The McCandless ‘loveheart’

[knightdan65]

Been playing around with using the McCandless idea of two lights positioned on a H45/V45 axis relative to a single performer, using profiles (source 4’s to be specific). Obviously a by product of this method is that you lose the aesthetically pleasing spot shape on the floor (as you’d get from a head on position) and instead get two ovals overlapping to create a loveheart shape. I’ve had a go at shaping the beams using shutters to create a spot but I just end up with sharp lines chopping off bits of the light spread. I can’t think of how the loveheart thing could be avoided using theMccandless method - other than using backlight and wash to lessen the emphasis of the spots, but there will always be times where just a spot with no wash is desired. Obviously the priority is to light the performer in the best possible way but I do like to see a nice round spot on the floor too. Any thoughts on this?

[indyld]

Never focus to the floor, only ants live there. The shape of the resulting splodges on the deck will be the result of whatever your are lighting and also what you are avoiding lighting. This is the case when creating a general cover with profiles, fresnels or whatever.

 

If you need to see a single spot that is oval on the floor, rig a special. :)

[jmdh]

Soften the front light beams (focus or frost) and rig a toplight special if you want a hard edge on the deck.

[timsabre]

I do like to see a nice round spot on the floor too.

The 45 degree technique is often used with more than one pair of fixtures to light a full stage or a stage area (e.g. left pair/mid pair/right pair) so you would have more lights on than just those 2 and the effect on the floor would not really be seen.Personally I like to light people this way because I think it shows faces better than just a single light coming straight in. And I am not too worried about looking at the floor.

 

As Rob says if you must have a round spot on the floor, a single fixture straight on is the only way. It's the laws of physics.

 

[knightdan65]

Thanks all. I tend to think that the eye is drawn to the final destination of a beam as much as the object being lit, especially in scenes with little or no wash being added. So I do see some value in paying attention to the shape the beam/a create on the floor. I like the idea of rigging a top light to encompass the shapes created by the 45degree positions thus maintaining a uniform circle.

[Shez]

I like the idea of rigging a top light to encompass the shapes created by the 45degree positions thus maintaining a uniform circle.

As one would frequently like a backlight on a solo performer, could you rig something to do double duty there rather than just a toplight?

[gareth]

In the words of Francis Reid talking about beams of light - "You can cut a bit out of the middle, you can cut bits off the sides, but you can't cut a bit off the end"!

 

A lot of the skill in deciding how to light something, and where to position the lighting instruments, is working out what's going to happen to the light after some of it has illuminated whatever you were illuminating and where all the spill is going to end up. Sometimes the spill is desirable (if, as in your example, you want to see a pool of light on the floor beyond the actor being lit - although it does sound as though you might be getting a bit too hung-up on what that looks like!). Sometimes you want to lose the spill entirely - perhaps if you're looking to isolate an actor in space and give the impression of them being 'in the middle of nowhere', so to speak.

 

Either way, if the method you use produces results which are acceptable to you in terms of how the actor or other 'object of interest' is lit but unacceptable in terms of what you see beyond that, then the method you've chosen isn't the right one for that particular situation. You either need to do something different in order to remove the unacceptable element of what you're seeing, or add something else into the equation to deal with it.

 

Just because someone once wrote in a book that the "45/45" method is good for lighting actors, that doesn't mean it's the only way. There are lots of others!

[knightdan65]

Can certainly try that. I usually use small fresnels for backlight but killing two birds with one stone isn’t a bad shout.

 

Gareth, a good bit of perspective! Thanks. Having come from a sound background I’ve previously concerned myself more with which lights to use and which buttons to press and overlooking the theory behind positioning, use of colour etc so am just playing around with things and seeing what can be done. Since the 45/45 approach seems the most widely accepted fundamental method for theatre lighting I figured I’d start there. Looking forward to experimenting more once I have a base understanding built up

[gareth]

the 45/45 approach seems the most widely accepted fundamental method for theatre lighting

 

Not necessarily.

 

If you go back a handful of decades, then that statement would've had some truth to it. But in recent years the traditional '45/45' approach is much less frequently the 'go-to' way of lighting something. I don't think there's one particular catalyst for this shift, but it's definitely happened. Perhaps it's that the right angles either aren't available or don't work for a given set design. Perhaps it's a designer's desire to achieve a more sculpted and dimensional look by bring the light sources around to the sides and/or dropping them lower. Perhaps it's a surge in the number of very small venues which don't have enough gear to do a very traditional 45/45 two-sided FOH cover across six areas in warm and cool, so designers began to find themselves in a position where they simply didn't have the resources to do it that way and had to adopt a different approach using what was available to them.

 

Whatever the reason, I'd be prepared to wager that if you took a sample of professional lighting designs from the last few years, especially across the small/medium-scale end of the market, the ones adopting the traditional McCandless sort of approach to FOH cover would be in a minority.

[Junior8]

It is worth remembering that McCandless' really quite tedious book is called A method not THE method and was first published sixty years ago. I can think of spaces I have used where it would be impossible to achieve his ideal and undesirable too. Sadly most lighting books have trotted out this stuff as if it is gospel and one heaved a sigh of relief when Richard Pilbrow put in a word for, amongst others, RG Williams' ideas. I suppose if you have a limited number of lanterns and your only aim is to light the whole stage evenly it's as good as anything but if another way looks good to you - do it!

[paulears]

You also need to consider that back when he was doing his stuff, only followspotsj could manage a sharp edge anyway. The kit of the time didn't zoom, so most FOH sources were pretty soft anyway, as they were adjusted to fill the space, which usually meant not a lot of sharp edges in designs of that era. His idea did spread though - the film industry followed by TV picking up the 45/45 idea and then softening one, and sharpening the other.

 

Practically though, the actual angle would rarely be 45/45 because of the physical spaces - but the idea is sound enough.

[sguy42]

I do like to see a nice round spot on the floor too.

The 45 degree technique is often used with more than one pair of fixtures to light a full stage or a stage area (e.g. left pair/mid pair/right pair) so you would have more lights on than just those 2 and the effect on the floor would not really be seen.Personally I like to light people this way because I think it shows faces better than just a single light coming straight in. And I am not too worried about looking at the floor.

 

As Rob says if you must have a round spot on the floor, a single fixture straight on is the only way. It's the laws of physics.

 

You can get a circular spot on the floor from an oblique angle with a profile, the trick is to put an ellipse gobo in the profile with the major axis at right angles to the beam and line it is tilted to.

 

The eccentricity of the ellipse is relate to the angle the light is off vertical / horizontal. It's a while since I've done it but the maths is quite tedious.

 

Never tried it with a pair cross lit, definitely an interesting idea though.

[timsabre]

I would have thought if you do that the person's head will not be lit.

[sguy42]

You do need to consider the beam size carefully to avoid this, as a general rule of thumb with the fixed beam Source 4s I usually ended up using the next wider lens. I.e a 26 degree instead of a 19 degree etc.

[Don Allen]

If you want to avoid the shape of light on the floor being noticed, arrange a suitable floor treatment such as a matt dark paint finish, carpet, dappled forest look or floorboard look. The light will disappear into the background.

 

I use the McCandless method because it allows you to change the time, season, atmosphere, setting, using two lights for each stage position. It takes 18 lights to do a 3 x 3 stage layout, but it provides the audience with a more artistic result, supports the actor and director in what they are trying to achieve artistically.

 

My personal observation is that over the years touring shows have used front on lighting to reduce the stage plot, bump in and bump out times, which keeps the accountants and investors happy. Plus a lot of venues do not have the rigging points available. I have had to use it in small theatres until they have purchased more lighting.

 

When doing musicals, I always used the additional colours front on to reduce the number of lights needed, and often would use parcans to make up for loss of intensity in saturated gels. But the acting was done the McCandless way if there was enough lights and dimmer channels.

 

With the evolving state of LED lighting, we now have a good range of affordable lights that can allow a McCandless design to be set up on small to medium stages as the restrictions of lighting gels has been removed, the number of dimmer channels has been reduced and lighting control more affordable.

 

What has occurred in my city is that the state government has got rid of theatre technicians as a cost cutting move in most schools and given the task of theatre lighting to the IT staff, who still have to do their IT workload, which is always growing. Most IT staff do not have any lighting design training as evident from when you walk into a performing art centre and see every light straight onto the stage. If you rerig their stage to a McCandless setup and explain what you are doing and why, the drama and dance teachers are always appreciative of what you have done.

 

When I look at a facebook pages that talks about lighting, I cringe as most of the discussion is ill informed, not helpful to most people and usually abusive. Unfortunately most facebook pages have no diagrams or pictures of examples of lighting designs to help inform the reader.

 

It is good that the Blue Room Forum's have continued.