Lighting Design

[Light Console]

Up for discussion today is whether lighting design is a science or an art.

For the last two years, I have stuck Parnells out on the FOH bar, as I used up the profiles for specials. However the Parnells were just a front wash with one light per acting area, where it was needed - a mushy mess. This year, I have no idea where specials are going, so I decided to plan things out using side elevations, beam angles et al. This time all of the stage has been divided into 12 squares, 3 rows of 4, each with two 45 degree front lights and a back light. The profiles went onto the FOH bar because the side elevations said it would work at the narrowest setting for the downstage row.

While focusing, it became apparent that the science worked, but it looked a blooming awful mess, with small circles of light, rather than a blend. If I took the profile out of focus, I lost the small size required to just light one square. Diffusion didn't really help either. So tomorrow the FOH bar has to be swapped with some Parnells to get the beams to blend, yet get the required size.

So sitting down and doing the maths and science is all well and good, but I won't bother to go so in depth next time, and just go with the flow of making it look good in the venue.

[Just Some Bloke]

I won't bother to go so in depth next time, and just go with the flow of making it look good in the venue.

Good plan! :)

 

Personally, if I'm going into a new venue I've not been to before and lighting a set I've only seen on paper, then side elevations, beam angles et al are really useful.

 

BUT, if you know the venue and the set, then an experienced LD will just know what will work. You know your parnels work from FOH so you don't need science.

 

In contrast, when someone comes in and says "I want a special on a mid stage rostrum at 1.3m high but I've got a sign flown DS at 4m above the deck - can we do the spot from LX1 or will it have to be FOH and, if so, will we get it from centre or will we have to come in from the side to avoid the sign?" then I'm guessing the science might help!

 

Stick with whatever works for you, I say. ;)

[andy_s]

illumination is a science, lighting design is an art - painting with light. Go to an art gallery full of old masters to see the experts at work, then figure out how to do the same with electricity instead of oil paint.

[paulears]

Moderation: This thread went a bit off topic and covered your question quite well. I'll watch what happens and maybe merge them at some point if they repeat.

Paul

[gareth]

Done properly, theatrical lighting design is a marriage of art and science.

[woody74]

Both. You need the science of how light works to make your art most effective, and you need the art to make the science not look so stale.

[Johnno]

... This time all of the stage has been divided into 12 squares, 3 rows of 4...

 

Scientific questions: How did you arrive at these numbers? How big is the stage? Might you have done better with fewer squares? Why squares?

[David A]

The trap that we often fall into is lighting the floor rather than lighting a person at each corner of the area, this is a particular problem when working alone.Especially in situations where the lights are close as the cones of light will illuminate the floor beautifully but people will be in and out of the light;so as its a very 3D exercise I would agree that its much easier to just do it[preferably with people on stage ],than to expend lots of time planning, unless you have a full 3D simulation.

[Ken Coker]

This time all of the stage has been divided into 12 squares, 3 rows of 4, each with two 45 degree front lights and a back light. The profiles went onto the FOH bar because the side elevations said it would work at the narrowest setting for the downstage row.

 

This is not science, it is a method that employs mathematical techniques to model the light beam - it could be argued.

 

The profiles went onto the FOH bar because the side elevations said it would work at the narrowest setting for the downstage row.

 

Did the side elevation say that, or did it simply indicate that the beam spread would be "X" at distance "Y" ?

 

While focusing, it became apparent that the science worked, but it looked a blooming awful mess, with small circles of light, rather than a blend.

 

How did you measure its "messness"?

 

Diffusion didn't really help either. So tomorrow the FOH bar has to be swapped with some Parnells to get the beams to blend, yet get the required size.

 

Thus deploying a range of skills and techniques learnt both formally and informally over a period of time - which one might describe "as craft skills".

 

Is lighting design a craft or an art? If it is the former, what implications does this have for working in the modern "scenographic" manner or, indeed, working with fine artists?

 

Right, better go and get in the van and collect yet more free gear for a bunch of artists......van driving; art, craft or just a jolly good excuse to drive badly with the radio full on?

 

 

KC

[p.k.roberts]

......van driving; art, craft or just a jolly good excuse to drive badly with the radio full on?

 

Depends if it's a white van or not ....... :-)

[Light Console]

Crumbs Ken,

1.> This is not science, it is a method that employs mathematical techniques to model the light beam - it could be argued.

2.> Did the side elevation say that, or did it simply indicate that the beam spread would be "X" at distance "Y" ?

3.> How did you measure its "messness"?

4.> Thus deploying a range of skills and techniques learnt both formally and informally over a period of time - which one might describe "as craft skills".

5.> Is lighting design a craft or an art? If it is the former, what implications does this have for working in the modern "scenographic" manner or, indeed, working with fine artists?

6.> Right, better go and get in the van and collect yet more free gear for a bunch of artists......van driving; art, craft or just a jolly good excuse to drive badly with the radio full on?

 

1.> Indeed

2.> The side elevation told me I would require a beam angle of 27 deg, to light whole acting area, with respect to a head height of 5'6". It clearly showed the beam lighting up the areas behind, but I knew this would happen, I am lighting people and not the stage. The squares help to break down the stage into more manageable chunks, rather than the previous way of just getting something there as time was short. The lights are 25/50 zoom profiles, and I thought that an out of focus 25 might be about 27, but it wasn't out of focus enough, so I was wrong!

3.> The stage was split in two, with one side hard focused, the other at the best blending focus. These were compared, and the bright/dark curved stripes on the floor from the hard focus were too ugly, and obvious on the face. The blending gave expected "textbook picture" results in terms of sculpting to the face, overall cover was good with few dark spots, but the areas were too wide to be as selective as I might require. They will however be ideal for the normal running of the concert hall, as it is an all up affair. The two of us in the room are both perfectionists and both didn't like the results so it had to go. Had we been nearer the set get in - Sunday - we might have left it as a bad job. I think results would have been different if we had rotatable gate lanterns, as the shutters would have helped, I think.

4.> Thank you! :D

5.> Hmm. This one requires more thought. I don't think I would ever take on a West End lighting design as (despite the degree) I don't think of myself as an artist. I feel I am able to light buildings much better than stages. What I enjoy doing is getting the best out of a limited stock of lights and dimmers. I am best if someone says "I want a light there that makes this sort of effect to the show" and I have to go away and think how to do it. For example, Fiddler has a ghost scene, and our director didn't want to see the feet of the cast. So we have UV tubes and foot lights to avoid lighting that ends up on the stage, after it has done the useful bit of lighting the actors.

6.> There is a craft to being a white van driver, which despite being one for a year so far, I haven't got it. But then it is my van so I care about it, as I don't have a car now!

 

Johnno - sorry I wrote as much as this again but lost it previewing the page, bloddy thing. Running out of time now, no wonder I normally submit before checking the post, any tips on that folks?!

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5594/screenxe2.th.jpg

This is a rough breakdown of the stage plan, cyan lines are stage edges, blue are flats, yellow are areas, crosses indicate the centres. Two lonely crosses are for get out of jail cards. Remember I have no idea what is going to happen and where people are going to be so I am covering my backside, because it changes every week! I have been to most of the rehearsals and watched where they were acting, then divided the stage up equally. This resulted in areas of 1.8m left to right and 2.25m up and down. Not all of the stage is in use, the parallelograms in the picture are movable set, which are dragged into the middle depending on the scene.

They don't have to be squares, it was the easiest way to draw it, I know that the resulting lights will be anything but square, I am not trying to light in square blocks.

This wasn't supposed to be a thread to help me with this design, although by thinking about writing this reply I have cleared a few things out, Thank you.

[Johnno]

Does stage lighting attract this art/science split simply because of the size of the problem? If you were lighting for photography you would not be doing anything really different but would use much less apparatus to achieve the same result. There might also not be a labour split between the person lighting the project and the person photographing it and I think that would induce more people to hold that the practice was art and not science. Was Ansel Adams a scientist for using a very formal way of deciding exposures? OK so he didn't rig the light but his pictures still look great.

[Don Allen]

Stage lighting is a mixture of science and art.

 

Science (actually physic and chemistry) supplies us with the tools to do lighting, lights, gels, dimmers and our artistry provides us with the individual interpretation of where to put what, to satisfy the directors or designers requirements of what they want it to look like.

 

Unfortunately a lot of people go to an institution, get taught the science of lighting, get a piece of paper, but are unable to develop a feel for the art of lighting. A stage "correctly lit from a textbook" cannot achieve the moods of an artist that uses their eyes to set up an interesting balance instead of a light meter for an even overall illumination.

 

Most directors use a 3x3 stage grid and I have experimented with a 4x3 and 4x4 stage grid and have found that in most cases the 4 sections across the stage do not work. It is because a lot of the lighting requires someone downstage centre to be lit which requires two adjoining stage areas to be used in a 4x4 or 4x3 design.

 

Experiment by all means but if you are lighting for a conventional designer then use 3x3. If you cannot get the required beam spread from a 40 or 50 degree zoom, then use two 30 degree side by side for each area.

 

My suggestion of using a 3x3 takes budgets into account and plotting time, both would expand in 4x4 or larger grids.

[Ken Coker]

Is the only way to approach a lighting design by dividing the stage into area?

Why do we do this?

Does McCandless mention lighting design in his text?

 

 

KC

 

Forgot; Steve Fuller has some interesting things to say about what science might be here:

 

Steve Fuller

[Brian]

Does McCandless mention lighting design in his text?

No. He presents 'A Method of Lighting the Stage' and it is just that: a method not 'The Method'. His technique is fine is certain circumstances, for certain types of stage event but it certainly isn't a universal panacea. There are plenty of situations where a regular 3-wide by n-deep division of the stage doesn't work, not least where you setting does not have a regular shape or acting areas.

 

I guess his method, and the variants evolved by people like Francis Reid in his 'Square One' rigs, provide a useful starting point, a 'get out of jail free card' if you like, but such proscriptive ways can never count as design.