could have made a small fortune. Perhaps we need a return to clean, stylish lighting which states its purpose in an understated way and lets the performance take the lead.

So for those of you who prefer to employ experience coupled with innovation, here is a copy of my CV or resume, call it what you will!

If you would like to get in touch, please email me

Copyright © 2001 - David J Cannings-Bushell
All Rights Reserved
Webmaster: David J Cannings-Bushell - dave@leadinglights.tv