RESEARCH
Primary Research
For my primary research, I sent a form with structured questions that support the aims of my research to two university graduates from Solent University's Live Event Engineering course who have both been working freelance for several years in the industry, Tom Russell and Minami Imamura.
Lighting Design
Preparing lighting for an event requires a lot of thought and planning, as well as the creative aspect of it. Here I am going to investigate the processes behind designing and carrying out lighting for live events, comparing the differences between theatre and music, and seeing what steps I will need to work through for each production I’m involved with. I’ve also been asked to work on a music video filming, so I will look at how my live events skills can be transferred and moulded to work for media.
Stages of Lighting Design for Theatre
1
Early Concepts and Notes
At these early stages detail isn’t required, it is about having broad ideas such as colour palettes and considerations of setting. Both of my sources agree this can be as simple as noting a particular scene requiring ‘forest lighting’ or ‘ocean lighting’. (Illuminated Integration, 2022) These first ideas and notes can be created by reading through the script and talking to the directors, in which case it is best to avoid jargon terms for easier communication, as they don’t need to know about specific lighting fixtures, only that the results will be achieved. (Primrose, 2005) These ideas can then be further developed and detailed by watching rehearsals or run-throughs, noting various things such as actor positions, or any transitions that may require blue or blackouts. (Primrose, 2005)
2
Cue List
The next stage is to produce a rough list of each lighting change in order for the show, drawing together all of your initial ideas and notes. (Primrose, 2005) This is an example of a lighting cue sheet for ‘The Lion King’ on Broadway, showing that the cues are ordered and numbered, as well as fade times and follow cues being written out and the change in lighting state for each on stage event. (Holder, 1997)
3
Lighting Plan
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The plan will have a vertical centre line, and a horizontal ‘plaster line’ representing the level of the curtain. The lighting trusses are numbered outward from the plaster line, with any in front of the curtain distinguished as FOH (front of house).
On the stage, there will be circular lighting zones drawn on and labelled either with letters, numbers, Roman numerals, etc. These zones can then be corresponded with the fixture that is lighting it. (Schloemp, 2021)
All of the above can be seen on this lighting plan for the 2018 Broadway adaptation of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, created by Jennifer Tipton who was nominated for a Tony for her lighting design on this production.
For college shows, as the rig is quite simple and mostly unmoved excluding positioning and focusing of fresnels and spotlights, I will require only a relatively basic lighting plan. The most efficient way to go about this may be to create a template that I can then adjust for each show if necessary.
This is an above view of the lighting rig, showing what fixtures will be hung where, at which angle and may also include the channel number, DMX address and possibly where power will be sourced from. (Above AVL, 2022) This source refers to it as a ‘Lighting Plot’ which is the American term, but Theatre Crafts agrees with the description while instead referring to it with the UK term ‘Lighting Plan’. (Primrose, 2021) There is a huge variety of CAD software that can be used to create a lighting plan, with AVL suggesting NanoCAD or Draft, Theatre Crafts suggesting Vectorworks or WYSIWYG, and both agreeing on LX Free. In the past before computers, they will have been drawn by hand and can still be done this way. (Primrose, 2021)
It is good practice to include a title block in a lighting plan, showing your name as the lighting designer, the theatre’s name, the show the plan is for and the most necessary element, the scale of your drawing. The next vital information to include is a key, showing what lighting fixture each symbol represents as well as what each number or extra detail written by the fixture refers to, such as channel number or gel colour.
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(Tipton, 2018)
4
Rigging and Focusing
This is where the lighting plan is put into action, with the fixtures being hung, angled and programmed in correspondence with the information in the plan. The lighting designer may not always be doing the rigging, but they are usually still involved, checking that everything is being done correctly for their creative effects. (Primrose, 2005) During the process the focus of each light can be changed, which is changing the beam of the light. Spotlights can create hard, crisp edges with less light spill whereas Fresnels can provide a soft-edged wash. (Illuminated Integration, 2022)
5
Lighting Plot
Using the cue list and in collaboration with the director, the lighting is programmed into the software. With the portability of modern software this can be done outside of the venue using visualisers to allow time in the venue to be focused on fine tuning the lighting. The plot will include deciding and perfecting transitions between lighting states such as transition times and ways in which the light can move. (Primrose, 2005)
Lighting for Music Videos
As I have not done lighting for film before, I will be looking at the differences in considerations for this in comparison with live events, but focusing in on music videos and how I can create vibrant and dynamic lighting that is suitable for filming. The filming will be indoors in the theatre, so it will be entirely artificially lit with no natural light.
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Tom Russell informed me of the main difference in consideration for film versus live events, which is that your focus has to be the lights results on camera rather than what you are seeing on the stage. A good example of where this can affect your ideas is that in live events, using darkness for effect is a useful technique, but for a camera it is important to keep everything bright. You may also use lighting and darkness in live events to shift the viewers focus on the stage, but in media this is down to the camera and editing, so again everything is best kept bright and visible.
Three-point lighting is a concept I have seen before in the context of theatre, and have used both consciously and subconsciously in live music. However, in anything related to film this concept is particularly crucial in creating a quality recording. Simply put, three-point lighting is providing a key light, fill light and back light for your subject, and is the best baseplate to work off when creating lighting. (Aldredge, 2022) The importance of three-point lighting is corroborated by both of my primary research sources.
(Knudsen, 2021)
Minami Imamura stated the importance of face light, and it being more crucial in film than live events, so while I have used key lights and fill lights before I need to take them into heavier consideration. Tom Russell also emphasised the use of key lighting to provide depth to the subject, which is also provided by back light when using three-point lighting.
'Believer' - Imagine Dragons
This music video is the media students inspiration for his video. From this I can see it’s a great basis for us, as much of it is set to a dark backdrop which will work in our theatre. It switches between 3 different types of front lighting states. There are basic washes but with fairly dramatic shadowing, so this will require a darker or lower intensity fill light; vibrant single colour washes that can be created with LEDs; and silhouette sections with no front light whatsoever. The back lighting throughout mostly comes from what appears to be 3 coloured light panels, however from watching a behind the scenes video it becomes apparent these are actually 3 sheets/canvases lit with coloured lighting. (Adobe Creative Cloud, 2017)
Experimentation
Our first thought was to try canvas, as we have various flats from previous theatre shows made of canvas. We set one up and lit it from the back with LEDs, but found it lit unevenly and as all the flats are painted, the paint strokes were shown which is an interesting effect, but not our aim.
Next, we tried hanging a sheet over a window in the flat and lighting it from below, which created an effect much more similar to our goal ignoring the slack and creases in the sheet, so we decided this was the material to use.
Lighting Software
By looking at theatre technical specifications, using my past industry experience and primary research, I’m going to see which lighting software are common industry standards, so I can then research these individually and experiment with them using our lighting rig. This will only be to a basic introductory level, excluding ChamSys as I have more experience with this so will instead be looking into more advanced features.
Through experience and research, I have concluded that the most common lighting software across the industry at the minute are:
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Avolites (Titan) - Mark Gibson, the lighting technician at the Brickyard music venue, informed me that this is an industry-standard software in the music industry. Tom Russell also confirmed this is one of the software commonly use in live scenarios.
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Chamsys – On previous work experience with Explosive, who do mostly music and corporate events but also some theatre, I have seen them use ChamSys MagicQ. This is another one of the software Tom Russell said he sees used in live scenarios.
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ETC – This is the dominant software for theatre productions, recently used on the UK Tour of ‘Hamilton’. (ETC, 2024) Tom Russell also consolidated this as the desk used most in theatres.
Avolites (Titan)
According to the Avolites website, I can only access Avolites Titan PC Suite v11.4 without an ‘AvoKey’, which is their USB dongle that comes with buying the license.
I do have a small amount of experience in operating this software, but to a very basic level and have not done any setting up or programming. To begin developing a better knowledge of this software, I have found a YouTube tutorial by Shashika Crishan (2021), who has worked internationally as a lighting designer, which covers running v11.4 with a simulator. He explains that the left side of the screen is the main workspace, comprised of various windows that you can lay out however you want, such as groups, colours, positions and gobos. Along the bottom are a set of attribute wheels and playback faders. Attribute wheels allow you to select and adjust specific characteristics of the lights such as intensity. Playback faders allow you to save cues, and during my short time using Titan I was told by Toby Clayton, a local lighting technician, that similarly to other software I have used, these can be repurposed as tap tempo buttons or FX speed faders for specific groups.
Chamsys (MagicQ)
To advance my knowledge within this software, I have managed to get in possession of an Intermediate Training Manual from courses run my ChamSys themselves. This will be used in partnership with experimentation using the college MagicQ desk and software. I will focus mainly on two features that I feel I will be able to apply to my lighting for college shows:
Experimentation
Tap Tempo
I found setting Global Tap Time a pretty simple process once I had to knowledge found in my research source. The main settings page below shows that I was able to change the Crossfade button function to Global Tap to Time, which made the button shown on the left into a tap tempo that would apply to any effect playing through a fader. On the right you can see a short example where I recorded a basic effect, and used the button to speed up and slow down the effect.
I was not able to figure out the individual cue stack tempo buttons that my research source said was possible, however in a live situation you will likely want all effects to the same tempo, so this is not a big issue.
ETC
According to the ETC website, Eos ETCnomad v3.2 is a free software that can be operated through a console, and usefully can also run through a Mac or PC making it very accessible for usage and for me to experiment with.
To introduce myself to this software, I have found a basic guide video by Charlie Raschke (2021), a professional lighting designer, that demonstrates how to start off from a blank slate using this software. He explains the first steps of patching lighting fixtures in, selecting the head type and providing them with both a channel number and an address. To begin using these features, you use the keypad to type in the address(es) of fixtures you’d like to use followed by ‘@(intensity level)’. The ‘Out’ button can be used as a clear to bring all or selected levels to 0. To progress onto other characteristics of the lights, you then head to the ‘ML Control’ panel which shows a menu where you can adjust a multitude of parameters for the light such as colour (with both a colour picker and colour mixing wheels), zoom or shutter.
To record the current lighting state as a cue, you press:
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This will create a cue list, of which you can have multiple, and they are controlled in the ‘Cues’ menu. To look at an individual cue list, you use the ‘PSD’ tab which is the playback menu. Here, you can adjust individual cues and things such as fade times, by pressing:
You can also add and adjust the auto-follow timings where the cue will play automatically rather than requiring you to cue it with the ‘Go’ button, by selecting:
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Bibliography
Above AVL (2017). How to Run Lights Live to Music. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asg6-JWKIoc [Accessed 24 Jan. 2025].
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Above AVL (2022). How Do I Create My First Light Plot? [online] Learnstagelighting.com. Available at: https://www.learnstagelighting.com/blog/how-do-i-create-my-first-light-plot%2F [Accessed 13 Mar. 2025].
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Adobe Creative Cloud (2017). Make the Cut: Behind the Scenes with Imagine Dragons | Adobe Creative Cloud. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18nHmfGt9zA [Accessed 17 Mar. 2025].
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Aldredge, J. (2022). Music Video Lighting 101: Everything You Need to Know to Light Your Shoots. [online] www.soundstripe.com. Available at: https://www.soundstripe.com/blogs/music-video-lighting-101-everything-you-need-to-know-to-light-your-shoots [Accessed 17 Mar. 2025].
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ChamSys (n.d.). MagicQ Intermediate Training Course. ChamSys, pp.4–21.
Crishan, S. (2021). Basic layout of Avolites Titan - Easy to use Lighting Control Software. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb8y4GZUbLk [Accessed 11 Mar. 2025].
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ETC (2024). Hamilton chooses ETC for its UK and Ireland Tour. [online] Etcconnect.com. Available at: https://www.etcconnect.com/About/News/Hamilton-chooses-ETC-for-its-UK-and-Ireland-Tour.aspx [Accessed 10 Mar. 2025].
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Holder, D. (1997). The Lion King - Cue Synopsis (w/Conventionals). The Lighting Archive. Available at: https://thelightingarchive.org/show.php?show_id=33#!docID=377 [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
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Illuminated Integration (2022). How to Design Stage Lighting. [online] Illuminated Integration. Available at: https://illuminated-integration.com/blog/design-stage-lighting/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
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International Institute of Live Events (2023). Pathway to event production | How to become an audio engineer or lighting technician. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBQJ3RszWnc [Accessed 24 Jan. 2025].
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Knudsen, S. (2021). Three-Point Lighting | Master the Lighting Technique | Wedio. [online] Wedio. Available at: https://academy.wedio.com/three-point-lighting/ [Accessed 17 Mar. 2025].
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Martin Professional (2020). Fundamentals of Lighting Design for Concerts with Craig Rutherford - Webinar. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06rlK5x3xV4 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2025].
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Primrose, J. (2005). Lighting Design - The Process. [online] Theatrecrafts.com. Available at: https://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/lighting/lighting-design-process/ [Accessed 24 Jan. 2025].
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Primrose, J. (2021). Lighting Design - Paperwork. [online] Theatrecrafts.com. Available at: https://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/lighting/lighting-design-paperwork/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
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Raschke, C. (2021). ETC EOS Basic Guide. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk04TqOnWtU [Accessed 12 Mar. 2025].
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Schloemp, C. (2021). Tech Theater Skills: Lighting Design 07, How to Read a Light Plot. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQhawFxx1Wk [Accessed 13 Mar. 2025].