Stage Lighting

1. The Theory and Practice
of
Stage Lighting
Gordon Hughes
SCDA Workshop – Feb 2010

2. Background
 These slides were originally used for a workshop at St
Serf’s Hall given in Feb 2010 for the SCDA.
 The workshop was highly practical, and the slides only
indicate the structure of the talk, rather than a complete
training course.
 After the talk this presentation has been extended to
include other useful information in line with the
discussions at the workshop.
 The dominance of Strand equipment in the presentation
reflects the equipment available in Edinburgh Theatres.

3. Contents
 Introduction
 Theory of Stage Lighting
 Coffee Break
 Lighting Design in General
 Lighting for the SCDA 1-Act Festival
 Questions and Wrap Up

4. Introduction
 Stage Lighting has been around since the
beginning of theatre, and used the lighting
technologies of the period
 Sun
 Candles / Fire torches - floats
 Oil / Paraffin
 Gas - size of lighting bars
 Electricity

5. Process Flow for Show Lighting
Lighting
Design
Resources
(equipment)
Constraints
Requirements
Lighting
Synopsys
Queue List
Lighting Plan
Rig
Cable
Colour
Focus
Plot
Running Qs
during Show

6. Resources
 Equipment
 Budget (money)
 Time (design time + theatre time)

7. Equipment Resources
 Theatre lanterns available
 Lanterns owned by the theatre
 Group or Personal lanterns available
 Borrowed or Hired lanterns available
 Number of dimmers + control circuits available
 Other equipment required
 Accessories (depending on Lantern)
 Coloured Gel
 Rigging equipment
 Cabling + Adaptors

8. Types of Lantern
 Flood Lights
 Par Cans (and Birdies)
 Spot lights
 Soft edge – Fresnel Spots
 Hard edge – Profile Spots (fixed or variable)
 PC Spots and Beam Lights
 Intelligent Lights – multiple controls per lantern
 LED based technology
 Moving Head and Moving Mirror
 Effects
 See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_lighting_instrument

9. Flood Lights
 Optical system of Lamp + Reflector
 Covers a wide area
 Limited control over shape/area covered
 Good for
 Colour washes
 Lighting cyclorama (from top or bottom)
 Working lights

10. Examples of Flood Lights
 Old Strand Patt 137 + Patt 60 + Patt 49
 Newer Strand Coda/Nocturn 500/1000
 Grouped together to form Battens for
lighting cycloramas or acting area washes

11. Par Technology
 Appeared during the 1970s when range of
sealed lamps with Parabolic Aluminium
Reflector were developed.
 Made popular with pop concerts, then
started to appear in theatres
 A cross between a flood light and spotlight
 Asymmetric bright region
 Different sizes and powers available

12. Examples of Par Lights
 Par 64 – 1000W
 Par 56 – 500W
 Par 16 – Birdie
 All lamp sizes available with different
beam angles
 Now available with LED based white lamps

13. Soft Edge Spot Lights
 Addition of a low quality lens
 Light gives a bright area and a spill area
 Control over area covered by moving lamp
position relative to the lens
 Bright area can be shaped by barn doors
 Used for general lighting
 In larger theatres also used with wide
angle beams like flood lights

14. Examples of Soft Edge Spots
 Old Stand : Patt 123, Patt 223, Patt 743
 Newer Strand : Patt 803
 Recent Strand : Prelude F, Cantata F,
(also Quartet F, Harmony F, Alto F, etc.)
 Many others makes including CCT Focus
Spot range

15. Hard edge Spot Lights
 Profile spotlights
 Better optical system to give a well focused
beam
 With multiple lenses can give variable beam
 Accessories such as Iris or Gobo or shutters
 Used for:
 Highlighting action
 Projection of gobos
 Follow Spots

16. Examples of Hard Edge Spots
 Old Strand: Patt 23, Patt 264, Patt 764
 Newer Stand: Prelude, Cantata, Alto, etc.
Prelude 16/30 + Prelude 28/40 at St Serf’s
 Recent Strand: SL range
(fixed and variable beam models (e.g. CHT))
 ETC Source 4 – more modern profile range

17. Other types of Spotlight
 PC Spotlights use a Prism-Convex lens and
can offer a wider range of beam angles.
The Festival theatre has some, as well as
a number of schools, but they are not
common.
 Beamlight or Pageant lanterns give a very
intense soft edged beam of light. Adam
House Theatre has some old Patt 58 ones.

18. Intelligent Lights - LEDs
 Allows colour change control + flashing
 Many options available for number of
control channels used
 E.g.
 1 – Red Intensity
 2 – Green Intensity
 3 – Blue Intensity
 4 – Preset colour settings
 5 – Strobe Control
 6 – Sound to Light control

19. Intelligent Lights - Movers
 Moving Head
 Moving Mirror
 Come in soft and hard edge versions
 All use multiple control channels

20. Lighting Effects
 Mirror Balls
 Fire Flickers
 UV Tubes and UV Spots
 Disco Lights
 Practical Lights (e.g. Standard Lamps)

21. Process Flow for Show Lighting
Lighting
Design
Resources
(equipment)
Constraints
Requirements
Lighting
Synopsys
Queue List
Lighting Plan
Rig
Cable
Colour
Focus
Plot
Running Qs
during Show

22. Requirements
 Read the Script
 Discuss with Director
 Discuss with Designers (esp Set Design)
 Results of Research into time or location

23. Constraints
 Limited Number of Circuits
 Limited Number of Lanterns
 Limited Power available (per dimmer)
 Limited Power available (total)
 Limited Budget
 Limited (unrealistic) time schedules
 Communications Issues

24. Outputs from Design Process
 Lighting Synopsis – what effects and
moods are required during the show
 Lighting Plan –
 what lanterns are required
 where are the put
 what will they do
 what colour will they be
 what accessories are required

25. Making the plan a reality
 Physical/Engineering
 Rig – mount on the rig (2 mounts/lantern)
 Cable – connect each lantern to a dimmer
 Colour – Add colour and other accessories
 Artistic – likely to need input from director
 Focus – Make each light point as required
 Plot – record all states required for by show

26. Effect of Angle of light
 The angle at which the light points towards the
actor or the stage will affect the mood created
by the lighting (examples in reference books)
 Beware of actors facing downwards where all
the lighting is from above, e.g. most raised
stages where audience look upwards
 Remember to consider where the spill from the
light will fall (examples of effects from the recent
drama festival)

27. General Lighting
 Idea of Splitting the stage into areas and
lighting each area with one or two
spotlights depending on resource.
 9 Areas (3 x 3) typically used at St Serf’s
for SCDA Drama festivals.
 Floods or Pars to produce colour washes

28. Specials
 A “special” is any light which is used for a
special purpose, usually a special effect, in
other words that is not part of the general
lighting. E.g.
 Highlighting actors or items of set
 Projecting images such as gobos

29. Historical Bibliography
 1930s
 C H Ridge and F S Aldred: Stage Lighting Principles and Practice,
Pitman 1935
 1950s
 S Selden and F S Sellman: Stage Scenery and Lighting, Harrap
 1960s
 F Bentham: The Art Of Stage Lighting, Pitman, 1968 (2nd ed 1976)
 1970s
 R Pilbrow: Stage Lighting, Studio Vista, 1970
 F Reid: The Stage Lighting Handbook, Pitman, 1976 (2nd ed 1980s)
 1980s
 T Streader and J A Williams: Create Your Own Stage Lighting, Bell &
Hyman, 1985

30. Other Information on line
 Wikipedia: Stage_lighting_instrument
 The Strand Archive
 http://www.onstagelighting.co.uk/
 http://www.blue-room.org.uk/
 Beware that some on-line resources use
American terminology which does
sometimes differ from European terms.