THE     Stage Lighting----The  Design Process:

Part One		   Part One:  Describing the design Process is always a challenge---since NO two people will ever work exactly the same.  With that as a given, we can look at what "steps" or process we move through, in some order, with some emphasis, etc.

First we learn (or relearn) or Review the materials we will be working with...That is we look at light.  Light has certain controllable qualities that we can control or manipulate to create certain effects or looks.

Probably the most obvious quality is INTENSITY.....the amount of light. Light can be bright or dim, or no light at all.

The second  quality is called "DISTRIBUTION"...which actually involves 3  elements.  DIRECTION that the light or lights come from, the SHAPE and SIZE of the are the light is covering, and finally the "quality" of that light... that is direct, diffused,  or reflected.

MOVEMENT is the third quality of light.  Light changes...that is movement.  The light on a given day changes throughout the day.  For our purposes movement will mean (1) the TIME or duration of one cue to another and the movement between those cues (2) Physical movement of a light source on the stage....a lantern for example, and (3) the movement of an off stage light source...most obvious the "follow spot"

 

COLOR. Color helps to establish mood, location, etc....we will spend a bit of time looking at color in chapter 6.

 

Given these qualities....what can we manipulate light to do?

VISIBILITY.....Light reveals color, form, etc.  It  can reveal or conceal.  We refer to most stage lighting as "Selective Visibility"  that is we reveal to the audience what we want them to see and hide what we do not want them to see.

SELECTIVE FOCUS.....This is directing the viewer's attention to a selected place at a selected time.  By manipulating the intensity, direction, color, or movement of light, we can direct the viewers eye.

MODELING.  Light reveals form....through highlight and shadow...remember our discussion about the cylinder and why we see it as a curved surface.  We will explore this a bit more in class....along with what happens to the human face when one drastically changes the direction or other quality of light hitting it.  For a partial explanation see pg 291 and 292 of the text.

MOOD.....This is the easiest and most difficult aspect of stage lighting.  What ever you do will establish a mood....some mood...but maybe not the one you want!  Good lighting never calls attention to itself....unless it is supposed to.

 

Before you can design with light, you have to learn to SEE light....which will be the focus of our next few class periods.  We will examine several "scenes" and see how the lighting affects us, and analysis for the qualities of light in the scene.