Seeing the 'Light' in a new way

February 29, 2008 A quick look around at the "Guiding Light" set -- a mall in fictional Springfield, a swanky hotel bedroom or the Spaulding family's grand study -- and you could convince yourself, if only for a moment, that you're not at CBS' West 57th Street Broadcast Center in New York. Unlike soap operas since the dawn of the TV era, the sets have four walls, a ceiling, lighting that gets shut on and off like a normal house and water that runs out of faucets. Gone are the big clunky cameras that gave daytime TV a look that has little changed since the 1950s, the live-to-tape production method and the control room that in the digital era is quickly becoming a dinosaur.

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