Ever wondered how the stage is made to look so atmospheric?

Stage shows can work beautifully without lights when not in a theatre however, lights can be used to create tensions, focus the audience attention on certain actions on stage and creates atmospheres and optical illusions to name but a few. Lighting is an additional dimension to the show in the same way sound can lead us to feel nervous or happy depending on what we are hearing, so lighting can introduce a concept to us and make us feel uncomfortable or relaxed depending on what we are seeing.

We have tried, in this section, to simplify lighting to give you an overview of how we use this facet in a production.

Below we have explained some terms which are commonly used and given a list of lighting gels and the effects they could add.

Gels are fitted over the front of the lens of the lamp (light). These gels are coloured and different colours create different lighting states.

A list of codes and colour are given below to show which gels would be used to create different atmospheres.

Sample Colour Selection:

Gobos, which are metal discs with a pattern cut out of them, can also be used to help with lighting. The gobos are put into the light in front of the lens to create either an image or a pattern on stage, for instance a window or moon or a pattern like leaves on the ground

The lighting designer will create a lighting plan. The plan details which lamps are to be placed on the bars above the stage, known as the rig. Each theatre has a grid system of bars above the stage. The lighting plans are sent ahead of the production arriving at the venue and the technicians at the venue will do a pre-rig for the Company.

A pre-rig involves physically climbing ladders with lamps and bolting them into place. The lighting plan will dictate which bars and roughly where on the bar the lamp should be placed.

Once the rig has been done and the company have moved into the theatre then the focus will be done. Usually for a focus there is a set on stage and one of the company stage management team will walk through the play on stage, fairly quickly. This allows the lights to be focused either on certain set items, or creating a spotlight for an actor, or simply a wash. Lamps can create very sharp clear edged areas e.g. rectangles or lines of light or simply flood an area with colour or give it soft edges.

After the focus we then plot the lights. This means that with the director and lighting designer, the stage manager will key in all the lights used and to what percentages (0 being black out and 100 being full) for each lighting cue. This means you could have a white spot at the back with a blue wash over the stage at the same time. This will be programmed into the lighting board so that when each cue is called during a show the person operating lights only has to hit one button for a state to be created.

You can learn a little more about lighting states and how they have been created by looking at the photographs from one of our previous shows, Monster.

Photographs :

The photographs shown are from Visible Fiction’s Production of Monster.