Camera! Action! Wait, where are the lights? We often take lighting for granted, but as an event planner, the more you know about the creative side of lighting, the more you can engage your audiences and impress them with memorable experiences.
The best way to add drama with lighting is to take a tip from the theatre. Stage lighting pros are experts at using light to evoke emotions and create a dramatic (or romantic, or we-mean-business) mood. The same goes for big music events because nothing uses more lighting to make an impact than a rock concert!
But it’s not so basic. Things on stage (and around the room, if your event isn’t merely a stage affair) have shape – human faces and bodies, backdrops, props such as tables and chairs, etc. We see shapes because light falls differently on different planes and rounded surfaces. So “basic” lighting techniques can reveal facial or other detailed features or even create the impression of shape, giving dimension to people and everything else on stage.
Introduction To Stage Lighting
They grab attention and keep your audience focused on a certain person or area. A spotlight flashes on stage right, and all eyes are riveted. A musician steps into the light and begins to play. All eyes remain riveted. Or the spotlight widens and moves left as a string of dancers swirls onto the stage. All eyes follow the movement.
Lights can create their own movement, too. Think searchlights, or LED “fireworks, ” or lights pulsating to your music. Whatever your event, there’s a light show for that. Use it to create an unforgettable Grand Entrance as guests arrive for your event. Use it as performance art to hold audience attention while stagehands reset. Use it to grab attention, settle your audience and dramatically introduce the next act or presentation.
Our crew members here at Heroic Productions bring their own personal experiences working concerts and theatre productions to every project. That experience is one reason event planners often get us involved in their projects right from the start. Together, we can create something truly unique and spectacular, whether your “show” involves a business audience of 200 or an arena crowd of thousands.
Why Do Broadway Theatres Keep A 'ghost Light' Burning On The Stage?
With imagination and new technologies, we can do virtually anything with light. Knowing how light works and what various lighting techniques can do will help you work with us to transform your events into exactly the stage production you envision, no matter the occasion.When you go and see a show at the theatre, one of the first things you will notice is the way that light is cleverly used and manipulated to enhance the set and the scenes that are unfolding. During a play or musical production, lighting is one of the key tools that production companies use to add atmosphere and to help illustrate the story well.
So, what are the main type of light sources that theatres will use and how is this different to the lighting that we have in our homes?
This is perhaps the most commonly used and least complicated lighting options that theatres will employ. It consists of a lamp in a reflector box with no lens. The reflector focusses the lamps bulb through an opening in the box, which creates the flood lights beam. This type of light source is typically used to illuminate the stage as opposed to the actors and can come in a range of different temperatures. Theatres may use a coloured lens, like our Slimline 10W LED Floodlight Green to create atmosphere and the match the theme of the play or production.
An Art. A Design. An Emotion. How Stage Lighting Equipment Can Impact A Theatre Production
Of course, a light source as concentrated as this would be too intense for use in the home, so people typically use spotlights to light up their rooms.
This lighting source provides a soft-edged spotlight that offers more control over the angle of the beam than a floodlight can. A Fresnel lights beam is adjustable because you are able to move the lamp and the reflector closer or further away, by using a screw mechanism or a slide.
Something you will see being used frequently in theatre productions is moving light. Often referred to as intelligent lighting, this can again be used to create atmosphere on stage and add intensity to the storyline. Moving lights are typically controlled using a lighting control console and can produce some complex and extraordinary effects. The effects that can be adjusted and produced include colour, pan and tilt, gobo, prism, animation and framing shutters.
Friendship Circle / Resources
While such lighting would be overwhelming for at home use, people can still create ambience and atmosphere in their living space in a more subtle way. By using one of our many dimmers you can adjust your lighting and create cosy spaces easily.Stage Lighting (clue in the name), lighting the stage would seem to be it’s primary function. The question “How to light a stage?” seems to come up frequently among beginners. On Stage Lighting looks at basic front lighting for any venue or show.
Talk of lighting the stage, we really mean lighting the subjects (actors, furnitures etc) so they appear natural and can be seen clearly. This applies to “naturalistic” lighting, theatre stage and seating but the ideas also apply to conference lighting or products on an exhibition stand. In theatre, this lighting is part of a “General Cover” – general lighting around the stage for visibility. While there are no rules, there are some traditional theatre “methods”…
If you are really new to stage lighting, you probably haven’t heard of Stanley McCandless who wrote the book “A Method of Lighting The Stage” in the 1930’s. The book describes angles and positions used to light the stages of professional American theatres, and McCandless is credited with recording “the method”- though perhaps not inventing it. The McCandless method for lighting the stage became the basis of lighting design in proscenium theatres and is still taught to students today.
Stage Lighting Storage And Work Cart
The McCandless lighting layout is based on division of the stage into areas, with each area lit by two front light sources. Each light source arrives on stage from an angle roughly 45 degrees from the stage floor, and are seperated 45 degrees either side of “straight on”. Other lighting angles such as backlight and sidelight fill in, giving the actors on stage some form. Warm and cold colours are used in opposite sides to create key and fill lights that can be balanced depending on the scene.
If you want to learn about the McCandless method of lighting the stage, pretty much every book on stage lighting design has details.
The thing to keep in mind is that the subject is front lit from two positions, from an audience point of view. Light arriving at 45 degrees up delivers lighting that is not too harsh, steep or flat. 3 dimensions are sculpted by light from positions at the back and side of stage.
Lighting The Stage
“Jewel” lighting refers to a phrase coined by Howard Bay, who described a method of lighting the actor like a jewel display – from as many angles as possible. This method could use more front light angles, colours and face shadows were often filled in using floats (footlights). This multi angled approach is what we in the UK sometimes think of as Broadway lighting.
Both these methods of lighting a stage have an emphasis on “front light” – lighting arriving from the audience. Light that comes from an audiences viewpoint, reflects back to them making it easy to see detail in faces and read lips speaking. Natural warm and cold colour filters such as straws, pale blues and lavenders provide some simulated sunlight and skylight in traditional theatre methods. Lighting a choir or a graduation ceremony the lighting designer may not need this colour flexibility, keeping front lighting in Open White – no colour at all.
Stages, whether in a theate or a field, are all different. Auditoria and available lighting positions are all different too. Given the task of lighting the stage for a performance, front lighting is usually the most important. So how do you decide where to put your lights and what to do with them? Do you even get a choice in your venue?
The Eight Best Stage Lights To Liven Up Any Performance
Dividing the stage into different areas such as Down Stage Left, Down Centre, Down Right, or Catwalk 1, 2 ,3 start to indicate how many front lighting fixtures you will need – 2 per area in the McCandless method. If you are in a traditional theatre environment with auditorium facing the stage from one direction, the choice of overhead position is can be easily estimated. Taking the height from stage to lighting position and moving into the audience by the same distance gives us a rough 45 degrees up.
Having decided on a rough distance from the stage our lighting fixtures should be placed, we need work out how to spread them across the venue for an even coverage. The desired outcomes are:
In our ideal theatre, we would stretch out both arms forward at 45 degrees from centre and pick two spot positions for each area. This is unlikely to be possible, especially in old
