Teaching lighting

[glenn@KC]

Hi everyone.

 

After just getting a Technicians job in an all girl private school I have been given the task of taking a class of 30 year 7s (age 11 and 12, maybe 13). The head of drama wants me to talk to them about lighting. I do have tons of experience in lighting and general theatre technical work but the only teaching I have had to do have been more instructing on a 1 to 1 basis.

 

Can anyone give me any tips on keeping the class interested and making lighting fun for young people who wouldn’t normally be in a technical environment?

 

Thanks for your help,

Anything would be appreciated.

 

Glenn

[Mr Steve]

I had to do something similar a few months ago. I had smaller numbers, but the key was to get them involved. I asked them to name jobs in theatre (surprisingly, none of them mentioned lighting related jobs even though that was what the workshop was about), why we need light etc. I set up a couple of T-bars with 4 different lanters on and gave the kids riggers gloves and went thorugh how the different types of lanters are for different jobs, and how they adjust. I then went on to colour and gobo use and then got them to think about lighting a night-time scene, or a hell scene etc. This got them thinking about colour and levels and everyone had a job whether it be pushing faders on the desk, focussing or picking colour.

 

It's quite a hard task with such a young audience. Some won't be interested....you can't get too technical as they won't understand....you can get information overload if you try and pack too much info in.

 

Anyway, as I say, I gave all my kids gloves when focussing so that they didn't burn their hands on the lights. The only problem I had was the kids dropping gobos inside profiles when they forgot to get a holder! :)

[GazBar]

Hi Glen, I am in a semi similar situation. I have worked in an all girls school for just under two years now. At first I found it difficult teaching tech theatre to the students so I spoke to some of the better teachers. They gave me loads of good ideas and the confidence to deal with some of the less interested. Usually I only do a couple of classes every couple of weeks and nearly always with a drama or music teacher present. I tend to start a lesson by talking to the whole class for about 15 mins (the boring bit) and maybe do some type of demonstration. I then break them into smaller groups of about 8 and set them tasks. I try to keep things as practical as possible and always produce a basic handout explaining what we have done. At the end of the lesson get everyone together again and find out if they enjoyed the activity and ask for questions.

 

I would always set up at least some kit every time and let the kids do as much as H&S and also common sence allows. I am lucky in that I am told by the teachers what they want the students to gain from the session and I can usually concentrate on that for the whole lesson. I was amazed at just how little they actually thought about lighting when I first started but now they tend to plot most performances for themselves and I just end up rigging and pressing the "GO" button.

 

If you arent already I sugest that you join the Schools Theatre Support Group. Its a private forum here on the BR just for those of us who work within an educational environment. Theres a website www.stsg.org.uk

 

Good luck

 

Garry

[GregB]

I teach lighting (and all things tech) and have to complete daily sessions with paperwork tracking the students.

Some of this paperwork may be helpful to you as a teaching aid, PM me if you would like copies.

[David A]

For what it's worth my system for teaching kids is this.I sit them in the theatre, drama room and show them the 3 sorts of lights in the grid and how each lamp is plugged into a numbered socket, then we go through to the control room and see each socket has a plug and that those plugs go into the dimmers.Over to the desk and a quick run through on how to plot a scene and a chase, now you've got a kid on the desk back into the theatre and up the scaffold to focus some lights and see what the different lights do, H&S is taken care of in the process, if you try and do a lecture the kids will turn off and of course you tell them not to try anything they are uncomfortable with, especially heights.Now set up a little area with key, fill and backlight so they can grasp that concept.I usually find that the class self select the various jobs and will grill me about their chosen area.The key to success, in my experience is to keep them moving and doing things.I usually take in a moving yoke light and a simple desk so that they can understand the principles of moving lights and this absolutely guarantees to get their attention.

[paulears]

The way that schools and colleges exploit their willing and often very knowledgeable technical staff is a subject that really concerns me. All the advice here is excellent, but surely should be something the school or college does for you? After all, the teacher is being paid over £30 grand a year to teach, and you get paid to be a technician. It is fine for a teacher to get technicians to do teir teaching, because many quite like it! - However, ask them to do anything vaguely technical and it becomes a big issue.

 

My old college were quite fair. If the technician 'teaching' was just occasional, then they'd just do it and maybe get an afternoon or two off as thanks - but if it was timetabled, then a contract would be raised properly (especially if handouts and other stuff had to be prepared). For a Level 2 group, around £15 an hour was typical, going up to £20 ish for Level 3, and £25 or so for Level 4. The unions are not that comfortable with how it is going - obviously concerned about the cross-over. So Unison and Natfhe for Colleges don't as far as I know have a real solution.

 

I don't doubt that these kind of sessions are interesting for the kids, and rather nice for the technician doing it - but surely some kind of reward is only fair. If the input is for leisure, or pure interest, then I think it is ok - but if the kids get any form of grades for what they do, the whole thing should be made more 'official'.

 

What is the difference between teaching, instruction, lecturing, demonstrating and the many other words used to differentiate between teachers and techncians?

 

Last thing - the comment about talk time being short is really, really important. Most kids learn from doing, not listening - so planned activities are always the key - remembering of course that whatever you estimate will take 5 mins takes 20 and an activity planned to last all afternoon will run out of steam in 15 mins!

 

I second the comment about joining the STSG group - really good people with excellent advice and support.

 

Paul

[Dmills]

Get a pile of torches and some gel, and have them experiment with how a hand looks different when lit from different places, Back/Top/Front/Side..... Then have them experiment with colour and how multiple sources can create interesting looks.

 

The fact that 'where from' matters as much as 'what' is being lit can take a while to get thru to people.

 

This has the advantage that you can form small groups to work together and you are not dealing with only a few sets of lanterns which get annoyingly hot very quickly.

 

Gobos and effect lighting is definately a later session, as IMHO is the nature of the different sources, get them thinking about light, then worry about thinking about the lighting technology!

 

An inamimate object on stage can also be a useful thing to demonstrate on, an A frame ladder is good as a 'sculptural' object to light.

 

Regards, Dan.

[Simon Lewis]

What is the difference between teaching, instruction, lecturing, demonstrating and the many other words used to differentiate between teachers and techncians?

 

Paul and the other posters make some very sensible points - especially about getting them to do things. I occasionally do taster sessions for 5th formers (I haven't converted to newspeak yet), and many simply can't focus for more than 3 minutes....

 

Regarding the demonstration / teaching issue, I'd venture:

 

Demonstration - showing a student how to use or operate a piece of equipment etc. Teacher is present and retains responsibility for class and any assessment.

 

Lecturing - taking the class and providing the teaching input. It may include showing a student how to use or operate a piece of equipment etc., but teacher isn't present, and lecturer takes responsibility for class and assessment.

 

The problem comes when there's a crossover between the two.....

 

 

Simon

[dwh]

Can I also suggest that jobs won't quite be as self-selecting as you're expecting in terms of ladder-based stuff. I wouldn't put it past the group to choose someone, or some people to go up a ladder who aren't that comfortable doing it. Would definitely recommend having individual chats with a couple of, out of earshot of other students, to see if they're up for it.

[Ynot]

The way that schools and colleges exploit their willing and often very knowledgeable technical staff is a subject that really concerns me. All the advice here is excellent, but surely should be something the school or college does for you? After all, the teacher is being paid over £30 grand a year to teach, and you get paid to be a technician. It is fine for a teacher to get technicians to do teir teaching, because many quite like it! - However, ask them to do anything vaguely technical and it becomes a big issue.

I'll echo Paul's concerns. With a wife as a teacher I can fully comprehend the restraints and demand placed on them as educators, BUT the fact remains that if a subject needs TEACHING, then there should be a qualified TEACHER to deliver it, and one who's being paid the going rate for the QUALIFICATION.

 

I don't mean that technicians shouldn't be able to support a lesson, but without casting aspersions on the experience or even the capability of said school tech to be able to pass on the knowledge, but without the proper training and such, they should NOT be expected to take responsibility for the students.

 

This is basically the same angle as the other type of thread where students appear to be taking on more than they should from teachers who don't have the ability to run school theatre tech.

 

Tony

[Don Allen]

I run lighting workshops for schools and that is very different to teaching which is formal, requires teaching qualifications and some form of grading or assessment. As the others have said, have a teacher in charge and present at all times as you are not the responsible person and never let them talk you into it.

 

If the teachers want their students to gain an understanding about lighting, then workshops are the way to go. If they want them to be taught lighting as a formal subject structure then formal teaching qualifications are needed.

 

Charge professional workshop rates, not technical rates and take into account your preparation of notes, lighting design for desired outcome and setup time.

 

You need to have everything ready before the workshop starts, unless they want a workshop that demonstrates how bad their equipment may be, how poor their lighting design may be and how long it can take to rig and focus a show, taking into account maintenance that is long overdue.

 

I start my workshops by taking the group outside and explain the natural lighting present, the shadows, colours, shapes etc as what they want to do in the theatre is try and recreate what we see in real life. I always point out that it is impossible to recreate the same scene due to budget limitations, choice of lighting available, number of dimmer channels etc.

 

The we go inside and look at the 3 choices lights, go over safety and hazards, demonstrate them and explain the McAndless method of lighting a stage. I also explain how to work cold so they don't need gloves as there is usually no need to have a lantern up if you are not using it.

 

A general 1 hour workshop is the limit for a class, then they lose interest. After that, run workshops for interested students in areas of speciality such as rigging, focusing, plotting, design, specials. If the teacher wants a whole class taught everything, thats when you really need to have a teacher supervising as I tell the teacher to shift the noisy students away from the ones that want to learn.

[deranged-angel]

Hi

I taught a class a little while back of 10 - 11 year olds. I wanted to make it really interesting and get them to learn as much as they could within the couple of hours that I had. I soon realised that trying to explain how dimmers worked was losing their interest completely and instead, they spent ages experimenting with different gel and loved it.

After that, they told me which colours they wanted to use on stage and I rigged it for them. Then they operated the board (all on subs) for their school show. Also did a bit of sound with them but as the show music was already chosen, I simply showed them how to use the board.

 

Try not to get too technical. Try to focus on the creativity of lighting and sound. I like DMills' suggestion of torches. Maybe you could set up a rig to show them what it's really like them split them into groups, give them some torches, some gel a CD player and a stack of CD's. Then give them a theme and ask them to light an area with the resources. Maybe if the school has some dolls houses or similar, they could light those.

 

If there are some kids that are more interested, you could give more precise classes to them. That also limits the number of kids you have all trying to touch the nice hot lanterns <_<

 

Good luck!

Em

[mar]

An idea that I have seen used by our drama teachers (who normally do a basic introduction to lighting for the whole class, I only deal with those wanting to do a lighting project specifically), similar to DMills' suggestion, involves torches.

 

Firstly in pairs get one pupil to kneel down in a darkened room and get the other to stand in different places and shine the light at the first pupil's face from different angles (e.g. above, front, side, below) to see how different angles produce different shadows and effects, then obviously swap over so the other can try. This can be extended by having a 3rd pupil sitting watching from the front (audience viewpoint) and then rotating them so all 3 get to do each task.

 

Following this, you get one volunteer to kneel in the middle of the room and the rest of the class to sit along one wall. Then you get 3 - 5 pupils to stand around the volunteer with torches and then as a group arrange them to produce a naturalistic light on the volunteer (or to keep it simple, to minimise shadows). This should lead them to see how we build a wash from a number of lights arranged at different angles to produe a nice even light.

[paulears]

One quick tip. Because our eyes are so good, sometimes kids can't see what we see - I'm thinking highlghts and shadows here. Get a video camera and let them see people faces on the monitor. Instantly, colour and contrast problems multiply, meaning that the can more easily see the shadows and the results of soft and hard lighting. Colour choice is very visible on the screen - so blues and pinks, and the effect of saturated colour are much easier for them to see for the first time. Perhaps a bit more TV style, but the results are pretty good because everyone has seen TV lighting done well.

[lamps galore]

Glenn, if you do have to formalise the teaching process and bring out more paperwork, Strand came out with an educational pack years ago (early 80's I think), with posters for each type of lantern they made (all their own models), control systems, colour theory, etc.

 

It was basically called "the teachers resource pack", and although pretty much obsolete in terms of the equipment on the posters, the basics are all there - basic lantern configuration (reflector/lamp move away/closer to the lens for PC's and Fresnels; reflector/lamp fixed for floods, lens moves for profiles, etc), basic colour theory, glossary of terms.

 

I used to do some teaching in my local college for the drama department and when the head teacher got me to do a teacher training course, I found that using this pack as a basis for handouts, etc, it came up as a pretty useful source of information - it may bore some of your students, but as a backup to what you've said during a particular class, it may help some students remember. I used it purely as a backup to what I showed my students in class - "this is what a CCT Starlette looks like inside, this bit moves closer to the lens, making the diameter of the beam larger - look at the picture on the handout for a Strand Harmony F and it's pretty much the same principal".

 

Bear in mind that what I've said is purely if the occasion arises where you need to start handing out paperwork and such like. If your lessons are going to be kept to an hour length each, and very informal, then keep them doing things, let them rig lanterns (providing your h&s officer is ok with it), get them to focus the lanterns, get them to plot.

 

I've got one of these packs somewhere, pm me if you want me to post it to you.