LIGHTING DEPARTMENT

When you are given the role of lighting technician you would initially believe that a huge task is ahead of you. However, when you finally come to the show being able to see your lighting ideas, your work on a live show fills you with pride.

Once you have managed to get the role of lighting the first thing to do just like other managers within the production is too ready through the script highlighting scenes and where in the script is requiring a new lighting cue, this could be from an actor’s line or it’s said with the description of the scene. However, although there can be a lot of required cues by looking through the script, you as the manager have a lot of control of what you want to do for cues. After looking through the script you need to create a plot. A plot is a bird’s eye view of where the light bars are, with this you can design what light you would like to go. This plot will go through many edits throughout the development stage.

Rigging, as a lighting manager you would have to go up on a scaffold tower (roughly 5 meters high) if you’re afraid of heights or ladders, each term we do a series of practices on ladders and the scaffold tower to try to push people to reach that height. I personally had a trouble with heights, but now after practicing I am now confident on the scaffold tower.

When all your lights are on the lighting bars, you can create your cues we either do it on a dimmer desk or a more modern ETC EOS. At this stage you can see your ideas become more and more into a reality.

During a show you will be operation the lights for the show, this will mean you will have to listen closely to when the DSM cues you. The reason why you have to press “GO” at the exact time the DSM says it, either because the DSM is keeping track of the beat, or they are trying to cue both lighting and sound at the same time.

I find the lighting department is amazing because you get to do everything, from the designing to the wiring, to the programming. It is all your vision and ideas coming to the stage.

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(Jack McClimont 2020)