Just what is the primary function of the Lighting Designer?

[Junior8]

For better or worse, lighting design can now be studied as an academic discipline. More accurately, perhaps, It is possible to get a BA in lighting design and thus, in my book, it is an academic subject. What this means is that as an academic discipline, lighting design is subject to all the intellectual and analytical tools that are used in other subjects.

 

Interesting couple of sentences which are worthy of a thorough debate on their own. You may well be right in asserting that if it possible to get an Arts degree in a subject it must be subject to critical analysis but for me it is far from clear whether such an award is a proper or appropriate qualification for the subject under discussion at all.

 

When I was a young student the HOD was adamant that what went on on the stage was a craft and not an art - though the results of all the craftspeople working together was probably if successful worthy of the name 'art'. I still think there is much to be said for this point of view, in which he included acting. At bottom what most performance is about is solving a set of problems with mechanistic solutions to present some kind of illusion which is satisfying to an audience be they paying customers or the director.

 

To deploy a very expressive circus term we need 'useful people' who can get a job done at the right price in the right space on time. The fact that this need is too often being forgotten is expressed by practitioners in one form or another often on BR when bemoaning the lack of practical skills in new entrants.

 

After your post, last night I read Richard Pillbrow's 1970s book again (from cover to cover probably for the first time since it came out) and like - I think virtually all the classics - it talks about 'painting with light' but ends up going through 'the method' because, as the author admits, the first aim is to make sure the action is visible. (Yes you need a lighting designer to do that - but is it art?) In terms of going beyond that we have a quick look at colour, intensity and mood - obviously all within what was possible at the time. Essentially it is a practical manual - it is hard to see how it could be anything else.

 

It might be interesting - it probably is - to subject any technical theatre craft to academic analysis but in real life most of what we do would simply collapse under the weight of such a process and be shown up for what it is - the best we can do for ten bob compared with what anybody else could do for a quid!

[Just Some Bloke]

Perhaps instead of saying it is "wrong" you should say "it is not appropriate for this situation or occasion"

 

Cheers

Gerry

 

Forgive my good natured follow-up, but what's the difference between:

 

"in this situation that lighting was inappropriate"

and

"in this situation that lighting was wrong"

 

:)

[Ken Coker]

sometimes we really can use the word "wrong" in relation to any of the arts.

 

Yes we can, and yes I do...regularly. And, indeed, when I'm pushed for time lighting songs from "Paint Never Dries" in Aylesbury I don't reach for my copy of Baudrillard and contemplate notions of simulacra; I do what everyone else does and puts in a few slow colour chases, some audience pans and some jolly nice rotating gobos through haze. However, this application of craft and accumulated personal skill doesn't have a place in academic study - at least, not in the place of proper thinking about what lighting design is. If we go on just teaching our tricks - probably taught to us by our mates/Chief - then we ultimately stultify thinking and creativeness... in my view.

 

The debate of art or craft, and what the difference is, is very much a live one. Laurie Taylor talks about it this week on "Thinking Allowed", although I've not listened to it yet.

[Just Some Bloke]

this application of craft and accumulated personal skill doesn't have a place in academic study - at least, not in the place of proper thinking about what lighting design is.

 

I'm speechless.

[Gerry]

 

Forgive my good natured follow-up, but what's the difference between:

 

"in this situation that lighting was inappropriate"

and

"in this situation that lighting was wrong"

 

 

Nothing as both of the statements start with "in this situation "

;) ;)

Cheers

Gerry

[LXbydesign]

''you cant polish a terd!'' - well actually, you can! Just whack a load of lasers on :P

 

I thought they looked great. Certainly detracting from the rubbish going on on-stage. If that was the plan - job done. Otherwise, yes - it may have been a BIT OTT, but prehaps that was the point! Id love to see a laser show like that in more night-clubs.

 

Much better than the lasers on X Factor last year. Looked awful, very distracting for no purpose and why the need for them ? The rest of the lighting on that program was spot on.-- but thats another post :ph34r: ........

[Matthew Robinson]

'you cant polish a terd!' - well actually, you can! Just whack a load of lasers on :P

 

That wasn't polishing a turd, that was just rolling it in glitter (as in the phrase 'you can't polish a turd... but you can roll it in glitter').