The McCandless ‘loveheart’

[kerry davies]

First rule of light club? There are no rules in light club.

 

If you only have two lanterns then 45X45 is just about the only choice but to restrict yourself rigidly to that defeats the creativity available. I personally believe that the third light must always be a key from SR or SL at 45 degrees up and use the strongest colour needed but that is not a rule. I also loved candles and backlight and floor spots and dance sidelight and bouncing light off silks all of which horrified some LDs.

 

As Junior writes, many text books take themselves too seriously as text books in what should be a creative milieu not a primarily technical one. The best LD I met was originally a set designer and fine artist. He taught me about sculpting figures with keys, losing light in backdrops that came alive when colour was added and much more. He also taught me the value of play and investing time in "just mucking about".

 

Indyld is right that only ants live down there, take a look at his profile. He spends most of his working day bashing his head against the floor so he should know.

Hi Rob

[indyld]

On the subject of straight on front light instead of 45/45 or other method, I often use it for situations. Some examples:

 

* narrow venue with rigging positions that make width hard. Fanning too much renders the 45/45 exercise pointless.

* mostly using light 'behind the line' ie very little front light AKA a lot of my shows.

 

I use straight on front as face fill with keylight being at least high side or even further back. The front light just fills in the gaps, low power lanterns run at low intensity.

 

I dislike front light heavy looks in general but 45/45 with a back or top light does still look great in a theatre (especially given how hard I run my back light) and is very flexible, providing good visibility for drama and modeling light for form on stage. I still encourage students to add the front light last whatever method they use, rather than start with it to build a state which people naturally lean towards.

 

45 off centre gives light to speak into, rather than having a well lit ear. The latter can be the case with straight on.

 

Mr Pilbrow himself, while commenting on a piece of lighting, once said to me "have they not heard of McCandless?".

 

We still teach it in a theatre context for beginners. It's become trendy to call McCandless 'old hat' both in the UK and the US, including amongst theatre educators. It's still a great starting point though.

[Ken Coker]

I focused a show for the late Rory Dempster at the Criterion when he used this method. The whole rig was fixed-angle S4 profiles, with the soft edges being made by various gradations of light frost. It was a box set - essentially - and looked great. I think the key to making it work is not using zooms, selecting the correct beam angle for the desired area and selecting the correct gradation of frost.

 

KC

[gareth]

If you only have two lanterns then 45X45 is just about the only choice

 

Absolutely not! It's one choice, but there are many others.

You could use one of the units from the back, to give a bit of depth - either straight in, or as a 3/4 backlight.

The other unit could remain at 45 degrees out front, or move towards centre.

You could put the two units in pipe-end positions, side-lighting the subject.

Or drop them down to low boom positions, for a more dramatic dance-style sidelight.

Or .... well, let's not go on about it!

 

Basically, it doesn't matter where the two lights which are available are placed - what matters is that you can see what you need to see (which is usually the actor's face, and you can achieve that to a greater or lesser extent with just one unit positioned pretty much anywhere downstage of them); and the 'feel' of what you create is appropriate for the situation (which might be a harsh, flattish sort of look, or maybe something completely opposite and really shadowy and sculpted).

 

But by saying that '45/45' is the only choice if you only have two lanterns, you're shutting yourself off from a whole world of different 'looks'.

[pmiller056]

Lighing 'straight on' is frequently very uncomfortable for the performer on-stage. The bright light will seriously dazzle them. A performer will usually be more comfortable if lit from the side ('45/45') or if it has to be from front centre, the steeper the angle, the better.

[martinw]

There is an interesting discussion about 45x45 and why it's fallen out of fashion amongst professional lighting designers in the first chapter of Nick Moran's book 'The Right Light'.

 

Martin

[Salazar]

Being pedantic I suppose, but: "It is worth remembering that McCandless' ... book ... was first published sixty years ago."

 

Try over 86 years ago (1932). Still, I often use the 45 cool x 45 warm for FOH.