Lighting an Infinity Cove White, and Black

By James Jones, founder of Granary Digital · September 2026

The two jobs a cove does

A white cove has two entirely different lives. Lit evenly, it is a joinless white background that needs no retouching. Black it out with the curtain track and it becomes a stage where the only things visible are what you choose to light. The fixtures are the same; the plot is not.

Clean white: light the wall before the person

The most common mistake on a cove is lighting the subject first and hoping the background follows. It does not. The background has to be lit separately, evenly and a stop or so brighter than the subject, or it comes out grey with a visible sweep.

The sweep. Sixteen 500W floods run along the grid above the cove, aimed down and along the curve. They are on their own dimmer channels so the wall can be brought up to pure white independently of anything on the subject. Read the wall with a meter or a waveform: the aim is even from top of wall to front of floor, not merely bright.
The subject. Key, fill and backlight come from 1.2kW fresnels, usually softened through diffusion for people and left harder for product. Keep the subject two to three metres forward of the sweep so the background light does not wrap round and flatten them.
Floor spill. Flags on the floods stop the wall light hitting the subject, and the flat floor in front of the curve is where feet and wheels sit, so it needs to read as white too. This is why the front floods are aimed slightly forward.

With the wall a stop over the subject, a white cove needs no clipping and no masking in post. That is the whole point of paying for a cove rather than a paper roll.

Full black: the curtain track

Draw the black curtain around the perimeter (about twenty minutes) and the same room absorbs light rather than bouncing it. Now the plot inverts: nothing is lit unless a lamp is pointed at it.

Colour. Six Arri L3-C LED fresnels give any colour without gel, dimmed and cued from the desk. In haze they produce the beams and washes that music video and drama work wants.
Edge and back light. The 1.2kW fresnels move to the back bars to separate people from the black.
Cues. With 42 channels of dimming and two DMX universes the looks are stored on the desk and recalled between takes, so a colour change is a button, not a re-rig.

Mixed: white floor, coloured wall

A useful third look. Light the sweep with the L3-Cs instead of the floods and the wall becomes a colour wash with the floor still reading light. It photographs well for fashion and product and it costs nothing extra.

What is on the grid

Eight bars at 4.5m, incandescent and LED
42 channels of dimming; two DMX universes, 1,024 channels
Sixteen 500W floods for the cove
1.2kW fresnels for key, fill and back
Six Arri L3-C LED fresnels for colour
House grip: C-stands, flags, bounce, apple boxes, a 1m turntable

Bring your own fixtures and the second DMX universe is free for them. If you would rather someone who knows this grid lit it, our gaffers rigged it.

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Questions we get asked

How do you light an infinity cove white?

Light the wall separately from the subject, evenly, and about a stop brighter. On our cove sixteen 500W floods on their own dimmer channels do the wall; 1.2kW fresnels do the person.

Can the cove go completely black?

Yes. A curtain track runs the full perimeter and the room becomes a 360-degree black box in about twenty minutes.

Do I need to bring lights?

No. The house rig, dimming and grip are included in the hire. Bring specialist fixtures if the look needs them; there is a spare DMX universe for them.

What colour lighting is available?

Six Arri L3-C LED fresnels give any colour without gels, plus tungsten fresnels and floods. All of it is on the desk.

Lighting a cove to white, and to black