[ddavies9]

I'm a first year student currently studying Drama and Theatre studies and the University of Kent, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what kind of lighting is best for an outside performance? We'll be using a generator, and the performance will aim to be in June, around 7:30pm. It's a performance of A Midsummer's Night's Dream, so any advice on lights that can contribute to creating an atmosphere would be most appreciated!

Thanks very much everyone.

[MarkPAman]

Which way does the stage area face?

There'll be a big light in the sky for almost the first 2 hours of your performance. What sort of filtering there will be in front of I can't say.

[kerry davies]

We have done this before so use the search but to repeat what I wrote then. God, the Great LD will decide most of it for you and what I have done previously is a couple of floods on sticks turned on before "curtain" and let the superior excellence of a better LD decide when they come into play.

The brilliant aspect of this is that the time taken for the sun to dim and be replaced by the floods means the audience often don't even notice there is artificial illumination until they stand up to leave. Do take note of what Mark says about direction of the setting sun and take appropriate decisions. Watch out for buildings and trees throwing shadow.

The noise of the generator is a far bigger problem for theatre and we have recently had a thread on that as well..

[brainwave-generator]

Is it inappropriate to suggest that when using a generator for an outdoor performance you get in somebody who knows what they're doing.

I know this is educational and learning comes from experience but when playing with temporary power (and in the case of lighting, usually lots of it), it's usually a good plan to have somebody around who understands how this stuff work, to save you damaging stuff or hurting yourselves. They may appear to be fairly "plug and play" and if you're lucky they may indeed work in that manner, but most generators are designed for site equipment like tools, not dimmer racks.

[Bobbsy]

We did an outdoor production of AMSND in late August a number of years back and, even then, had to move the start time to 7PM to have a reasonable level of darkness when we wanted it.

Ours was probably rather different to your idea--it was a promeade style performance done in a lovely park. We did the show in two halves, with just natural daylight for the first half, then an intermission, then artificial lights for the second half. The artificial lighting was kept simply...lots of colour washes on trees and bushes to make them unreal and a warm light light on faces of the main characters. We also (with permission and an RA!) used actual torches (I.e. open flame!) for one scene and the finale featured a mob of fairies "dancing" (in reality, all the chorus/extra characters holding torches (this time the battery kind) with coloured gel stuck on, running around a sports field behind the main action.

However, in June none of this is likely to come into play with a 7:30PM start.....

[J Pearce]

If you search back you'll find I asked exactly the same question last year.

We were in the round, so I setup 4 stands of 3 PAR64s (CP62 lamp) each which I had to blind focus and these just stayed on the whole show. We also had some festoon and tree uplighters for later scenes.

Our show was a reduced script, so we finished around 9 by which time the lights made enough of a difference to warrant the effort. They helped to pick the stage out from everything else and give it some focus.

[paulears]

Start the genie at the interval, and watch the magical crossfade to artificial light. Illumination is usually the name of the game, so I favour a wash, plus if you have the power, a higher single key from the opposite side to the setting sun, so the look changes as the sun sets. Warning! It will rain, so waterproofing is vital - and you will attract every bug in the area.

[ddavies9]

Thanks so much for your advice anyone! We will be getting a professional in to work all of the equipment, as this is a Stage Management project, so being able to use the lights and generators aren't important to us, it's just choosing the right ones to use. This has been really helpful - thanks again everyone!