Lesson 39: Lighting Basics

Information


Today, theaters can make an audience imagine and enter any environment from a dungeon to a small house in the country to the plains of Africa.  Certainly, sets are important in creating the scene for audiences, but lighting plays a vital role to in setting the mood of the scene.

When lighting a scene there are few questions to ask yourself:
  1. How will the lights contribute to the mood of the scene?
  2. What time of day is it?  Should this be bright to signify the midday or should it be dim to suggest night time?
  3. What season is it?  Should the lights have a blue tint for winter or should it have a warmer tint for summer?
  4. Where is the scene taking place?  Is it on the street under a street lamp or is it on a tropical island?
  5. Where is the light in the scene coming from?  Is coming from a lamp on the set, the sun, a street lamp, or the moon?
  6. What kind of transitions are needed in lighting? Is it a blackout? Is it a crossfade from one side of the stage to another?
By answering these questions for each scene the director and stage-manager can design lighting cues that enhance the acting on the stage.  

Below is the general lighting plan we use at the school.  It is general lighting with the ability to light one side of the stage while leaving the other relatively dark.  


Figure 1: General Lighting Design for our School

 In the diagram below (Figure 2), you can see the plan for how we set up lights in our school.  First, you have the light that is connected to the dimmer pack by an electrical cord.  The dimmer pack is a 220 volt piece of equipment that can have multiple lights plugged into it.  From the dimmer pack there is a DMX cable (the same cable as microphones) that goes to the control board.  
Figure 2: Electical Plan for Our School Theater Lights
From the control board the lighting controller can dim the lights, turn them off or bring them full on.  For the lighting controller there are a number of terms to remember:

  1. Blackout - when the stage lighting is turned off to separate scenes or signal the end of the play.
  2. Cue - a certain event that happens at a certain time during the play like a blackout right after the last line is delivered at the end of the play.
  3. Follow spot - a moveable spotlight used to follow an actor moving onstage.
  4. Fade - when lights smoothly go from dark to light or light to dark.
  5. Crossfade - when certain lights go from dark to light while other lights are going from light to dark.
With these terms a stage-manager can tell the lighting controller what the director wants for light in each scene.  

Exercise 1


Using the diagram in Figure 2, set up two lights on the stage and practice blackouts, fades, and crossfades.