Theater Blog lights

What do you think about stage lighting? ---------------- I have always loved stage lighting. The talks and work we did in class only affirmed that love. In my high school, I was the chief tech person. For my junior and senior year I was the sound designer, the light designer, and the master electrician (of sorts). As you can probably tell, that department was painfully small and there was never really anyone above me who I could receive training from. So it is very refreshing to be able to listen to an actual professional light designer talk about his work. Working with Seth was an absolutely amazing experience, mostly because I got to hear him talk about why he did certain things. It was also interesting to talk to him during the runs of Shooting Simone. He was on headset and I was able to ask him questions about what he thought about lighting stuff; specifically, I asked him about his thoughts on projector use. I rarely actually like the use of a projector in shows (Shooting Simone is an exception), this did not really change throughout the conversation with Seth, but it was still really cool to hear what he thought about all the new technology and its place in technical theater.------------- Stage lighting is, in my opinion, one of the most important parts of theater. I mean, without lights, you have a lot of actors stumbling around in the dark. But even still, I think that lights do far more than just light the actors. The lights convey the scene, mood, everything subliminal. What I always told the designer I trained to replace me at my high school was that “It’s the light’s job to be the most predominant force on stage steering the audience, but the lights are noticed by the audience (other than black outs) then you’ve done it wrong. It’s the light’s job to immerse the audience in the show and make them truly feel the emotions conveyed by the actors; however, the lights can in no way take any attention from the actors (because they are still telling the story). You use lights to create and mold the world that is on stage. To me, when the lights are good I don’t always notice them, but if they’re sloppy I always do.------------- My dad was a light designer, my sister is a light designer, and I’m looking to be one. I’ve always loved being able to create the world on stage with light.